Overfill / Leaking Cartrides. They can effect their neighbors Plugged?

[Nifty]

Hey InkJet Friends!

Something very curious I've notice in my dealings with refilling printers... especially the Canon i860 I have.

Here's a thread regarding the problem I'm having. http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=35

When I refilled my magenta cartridge I think I overfilled it. Yeah, I know, let it sit outside of the printer before re-inserting it back in. Make sure there isn't any ink dripping out of the cartride... yadda yadda yadda... did all that!

When I put the cart back in I noticed that not only was magenta not printing, but my yellow and blue started to get the blank lines of death!

After a cleaning cycle the yellow was printing magenta. CRAP... I'VE GOT CROSS CONTAMINATION. I yanked out the yellow and looked at the outlet port... no magenta at all.

I took a brand new magenta cart, stuck it in and without even doing a head clean cycle first I printed a nozzle check... everything was fine.

I've read before that when there is too much ink on the nozzles that it can stop them from firing at all so it looks like they are plugged, but in reality there is a drip of ink that is stopping the bubble jet from bubbling. I think that this excess ink can get rubbed onto the other nozzles when they are going back and forth from the printer's dock which causes them to seem "plugged" as well.

Any thoughts?

 

[fotofreek]

Good sleuthing, Sherlock! Go on the Hobbi-Color site and look at their onlinge filling instructions of their virgin carts. They suggest partially pulling the tape over the vent hole back for the initial filling and replacing it after the filling is complete. You don't do this for subsequent fillings. They do, however, suggest filling the carts at the rate of 3-4 cc increments and tapping the cart to vibrate the ink into the sponge and help to vibrate the air out of it. Do this repeatedly until the cart is full ---but not too full! The printed instructions that come with the carts don't mention peeling back the tape over the vent hole. You might want to buy their $17 starter kit just to try out the carts. I haven't filled them yet as I have OEM carts with MIS ink going at this time. I may try their inks on my second printer just to check them out. I have two i960's and the carts alone were worth the price of the kit. Your problem may have been 1) too much ink in the initial fill, or 2) more probably inadequate venting. Just my amateurish guess.

 

[Mark]

Nifty:
I agree with foto, especially regarding the inadequate venting. I have read the posts regarding the laberynth-like channels that some tanks use to vent. Of course there is apoint of diminishing return, but, to a point, a more generous opening promotes an effecient flow. To make that point I am emailing you a photo of an old empty Staples cartridge that I used (it performed flawlessly) and you can see it has a simple single opening you could put a finishing nail in.

I wish you the very best in resolving the print failure issue. The real danger is, of course, overheating and damaging the print head. I'm probably not alone in recommending that you replace the suspect tanks.

 

[Nifty]

Hey, thanks much for the posts and the suggestions. It's amazing how something so simple can be so complicated.

Too much air in the wrong place = leaking cartridge. Too little air and you don't get any ink.

I'll try a few things and post my results.

Mark thanks for the image... here it is for everyone to enjoy:

 

[Nifty]

Okay, this is a scary image so if you are squeamish I exhort you to look away and not to continue!

This is the type of nozzle print test pattern / nozzle check pattern I'd expect to see if too much ink is exiting the cartridge.

Notice that the magenta has a blank white band and that it has almost completely taken over the yellow and a little bit of the cyan. The most amazing thing is that there isn't any cross contamination in the yellow and swapping out the magenta fixes the problem instantly.

So, what's causing this? I've left the cartridge sit to drip out any excess ink and everything looks peachy. I've had this happen with a few refill attempts and always attribute it to overfilling. What's odd is that it seems to keep happening to my magenta carts more than any other.

 

[fotofreek]

Again, I will refer to he HobbiColor instructions - They mention that the Magenta flow characteristics are slightly different from the others. I don't understand why that would be the case. Although I just purchased a starter kit to try their virgin carts, I won't be using them until the carts I am presently using get tired.

 

[Nifty]

fotofreek... do you have a link to the site / instructions? I type in "HobbiColor" in google and get this forum!

 

[fotofreek]

Here is the site. I think the instructions are in the newsletter section. If you wish, I can scan the instructions that came with their kit and send it to you. I don't recall if it has pictures - I've never created a pdf file but I can do an OCR scan and attach it to an email from MS Word.

http://www.hobbicolors.com/index.html

 

[Nifty]

I noticed something very analogous to my initial post and thought I'd share. I was putting on my contacts today and while washing them off with saline solution I noticed the following: The outlet hole on the bottle is VERY tiny on my particular bottle so a very small stream of water comes out. If there is just a tiny bit of a drip on the end of the bottle it makes the water dribble out of the container instead of a hard stream. No matter how hard I squeeze the bottle the dribble will not turn to a stream.

To fix the problem all I do is release the pressure on the bottle which sucks in air (and water from the tip) and squeeze again. Vouila... a nice steady stream of water.

Well, I can image this exact same thing happening on the tip of an inkjet nozzle where there may be a little excess ink from overfilling, incorrect cleaning, etc.

It is too bad that so many different problems can cause the same or similar symptoms on the output. Makes troubleshooting a bit more tricky.

 

[fotofreek]

On my last two refills (oem carts, MIS inks) I noticed that after I put the cart in the printer and remove it later there is a bit of ink in the little well around the printhead metal ink receiver (jet?) ONLY in the magenta cart! Is there something wierd about magenta ink? After cleaning the well and the outlet port of the cart there is no more leakage. I also had one episode of slight banding - from - guess which cart! Granted that these oem carts have been refilled several times, the magenta is not the one that has had the most refills. I am using computer friends plugs which slip into the holes easily. I don't know if there is a slight seal problem. By the way, the MIS inks were purchased last September, so we can't include this post in the same catagory as the more recent ones that suggest a problem with a recent batch of MIS inks. I have also noticed that at the end of a print run there is foam on the surface of the magenta and photo magenta inks in the reservoir area. Do you know what the foam issue is about? Is is a problem?