Syringes for refilling. What do you use / do?

[Nifty]

Ah... are you referring to the bladders in the HP black ink cartridges? I thought they didn't make those anymore. Since I converted from HP MANY years ago and went to Lexmark and then Canon I haven't heard of or dealt with HP issues.

What about the kits that refill through the head and/or have a device that sucks ink to/from the head. It would seem that a kit like this would start off at the same price as the one mentioned above, but from then on you just need to buy more ink and not a whole pressurized can.

 

[Printmeister]

I purchased a refill "kit" from Sam's Club for my Canon i860. The ink was crap but the refill bottles were a great timesaver. A needle was mounted in a cap that fit a 4oz plastic bottle. Fill up the bottle and you can fill a bunch of cartridges without haveing to extract the ink into a syringe for each refill.

 

[Nifty]

I got a kit a long time ago where the needle fits on the top of a plastic accordion bottle. I tried it once and never again! Too hard to control the flow of ink. A syringe allows for precise measuring and provides (that I know of) the best control of the amount of ink and speed (fast or slow) of injecting.

 

[kenban]

Ah... are you referring to the bladders in the HP black ink cartridges? I thought they didn't make those anymore. Since I converted from HP MANY years ago and went to Lexmark and then Canon I haven't heard of or dealt with HP issues.

What about the kits that refill through the head and/or have a device that sucks ink to/from the head. It would seem that a kit like this would start off at the same price as the one mentioned above, but from then on you just need to buy more ink and not a whole pressurized can.

Nope not the bladders those can't be filled in this way. This is for sponge cartridges that have a print head built in. The problem is some screen between the sponge and the print head in an HP cartridge if you run the cart until its out of ink the screen runs dry and you have a hard time refilling the cartridge. You can fill the sponge but the ink flow to the head is screwed up.

I have both an HP 870cse and a 895cse sitting around that are used on other computers around the house. Both use a bladder black ink cartridge (HP 45) which I fill through the print head and they give me very few problems. The color cartridges on the other hand are 3 color sponge cartridges which when I fill them almost never just work by adding ink and always require some work. There is no way to fill through the print head so I am forced to use a needle from the top but if you let the cartridge run dry you end up with the above situation where the cartridge has ink but just does not work correctly. The idea here is just to force the ink through the cartridge, screen, and out the print head. Which this might be nice for the 3 color HP cartridges if it works.

I am very happy I have moved to a Canon i960 as my main printer now so I don't have to deal with any of this as much anymore.

 

[panos]

I actually do see the point to this IF the website claims are true. First I would like to point out the company only makes refills for HP cartridges. The whole idea as I see it is to refill under pressure and force ink through the print head.

Well... That reminds of my worst, ever, experience I had with refilling.

After reading a site that proposed this method of forcing ink into the HP printhead to unclog it, I took an especially modified syringe of mine and forced ink inside the cartridge. I think removed the syringe and I remember a magenta liquid spilling on my face and I froze for 3 seconds knowing that I screwed and that I had class in 15 minutes.

I ran over the toilet sink and washed my face, being too afraid to look myself in the mirror. In the end I did and I was quite relieved to see that most of the magenta ink was washed away. However, my face looked as if I was beaten up...

I just can't believe that people are still circulating a refill method that has no obvious merits other than stretching precision equipment (the nozzles). One should never apply pressure on ink; make a simple mistake and it will spill all over you.

 

[Nifty]

Panos... man, I don't know if I should be laughing or crying at that story. Thanks so much for sharing that.

DISCLAIMER: To those people who are investigating refilling their inkjet printers, Panos's experience is not something you should expect to happen when you refill. Many people experience ink stain free refilling!

 

[kenban]

Well... That reminds of my worst, ever, experience I had with refilling.

After reading a site that proposed this method of forcing ink into the HP printhead to unclog it, I took an especially modified syringe of mine and forced ink inside the cartridge. I think removed the syringe and I remember a magenta liquid spilling on my face and I froze for 3 seconds knowing that I screwed and that I had class in 15 minutes.

I ran over the toilet sink and washed my face, being too afraid to look myself in the mirror. In the end I did and I was quite relieved to see that most of the magenta ink was washed away. However, my face looked as if I was beaten up...

I just can't believe that people are still circulating a refill method that has no obvious merits other than stretching precision equipment (the nozzles). One should never apply pressure on ink; make a simple mistake and it will spill all over you.

This reminds me of something I did (um last week ). As I said before I have used compressed air to force HP color carts to work. Well I was doing that and was not thinking about it when I did it. Part of the problem of doing this is the ink foams and comes out the refill hole (sometimes). So I was using my can of compressed air on the cart and the second I removed the tube foaming cyan ink starts coming out the hole and on the good side it did not spray but it did cover maybe half of my hand. In the end the cart did start working though and I have some ink remover I picked up at a computer show last year so I was able to get most the ink off my hands pretty easily.

EDIT: After I wrote this I realized that I wrote it was magenta ink that came out and I realized it was actually the cyan not the magenta.

 

[panos]

Panos... man, I don't know if I should be laughing or crying at that story.

Well... I would laugh The rest of the story is that I asked my students if they noticed something strange and they said my face was a "bit red". So I told them that I was playing with the ink of my printer and that something had "gone wrong" and there was some good-hearted laugh as I was much relieved of the stress that was caused by an otherwise sad event

Later I found that the only thing necessary to unclog an HP cartridge is to let it stay on a paper towel with hot water and some ammonia-based glass cleaner... But I decided never to force ink upon anything again!!!

 

[Jonas]

I went into a local pharmacy and asked the pharmacist about the "blunt syringes" I've read about in another thread in this forum. She said she never heard of blunt syringes -- she only has the sharp kind, and you can't buy those without a prescription in this state.

I do have three accordion-pleated bottles with attached needles filled with black ink from an old inkjet filling kit (for a long-dead printer), and I'm experimentally trying to flush out the old ink from one of them and clean it out thoroughly with a solution of ammonia + detergent + hot-water, but it's hard because the bottle can't be opened. It seems to be clean inside now, but there's still a little dried black inside where the needle is sealed to the bottle. Not sure if this is safe to use... plus I only have three of them, and my printer (Canon ip4000) takes five inks.

Where's the best place to buy "blunt syringes" online? (I don't really want to mess with the sharp ones.) I have a feeling the shipping cost is going to be greater than the cost of the syringes...

 

[Grandad35]

Jonas,

Just grind down the sharp tip. If you don't have a grinder (like the attachment on a Dremel hand tool), you can use a fine file or even an emery board like you use for your fingernails - it may be slow, but it will get the job done.