stratman said:
There is no reason to stop at 75% filled in the spongeless side.
Mostly agree, except I'd observe that a limit of 75% full could be problematic.
Some scenarios:
* After flush/purging/drying, the foam/sponge side could resist ink wicking (ink phobic) if was dried too much. A state of barely damp/dry seems ideal. With dry foam/sponges, then after a refill, you may have quite a bit less than 13ml of ink in the CLI-8 (or 9 ml in the 221/226).
* My observation is that modern Canon printers after the BCI-6 generation monitor ink levels strictly by ink drop counting + maintenance cycles. The Low and Empty warnings are calculated rather than visually checked.
* After a reset, the printer assumes the cart is reasonably full with perhaps at least 10ml of 13ml capacity available. I would think it has to be conservative. I believe it will merrily print along even if you only start with 5 to 7ml of ink from less than stellar refilling technique.
* You might very well have the last 5 to 10+ prints made with dry nozzles for that color. Sniff anything? I do NOT love the smell of print-heads in the morning.
* I use traditional top-filling with the reservoir side tilted down so the "vent hole complex" above the sponge/foam side is unlikely to get ink in it. Typically with a cart that reported Empy, the first pass of the ink refill is almost immediately wicked/migrated to the sponge/foam side. 10 to 20 seconds?
* You can almost hear a "giant sucking sound" as the ink in the reservoir may be wicked to nothing left. I infer that the sponge/foam side may hold as much or more than the reservoir side. At this point, the sponge/foam side has a higher level of ink than the reservoir side (which is often empty).
* Then a second pass of the ink refill, and maybe a third to get the reservoir side almost full.
* If the sponge/foam is in poor condition, it may take a while for ink to wick/migrate from the reservoir to the sponge/foam side. You could have the reservoir looking like it was 75% full, put it in the print-head carrier, and close it up. Shortly later, ink would gradually wick/migrate to the sponge/foam side.
* If you then took the cart out and looked at it, the reservoir side might have a lot less ink that you thought it should have. Again, you could have 5 to 10+ prints made with no ink. Sniff? Note that sponge/foam in poor condition further detracts from ink flow.
* Not so bad if the sponge/foam is water saturated from flush/purging and resists wick/migration. Then you end up with diluted ink, but at least the cart probably has 10+ mil of diluted ink.
* BTW, one of the reasons I've stayed with calibrated syringes with milliliter markings rather than squeeze bottles is that I can check just how much ink I put in the cart. If it isn't 10 to 11+ ml, I'm concerned about my technique and/or the condition of the cart.
* I'd suggest that people using squeeze bottle use a syringe with milliliter markings every once in a while as a check on their technique. If a cart that reported Low isn't requiring 8 to 9+ ml to appear full .... hmmmm? If that cart was used to the point of reporting Empty, maybe 10 to 11+ ml should be an expectation. Otherwise it could be Empty well before it reports Low.
My 2 ... sorry for the long post.
