Refillable CanonBCI 3/6 series cartridge with lots of features

[ocular]

Found this "spongeless" cartridge on Ebay here in Oz. Bought a few to trial. They come prefilled and are the cheapest I have seen here in Oz. But as well it has other features that make it potentially quite versatile.

Comes with its own clip in case to seal the exit port.

It seems to have two chambers but does have sponge in the exit port.

There is an orange spike that seals the air hole while in transit.
The air hole seems to be in a tube that goes down into the chamber. The hole seems to be in its own well and does acumulate a few drops of ink.

The spike is removed in normal use.

It is advertised as refillable and has a silastic plug that is easily removable and so should be great for refilling.

It may even be useful as a CIS cartridge - by putting the orange spike back in and finding a spigot to go in the hole withe silastic plug to connect to tubing then theoretically this could be part of a CIS setup. Presumably the cartridge holds more ink with no substantial sponge?


Has anyone seen these cartridges elsewhere or tried them? I have just put a set in my IP3000. After a few prints the colours a bit off and on removal of the cartridges the print head wells are a little inky as seen with many non oem cartridges. The actual surface of the print head is a bit "wet" with ink but no smudges on the printing. I'll use the ink and then try refilling with formulabs ink.

 

[d86cfv]

Very interesting, i've never seen a BCI tank without a sponge, i always thought it had to ahve a sponge to regulate the flow of ink?
I presume this is what the tube inside the cartridge somehow does, I think i'll look into getting a set of these for my MP760.

Regs,

D

 

[DRoss]

Do you have a link?

 

[ocular]

The seller on EBay.com.au has nothing up at the moment. I have emailed him to see what is available. I should imagine there are other suppliers around.

 

[ocular]

These are very similar to alotofthings spongeless cartridges that are reselling Skyhorse cartridges from China

http://www.alotofthings.com/support...patibleRefillableSpongelessInkCartridges.html
.
Has anyone used these?


The one with the pictures above is very similar to those produced from Joycolor (www.joycolor.com)

 

[ocular]

Here is the link to the refilling instructions from alotofthings. They sell the SkyHorse brand and the only difference I can see from my pictures above is that the SkyHorse has a pulltab over the air vent as opposed to the orange spike.
http://www.alotofthings.com/support...patibleRefillableSpongelessInkCartridges.html

Have any of you guys bought these spongeless cartridges from Alotof things?

http://www.alotofthings.com/catalog/Promotions_arrowjet_skyhorse_canon.htm


They claim 30% more ink because of reduced sponge. They already have a refillable plug insitu and come with a cartridge case - easy for refilling. Do they have stable flow characteristics over the range from full to empty and do they fail after multiple refills?

 

[ocular]

Disaster has struck. Put a set of new spongeless cartridges in my MP730.


Got a good nozzle check pattern. Printed a few pictures. left it over
night and went to print and got an empty cartridge warning for Cyan next
morning.

New cartridge was empty and had leaked thru printhead. I checked that it
was securley clipped in. The ink had flowed across to the other colours
and all the nozzle printed blue on the nozzle check.

Tried to work out why.

Here is a comparison of the how long the exit port necks between the
Canon OEM (washed clean) and the spongeless blue.

note the shorter neck for the spongeless. I think that there was not a
good seal between the cartridge exit port and the printhead head and
thus the ink leaked.

It would seem that the cartridge dimensions are not exactly identical to
OEM and the forceful downward pressure is marginal.

I can build up the rubber washer around the printhead ports by placing a
thin washer of disposable rubber glove under the existing seals to buid
these up and produce a better seal.

I will have to watch carefully and hope this is not recurring problem -
leaking a whole colour cartridge is a mess.

 

[jackson]

Setting aside the fact that this is a spongeless tank, if I hold a filled tank in my hand it does not leak ink from the exit port.
Why does inserting it into the printer cause the ink to leak away?
Puzzled!!Anyone??

 

[hpnetserver]

Inside the exit hole there may be a spring loaded valve in it. When the cart is seated in the printer the valve is pushed in and opened. Problems of spongeless cartridges are widely reported among Epson printers. There may be similar problems for Canon printers, especially if the carts come from a same manufacturer. Sponge in the cartridges serve a critical mission, which is to control the ink flow to the printhead. Too much or too little ink will cause crisis to the printer. Before the spongeless design is proven safe better leave them alone.

 

[Osage]

If hpnetserver is correct on this spring loaded valve in spongeless cartridges, this may be a reason they are so problamistic. If this outlet to valve distance is not a dimension that is tightly controlled in printer manufacture, be it printer to printer in a given model and make or across all models by a given manufacter, the whole idea of a spongeless cartridge may be doomed. With some getting good results and other risking leakage into their printer. With no way to predict in advance.

But have to label that as speculation and not fact.