- Joined
- Oct 27, 2005
- Messages
- 3,662
- Reaction score
- 1,346
- Points
- 337
- Location
- South Yorks, UK
- Printer Model
- Epson, Canon, HP... A "few"
With all the problems I had with the Canon CIS kits I'm slowly realising that I'm reinventing the wheel somewhat when it comes to CIS kits and this point has been brought home to me recently with the joyous L7680 when I "assumed" (ass = me, not you! ) that adapting the existing HP88 cartridges would allow me to create a pretty much pressure neutral printing system for the printer.
For anyone interested there's a discussion about this here:
http://www.continuousink.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=34427#34427
... with picture here:
http://www.continuousink.info/forum/gallery2.php?g2_itemId=370
... anyway to cut a long story short the original OEM HP cartridges and printer system in the L7680 (K5400, K550, etc... also have the same system) involves a piston that pushes against the rubber bulb in the cartridge thus forcing ink into the printers own CIS system. I'd always assumed that the printer didn't have such a pump and that the bulb was there to indicate whether you had ink or not (doh! = moi :|).
The bulb however is important and thanks to a non-return valve that feeds from the cartridge bag of ink this allows the printer to pump ink into the printer.
So, you would assume that you could then adapt an existing OEM cartridge by removing the bag and feeding the bulb with a tube connected to the inflow hole. Makes sense right? Yeah, that's what I thought and at the moment I can't help I've done something wrong but for some reason this plan hasn't worked out as I'd hoped. Part of me suspects I may have over pressured the system as was my mistake with the Canon printers but the problems are compounded by the fact that the printhead on these printers is a closed system that, once it gets any air into it, is virtually impossible to clear.
It's been suggested that connecting an ink supply to the printhead, inverting it and then using a custom adaptor to vaccum the output part of the printhead would help remove any ink and reprime the head but finding or creating such an adaptor is somewhat "tricky" to say the least.
So, at this point I'm open to suggestion on how to proceed.. Part of me suspects the smart move at this point is to concede defeat and go with a standard CIS kit using a constant pressure system and leave my battles to the Canons ... but if anyone has any insight at this point, I'm all ears.. and ever so humble.
For anyone interested there's a discussion about this here:
http://www.continuousink.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=34427#34427
... with picture here:
http://www.continuousink.info/forum/gallery2.php?g2_itemId=370
... anyway to cut a long story short the original OEM HP cartridges and printer system in the L7680 (K5400, K550, etc... also have the same system) involves a piston that pushes against the rubber bulb in the cartridge thus forcing ink into the printers own CIS system. I'd always assumed that the printer didn't have such a pump and that the bulb was there to indicate whether you had ink or not (doh! = moi :|).
The bulb however is important and thanks to a non-return valve that feeds from the cartridge bag of ink this allows the printer to pump ink into the printer.
So, you would assume that you could then adapt an existing OEM cartridge by removing the bag and feeding the bulb with a tube connected to the inflow hole. Makes sense right? Yeah, that's what I thought and at the moment I can't help I've done something wrong but for some reason this plan hasn't worked out as I'd hoped. Part of me suspects I may have over pressured the system as was my mistake with the Canon printers but the problems are compounded by the fact that the printhead on these printers is a closed system that, once it gets any air into it, is virtually impossible to clear.
It's been suggested that connecting an ink supply to the printhead, inverting it and then using a custom adaptor to vaccum the output part of the printhead would help remove any ink and reprime the head but finding or creating such an adaptor is somewhat "tricky" to say the least.
So, at this point I'm open to suggestion on how to proceed.. Part of me suspects the smart move at this point is to concede defeat and go with a standard CIS kit using a constant pressure system and leave my battles to the Canons ... but if anyone has any insight at this point, I'm all ears.. and ever so humble.