My MAXIFY 5350 is on refill ink

[palombian]

Good to know..
If, by any mischance, you have now minor problems in one or more colors in the nozzle checks of your Maxify, it will be interesting to see if the use of OEM ink will fix the issues, after a while.

Attached a 600dpi nozzle check.
The Cyan has some irregularities - not visible in prints - I suppose healed wounds from the octopus-office.de cyan I had regular clogs with and destroyed my first printhead. Yellow developed the same behaviour - replaced now with PFI-105 - and magenta always has been clean (although now one bad line).
BK is also from octopus-office.de.
I will order yellow from Canon and watch the magenta.

Since I have a lot of PFI-304BK and MBK and the yellow worked I would use this in the future.

As I understand @The Hat tried Canon BK and it didn't work ?

 

[Artur5]

@The Hat: clogs or electronic damage, I wouldn't call that 'minor problems'.

My MB5150 is dedicated almost 100% to text. I couldn't use it with the black nozzles in this condition. Printing in HQ mode is too slow for my workflow.

@palombian : the printhead of my second Maxify has developed recently minor irregularities in the cyan. It shows only in nozzle checks and you have to look very closely to see the banding.
I expect it's my fault for printing only black text and leaving the CMY nozzles totally idle, except for nozzle checks.
In order to stop further damage, a couple of weeks ago I started to print regularly with Qimage their unclog pattern page. or whatever they call it. Supposedly, it fires all the nozzles, helping to prevent problems. I can testify that it doesn't fix existing issues per se, but I'd be happy enough if it kept the 'healthy' nozzles from getting 'sick'.

 

[Feldrod]

Attached a 600dpi nozzle check. The Cyan has some irregularities - not visible in prints - I suppose healed wounds from the octopus-office.de cyan I had regular clogs with and destroyed my first printhead. Yellow developed the same behaviour - replaced now with PFI-105 - and magenta always has been clean (although now one bad line). BK is also from octopus-office.de. I will order yellow from Canon and watch the magenta. Since I have a lot of PFI-304BK and MBK and the yellow worked I would use this in the future. As I understand @The Hat tried Canon BK and it didn't work ?

Interesting to see you guys have these problems. My MB5150 is 2 years old, it was used exclusively with cheap alternative cartridges ($3 a piece) which I confirmed myself they were pigment, had multiple clogs, dried nozzles, contamination problems, starving even when printing in high quality etc. Just made a switch to InkTec and "refillables v2" and my nozzle test are absolutely perfect, can print without starving even in standard quality and the colors are just as vivid as I remember the original OEM. I actually printed out 10 double sided sheets of A4 full of CMYK in standard mode and it was perfect.
I always thought that Octopus Ink is the second best, right after Precision Colors.
I bought my inks from (presumably) local eshop that should be directly under InkTec itself. I bought 3x100ml of CMY and 1liter of BK (I know it's a lot but I got accepted to med school and offered my schoolmates printing for free as long as paper is provided so I believe I'm going to get that bottle empty during the lifetime of the printer, it already chugged ~500ml of that cheap no name ink CMYK combined)
100ml bottle did cost me $3.5 and the 1l bottle was for $20 + $3 for shipping.
I am interested to see how the printer will fare in the future as I believe two years of running terrible ink must have done some damage that I just cannot see right now. I must say though that I am madly in love with my Maxify and must thank you guys here for suggesting Maxify lineup to me.

 

[stratman]

I am madly in love with my Maxify

Welcome to the club!

If you have a concern about the print head, or just want corroboration, then print a nozzle check, scan, crop and post in a new thread you create.

Congratulations on your acceptance to medical school.

 

[Feldrod]

Welcome to the club!

If you have a concern about the print head, or just want corroboration, then print a nozzle check, scan, crop and post in a new thread you create.

Congratulations on your acceptance to medical school.

Thanks a lot
So I printed out two nozzle checks and 10 sheets of double-sided CMYK test.
The first nozzle check was before those ten sheets, the second was immedietely after.

Looks like the standard print quality isn't good enough as on black segments it shows some banding. I do not care tho to be honest as high-quality works for sure with no problems.

There are also pictures taken from my phone as a reference point to the scan.

https://imgur.com/a/viP58pw

 

[bluestang]

Ok, about to pull the trigger on a MB2120 for my 2 kids schoolwork/homework. I plan on refilling...

So what is the consensus on the refillable 3rd party cartridges and using the Canon Ink that @The Hat is using? I need an easy to refill cartridge (not the OEM) as my wife and/or 14yr has to be able to do it.

@Feldrod you have a link to the InkTec and the "refillables v2"?

Thanks!

 

[Feldrod]

Ok, about to pull the trigger on a MB2120 for my 2 kids schoolwork/homework. I plan on refilling...

So what is the consensus on the refillable 3rd party cartridges and using the Canon Ink that @The Hat is using? I need an easy to refill cartridge (not the OEM) as my wife and/or 14yr has to be able to do it.

@Feldrod you have a link to the InkTec and the "refillables v2"?

Thanks!

Cannot help on using the Canon ink that is originally intended for Megatank Maxifys. I only have experience with extremely cheap alternative cartridges and this Inktec/V2 combo which I set up only a week ago.

The consensus is that it is the best to refill OEM set-up cartridges and exchange the chips (small green rectangles, you will know it when you see one) for ARC chips which reset everytime the chip is declared empty and took out of the printer (so when you have ARC you print, print, print, then it says "Empty", you take it out, refill, put back in and the chip says "full" - be wary of the fact that if you do not refill and put it just back in, the chip will still reset, thus risking printer damage)

The refilling process isn't as hard. Octopus Office has their own video on that, per my experience you do not need their special Eco-Fill tool or anything else as just a basic luer-slip syrince or cartouche can press the spring-loaded plug far enough to allow for refilling. Your mileage may vary tho. (Disclaimer : I never refilled OEM, I just tried this out on my old alternatives which also have spring-loaded plug)

If you cannot/do not want to refill OEM startup cartridges, you can go : refillables v2, refillables v1, aftermarket alternatives

The distinction between V2 and V1 is an easy one. V1 refillables are just a plain box to which you basically just pour ink to. V2 on the other hand have primitive diaphragm and much more sophisticated way of keeping the internal pressure.

The refilling procedure for V2 goes as follows :You take the rubber plug AND also the silicone air vent plug. The silicone air vent is made out of foggy/white silicone. You absolutely need a luer-slip or luer-lock with protruding luer-slip male end. You basically jam the male end and fill the cartridge under pressure (that's why you need to take out the silicone air vent plug that is right above the fill plug - otherwise you risk rupture and fountain of ink getting back into your face). The ink will go through a labyrinth of sorts before it ends in the diaphragm part (that's why you need to fill with some pressure, don't overdoit though as you need to give air time to escape from the air vent above the fill port). I filled 30mls into C, M and Y and 80ml into the BK. It's slightly above what will the chip account for (the chip accounts for 22mls on C,M,Y and 72mls on BK) but it is not large enough of a volume to (I suppose) mess up the pressure and big enough to give the chip some leeway.
After you have filled the cartridge, put the fill plug and air vent silicone plug back in, the order doesn't really matter. If you have any yellow strip indicating "tear" or anything like that, do it.
If you bough your refillables with ARCs installed,turn the printer off, take out the cartridges, put the printer back on and put the cartridges per printer's instructions (if you exchange cartridges in turned off state, the printer will detect them as fakes and you will loose the ability to print and scan from the cloud)

If you bought ARCs and refillables separetly you will need to buy (at least I had to) a cyanoacrylate glue ("superglue") and glue the chips into their place as they do not hold there -be careful to put BK chip on BK cartridge, C on C etc. And also be careful to not get any glue on the contacts as this will make your printer scream "cartridge not recognized" - that can be remedied by cleaning the contacts tho as it happened to me on the magenta cartridge.

My short experience with InkTec ink is absolutely perfect, at least for now. They are cheap, well made, pigment (they also sell dye-based - buy pigment, at least for me it was difference of 10czk which is appx 0,4USD on the 100ml bottles, the 1l bottles cost the same, pigment or dye, and black is only pigment) and they work without any hitches so far. Judging by your choice of MB2120 I suspect you are from USA/Canada. If so, the Precision Colors would be likely the best bet for you but I am going to leave that for the members of the forum who actually have experience with multiple ink manufacturers.

When I tried to print on 4x6 a photo of my dog, the print came with very well done colours. You need to use pigment-specific photopaper tho as most pigments (InkTec too) smear on regular glossy photopaper - my did smear too. Or settle for matte, do not know how well that would work out tho.

EDIT : Sorry forgot about the links

V2 refillables
These are the exact ones I have. I just bought them chipless and used my European ARC chips

Inks I use
1L BK,C,M,Y
100ml BK,C,M,Y

 

[stratman]

So I printed out two nozzle checks and 10 sheets of double-sided CMYK test.

Why so many prints?

Canon inkjets heat up the ink before spitting it out on the paper. The ink acts as a coolant to the heated nozzles so they do not burnout. If there is an issue with ink flow then you may burnout nozzles permanently. The general rule of thumb is if you see a defect in printing, especially missing ink, then only print nozzle checks unless advised otherwise or the nozzle check looks good.

As long as you have a working scanner then forget about using the phone as a camera. Also, it is best to scan and then crop the nozzle check in order to trim away the unused white area below the nozzle check and zoom in a bit on what we want to see. Also, bleed through of the image on the backside of the paper does not help. Avoid printing on both sides when posting for a diagnosis.

Did your issues all suddenly appear or did they creep up over time? Are they getting worse? Do they all occur with any paper you use? Do they all disappear when printing in High Quality?

Nozzle check #1 has some imperfections. There are narrow horizontal linear areas of ink loss in the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. This missing ink skips repeatedly and in a regular pattern. Is this due to ink starvation (poor flow through the cartridge) or a roller mark? I have never seen a clog behave like this (measured and repeating skip pattern in a nozzle check). If this were ink starvation then once it appears in the swatch of color it wouldn't skip the way it does. Either something is rubbing the paper and you get repeat areas of missing color or it is a very weird electrical issue.

It may be that the paper is curled or too thick that it rubs something. I doubt this based on your issues.

What paper are you using and is there any curl?

Nozzle check #2 has some small imperfections in Black that may or may not be artifacts and not true to what you see in person. For instance, there are several blurry horizontal lattice line segments in the Black. Unless there are defects elsewhere denoting nozzle clogs, such as linear fine lines in the vertical black bars on the nozzle check or in printed text or other areas of black then this is not yet a concern.

The rest of the colors either appear roughly the same defects or are better (eg Yellow looks better) than in #1.

The CMYK image looks like ink starvation with a few non-working nozzles and/or more consistent rubbing off of ink. Blacks and grays will use ALL the colors and not just Black depending on what is printed. After 20 (!) prints the cartridge, for whatever reason, cannot keep a steady supply of ink to the nozzles. The defects in all the cartridges is exacerbated by the volume of printing which stresses the cartridges more.

What to do?

Make sure the paper is not too thick and has no curl. Or, try a different paper altogether.

Next is trying new cartridges. This will remove the question of the cartridges causing the issues. Flushing and refilling your current cartridges would be an alternate choice. Using OEM cartridges for refilling is recommended as they are less problematic.

Would a cleaning by the printer help? Maybe it would help with ink flow issues and some clogs. You didn't say if you tried any cleaning cycles. Can try one Regular Cleaning then print a nozzle check. If no improvement or slight improvement then another single Regular Cleaning and print a nozzle check. If still no improvement then try ONE Deep Cleaning cycle and then let printer sit over night. Print a nozzle check and post.

Next would be considering a different ink. I have not used InkTec but have read it is a good brand. So another member can advise based on experience.

Regardless of ink used, if the ink is old and desiccated or contaminated with biologicals (bacteria, mold, etc) or presence of flocculence then there can be flow or clog problems. Fresh ink is the answer.

Canon does sell pigment ink in bulk amounts for their MegaTank printers. It is priced between your InkTec and OEM Maxify ink. This bulk ink would give you all the advantages of Canon OEM ink (less likely to clog or cause nozzle burnout and may be more archival) but with increased costs over aftermarket. Forum member The Hat uses these inks to good effect in his Maxify.

Next, setting the printer to slower speed printing helps decrease nozzle temperatures and risk for nozzle burn out. It also may give your cartridges a speck more time to keep ink flow adequate. A slower speed may be increasingly important if you are going to print many pages at one time as sustained printing means sustained heat in the print head. It is a different approach than using High Quality settings which applies more ink, essentially spraying over small defects seen in your Standard quality setting. Slower print speed might be protective if you replace the print head or get a new printer.

If after trying these "fixes" then we go on to more unusual possibilities. It may also be time to consider a new print head or new printer altogether.

 

[Feldrod]

Why so many prints?

(Before reading : I am not trying to be cocky, ungrateful or know-it-all and I am extremely thankful for the time and effort you've put into your post but I do not know how to convey what I want to say what I want to say. So please, if the "tone" of my writing seems passively agressive or anything like it, English is not my native)

The number of prints of such heavy printing job was to determine if the ink can indeed keep up with high ink-demand. It is not unusual for me to print 200 sheets of double-sided documents with appx. 15% coverage of black and 5-10% coverage of CMY on the average page and up to 90% coverage (CMYK combined) in every 30 or so pages at once. Like at a time I did print appx. 200 sheets of 70-90% (at least by my guess) at HS of anatomy illustrations for my classmates.

As the print showed, it can keep up in high-quality, in standart it would keep up for fewer prints or less demanding printjobs - that's actually a very needed info for balancing quickness/quality/risk of damaging the printhead.

The photos from phone were added as a reference point (as I stated) because I believe my scanner gives some artifacts. If you open up the link, you can also see scanned nozzle checks. The "artifacts" I mean are best visible in CM part of the CMYK test print - even under inspection with magnifying glass there is nothing like the scan shows.

I do know how Canon (and HP) thermal printheads work. The striping in C and M is present, the paper is not the issue and it does it even after a cleaning cycle of the head. So I likely have some damage going on in my printhead. That would be expected.

As I stated - I used alternatives for two years with multiple problems and ran over 500mls of ink through that printer (I did empty at least 3 sets, more likely 4 with +2 BK cartridges on top of that)

The BK nozzle check is... I think? Fine, there is some "fuzziness" going on but I firmly believe that is due to the paper being used as it kinda does look like feathering when using a fountain pen on a cheap paper.

I am unable to identify any irregularities in the Y section, nor in person or when zooming in on the scan thought I do not want to argue and the possibility of my eyes (and brain) just being dumb is higher.

I cannot detect any issues in short prints on standard or in more demanding printjobs with high-quality.

Considering the type of printjobs this printer was, is and going to do (high-volume, high-coverage printing with low to low-medium requirements on print quality - basically as long as there is no obvious banding, no biggie) I see no point in buying new printhead nor OEM cartridges, set of the Megatank Maxify inks or otherwise. Considering that new printhead costs same as a set of OEM cartridges that cost the same as the set of Megatank Maxify inks, I am going to run this until a printhead dies and then I am going to buy either a new printhead or Maxify MB2150.

I actually didn't send these pics for diagnostics (although help is extremely appreciated) but rather to show how my Maxify is faring after the change from using extremely poor inks to InkTec.

 

[The Hat]

You need to use pigment-specific photopaper tho as most pigments (InkTec too) smear on regular glossy photopaper - my did smear too. Or settle for matte, do not know how well that would work out tho.

If the ink your using is rubbing off or smearing on normal glossy photo prints, then that ink is the wrong type, (most likely its Matte instead of Photo black) and if you take your time when removing the cart chips, there is no need for any glue to be used, they normally just stick back on securely..