My MAXIFY 5350 is on refill ink

[The Hat]

You don’t necessarily need more than one set of carts for the Maxify because they are pretty big, and you can pop out a cart when showing low/empty and refill in minutes, the good thing is, this printer will wait for you to finish...

 

[Artur5]

@palombian : You're right; a further search on Aliexpress revealed plenty of ARC chips for 8-10 euros each set. Octopus pricing is quite overtop in this matter. I'd thought also about empty OEM carts. Not easy to find, I expect, but plenty of time for exploring out there.
Also, I located on Ebay those Chinese refillable carts with the serpentine design that you used. If it weren't for your last report of weird problems I'd go this route instead of OEM carts.

@The Hat: I know, a second set of cartridges is not compulsory, but at least a spare set of ARC chips would come handy, in case any of them went kaput.

 

[stratman]

Chinese refillable carts with the serpentine design that you used. If it weren't for your last report of weird problems I'd go this route instead of OEM carts.

The rule of thumb is to refill Canon OEM cartridges if at all possible due to best construction and least likely to have flow or leak issues.

 

[The Hat]

@The Hat: I know, a second set of cartridges is not compulsory, but at least a spare set of ARC chips would come handy, in case any of them went kaput.

Agreed, but this crazy printer will still work with a duff cartridge chip..

 

[steven.va]

Hi,

Quick reply.

After two days the maganta cart got contaminated with cyan.
Seeing the trouble you had with the refillables (@palombian). I decided to drop the Cyan Aliexpress refillable from the printer.
(Post: https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/my-maxify-5350-is-on-refill-ink.11871/page-14#post-112830)

I will not risk my luck any further...

The cyan ink itself was not contaminated, so I could re-use that.

I refilled the OEM Cyan cart and transplanted the ARC Chip onto it.
I Confirm: it is really that simple to refill the OEM using the Octopus Ink procedure.

No cross contamination anymore observed
Printed 10 Magenta purge sheets and the magenta cleared up.

I will not use the remaning refillable cartdriges anymore.
But hey, at least I can re-use the ARC chips
And as found out, the ARC chips can be mixed with genuine Canon 'virgin' carts. (with their one-time use chips)


Greetings!

 

[palombian]

I also prefer(red) to print full color sheets instead of cleaning instructions to remove the contamination.

You have to remove the cause (IMO unbalanced pressure between cartridges), if not the contamination seeps into the ink and you need to flush the cart.

That's why 3th party suppliers advise not to mix with OEM carts. It's not the chips, it's the pressure.

 

[steven.va]

Hi Palombian,

Thanks for the reply!
Yeah I kinda wondered why the Cyan contaminated the magenta.
But it seems logical: Cyan (Ali) was full and magenta, yellow were/are still OEM, and on the lowish side.

Maybe it could work if I installed all Aliexpress carts at once.
But given your experience I am not too keen on that.

With the cyan oem cart now refilled: everything is Ok. It doens't invade the others anymore.

Greetings!

 

[palombian]

With the nozzle you use to fill the OEM's (I improvised with ballpoint ink tubes and shrink sleeve) you can also suck the ink out of the Chinese refillables.
Transfer the ARC chip and done.

 

[Artur5]

Great thread this one, @palombian .. but dangerous as hell for this poor man’s pockets.

One question comes to my retorted mind..What about the printhead ? I think it’s the QY6-0087 for the MB5xxx series.
So far, nobody here has reported serious problems ( irreversible electrical damage ) only occasional clogs due mainly to non OEM carts. Maybe it’s too soon to expect trouble in this area, but we know from experience that some Canon printheads are prone to sudden death. Sometimes it's the user's fault for misuse and/or neglect but sometimes the printhead dies without any warnings or previous issues.
Possibly and hopefully the QY6-0087 is tougher than others in the family. Time will tell.
Searching a bit, I see that reliable vendors have this printhead in stock at ‘reasonable’ prices (around 70€ VAT included )

 

[palombian]

Indeed, the printheads are reasonably priced.
The printers too IMO.

Compared to the Canon dye printers (at least the ones from 520/521 and later) and even to the PRO-9500(II) pigment printers, in my experience the printhead seem very solid.
Anyway, the lifetime of the printer is limited to the capacity of the ink absorber.
As far as I know no reports.

Canon rates the higher models up to 30.000 pages per month (seems excessive to me).
I don't think you and me will worn it out soon.