Ink waste collection

[ttgfish]

Has anyone installed a waste ink collection receptacle on their printer? I have an old printer and I was going to experiment on collecting the waste ink from head cleanings, etc.
Thankks

 

[Smile]

Yes we have !

You can DIY it or buy commercial ones like printer potty etc.
The commercial ones comes with everything included. DIY is more fun if you know what I mean.

Waste ink is somtimes also filteres and used in some cheap printer just for text and just for this purpose alone, inexpensive piezo head tech printer like EPSON works nice.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Yes, I'm reusing waste ink from R265's in an L300 for text print, I add some new black dye ink to get a better black, and as well for a Brother printer; it's probably not saving much but it's a little bit of fun

 

[ttgfish]

Yes, I was wondering if it can be reused in the black ink. I have a ciss installed
So you need to add some black ink to it?

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

I sure wouldn't reuse ink. It's so carefully formulated, and then you go mixing it haphazardly. You're likely to get mediocre results, and you are risking damage to the printer. Ink is so cheap that it doesn't make any sense to reuse it.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

o.k. - reusing waste ink is one of the lesser problems when working with inkjet printers. But it's not much what happens to ink passing the nozzles, it does not get changed physically or chemically. All colors get mixed, which weakens the black level, but some 4 color printers as well mix C and M to black for photo print, and don't use the black ink which is reserved to print on normal paper. I have reused liters of waste ink already - dye and pigment , the inks are already paid for, so it's more a little bit of fun, and not a systematic approach to save even more.

 

[stratman]

But it's not much what happens to ink passing the nozzles, it does not get changed physically or chemically.

Canon heats the ink before it is spit out. This might alter the ink chemically or physically.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

All colors get mixed, which weakens the black level, but some 4 color printers as well mix C and M to black for photo print, and don't use the black ink which is reserved to print on normal paper.

No they don't get mixed. The printer deposits the colors as separate dots. And even if the dots happen to coincide on the paper, they were separate in the print head.

Try reusing ink with a 5-color printer and then tell us what you think. If anyone ever mixes pigment and dye ink, that is really asking for trouble. You could be lucky, or maybe not.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

Of course, my printer does waste most of the ink. So I suppose if you are buying ink in liter bottles and don't mind the fuss, the risk, and the reduced quality, go ahead and reuse it.

But for most people, it makes no sense to recycle. Ink will get old long before you get to the bottom of the bottle.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Canon heats just a minute amount of ink to create the bubbles expelling the ink, but that vapor would not collect in the waste ink bin anyway. And there is no heating at all during the cleaning process when the ink is flushed through the nozzles into the waste ink res. But it is correct that black Canon pigment ink would not work in the dye photo black channel, but works without problem in the black pigment ink cartridge as a mix from the black pigment ink and the photo dye inks, on plain paper where I wouldn't need the best print quality for the daily news anyway. It's a no-issue to reuse waste ink, but it worked, for years, as described on Canon, at the time I was using Canon, and works as well on Epson printers, even with a mix of pigment inks and dye inks in R265's, L300 and various other XP models, and on Brother with a mix of leftover sublim inks, some original black pigment ink and other leftover from R265's.