Need some printer advice regarding the i9900!

[fortisi876]

Oh ok, thanks for the heads up, my goal was to try and get them as white as possible again, I thought they were possibly contaminated with dry ink hence the stain.

Before going too crazy I might try that drip test with water to see if it flows out better.

 

[Grandad35]

Water has a different surface tension and viscosity than ink, so it will probably not flow at the same rate. I have no experience on the drip rate with just water - you'll have to use ink to get a good reading.

 

[fotofreek]

My experience with purging third party carts was the same - the sponge didn't come out as close to white as the OEM carts. Some colors were cleaner than others. As Granddad mentioned, hot water works better than cold. I found that hot water purges were sufficient to permit a new cycle of refills without the need for the use of any cleaning liquids for cart purging.

 

[fortisi876]

Thnx for all the info guys!

After reading about the German method I decided to go that route for refilling in the future, I drilled out all the carts but ran into a slight problem. Since my syringes have blunt tips (vs the needle like tip) I couldn't get the tip thru the filter material where the exit port is located on the 3rd party carts. I ruined one cart trying to push thru so I decided to put it off til I get the right syringes. I also converted the two older oem carts I had and oddly enough the blunt tip pushed thru w/out any problems, I guess the material is constructed differently between the two. Irregardless, the tip I had was just shy of being long enough to reach the ink reservoir.

I ran down to Staples, bought the 6pk of BCI-6 inks, reused the red and green 3rd party carts (the only two I didn't convert) and I'm back in business. Printer works great and I guess I need to keep up with purging carts from now on!!! To think, I almost wasted $80 on a new print head. LOL!

 

[ghwellsjr]

If you have any cartridges that you no longer plan to use, Staples will give you $3 reward for them, but you have to wait a month or two to cash it in.

Also, from my experience with Canon cartridges and the German method of refilling, if you make the hole as close to the bottom of the cartridge as possible, the needle will slide along the bottom surface of the cartridge with no resistance whatsoever. Sometimes you have to twist it to go into the reservoir since there appears to be some kind of a lip there. The sponge material in Canon cartridges is straight along the bottom and there is a filter material that sticks out into the outlet port. The needle goes right between these two materials. Maybe in your third-party cartridges the sponge goes down into the outlet port or maybe the filter goes up into a cutout in the sponge material.

One other reminder: note that there are actually two sponges in the Canon cartridges made of different materials. I'm going to bet that your third-party sponge is one solid piece. Please read post #2 of this thread for the advantage of Canon's two-sponge design.

 

[fortisi876]

Yea, Ive been taking advantage of that recycling program. I was almost tempted to ask the guy if I could trade some of my old Epson carts for the 6's just so I can build up a spare set.

Regarding the port filter on the 3rd party cart, it looks to me as if it does use two different filters.....the best way I can describe it is one filter appears to run horizontally and the other one looks short and vertical, this is the one I'm having a hard time getting through. I happen to have an old syringe tip with a point on it and it cut right through so I shouldn't have any issues once I get the longer syringes.