possible cleaning fluid alternative?

[Ant]

Recently purchased a Canon MG6220 ink guzzler, after reading up on re-filling here I decided to keep the orange twist off caps that came with my Canon cartridges, even though Canons instructions stated "Make sure you throw away the orange twist off caps..." So having way too much time on my hands I got some cotton buds and decided to give the silicone seals inside said caps a clean, I thought I'd give the airbrush cleaner a try to see how it worked on the dye stains in the caps and it works superbly, the cleaner is called "createx airbrush cleaner" its quite cheap and available, maybe of some use to people here on the forum.

cheers Ant

 

[AlteredCarbon]

I see you're a Canuck too, mind if I ask where you got your cleaner from? My local hobby shop doesn't carry it, and I've tried to find somewhere to mail order it, but they all seem to be in the States or UK, with shipping prices 5-6x the cost of the cleaner itself. Sounds like really good stuff, would like to give it a go.

TIA.

p.s. just bought the MG6220 myself, prepping for my first refilling on it.

 

[Ant]

Well I ordered mine from Chicago airbrush with some paint and other bits and bobs as just the paint alone in Canada they want to charge you almost 3x the retail for it... so its really a happy accident. One of the other things with this stuff is that it seems to behave like ink in that I believe it has a low specific gravity, there are people on here that are equipped to measure this but I am going by my observation of the behavior of the droplets and the "wetting ability" of the fluid, the golden acrylic equivalent fluid will probably do the same thing, have you checked out your local art shops? Yeah I wonder how long the "shipping con" and "extra markup" will last here? the distribution networks from the u.s to Canada and vice-versa matured years ago so the argument that it costs more to ship here is utter crap, btw anything you order from the U.S that's under $24 isn't subject to duty etc,
Of course there's always the argument that because of the fact that inkjet ink doesn't really dry until its in contact with paper suggests that I could be totally wrong...

cheers Ant

 

[mikling]

???
Water anyone?

 

[turbguy]

Even better, original Windex...

Wayne

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

I think you will find that water will clean the caps just fine, so that the cleaner may not have any magical properties after all. But even if it does and you are thinking of using it in a cartridge or a printhead, you might want to be careful. There's always the possibility of damaging a printhead with miscellaneous organic solvents.

 

[AlteredCarbon]

the golden acrylic equivalent fluid will probably do the same thing, have you checked out your local art shops? Yeah I wonder how long the "shipping con" and "extra markup" will last here? the distribution networks from the u.s to Canada and vice-versa matured years ago so the argument that it costs more to ship here is utter crap, btw anything you order from the U.S that's under $24 isn't subject to duty etc,
Of course there's always the argument that because of the fact that inkjet ink doesn't really dry until its in contact with paper suggests that I could be totally wrong...

cheers Ant

That's a great idea, never even thought about checking an art shop, thanks!
I agree on the S&H, it's downright dumb sometimes. I went to order a $3 suction cup for a camera rig, free S&H to the U.S., and $14! to ship it to Canada. Ended up getting a family member to order it, and stuff it into an envelope and ship it to me.

 

[AlteredCarbon]

???
Water anyone?

Even better, original Windex...

Wayne

I think you will find that water will clean the caps just fine, so that the cleaner may not have any magical properties after all. But even if it does and you are thinking of using it in a cartridge or a printhead, you might want to be careful. There's always the possibility of damaging a printhead with miscellaneous organic solvents.

Thanks all for the replies/ideas.

I was specifically interested in possibly removing dye stains from silicone, like Ant mentioned. While water does remove every trace from plastic, it doesn't seem to work on stained silicone. (As I've found out on a non-cartridge related screwup )
Good point about the printheads, I'll be sure not to use it for that purpose.

 

[fotofreek]

I've found the dye based inks to wash out pretty quickly by placing the orange caps under the hot water tap. Any stain that remains has been inconsequential in my view. no need to complicate things that are simple.

 

[Ant]

no problem Altered Carbon