Thou' shalt check thine cartridge for refill method used. [Confession]

[websnail]

The old saw about pride before fall seems applicable here...

Resurrecting an iP4600 and iP4850 that have had some use and very little use accordingly... I got to cleaning the printhead, sorted much of the tricky issues, building a flushing clip along the way, etc...

"Now the easy stuff" thought I... So I set to refilling the cartridges using the top-fill method because I'd left aluminium tape on the top of these carts and assumed they were top fill.

Cut to the moment I realise there's this lovely little puddle of ink forming around the first two cartridges (still in their orange clips) on the workbench.


Yes, dear listener I'd converted these carts to use the German method... #facepalm

About the only good news is that I hadn't put the cartridges in the printer like this or it would have been mucky printhead to add to my day...


So lesson learned.. When converting from one refill method to another, always seal things up properly before you switch... Alu' tape is not the same as glue gun sealing, no sirree...


I throw myself at the mercy of the court...

 

[Tudor]

hahaha, the same thing happened to me once. First I thought the clip didn't seal properly somehow... It was the germans!

 

[jackson]

hahaha, the same thing happened to me once. First I thought the clip didn't seal properly somehow... It was the germans!

..don't let's be beastly to the Hun!

 

[rodbam]

That's strange I can take the top fill plug off my CLI8 carts & no ink comes out of the German refill hole. I can also top fill these with no leakage from the German hole.

 

[websnail]

That's strange I can take the top fill plug off my CLI8 carts & no ink comes out of the German refill hole. I can also top fill these with no leakage from the German hole.

I think part of the problem was pressure used to plug the top-fill hole. I suspect that pushed a little ink out the German refill hole and started a little bridge that encouraged more to leak out.

Either way it was a salutary experience that didn't result in too much beyond 3 or 4ml of ink loss overall.

 

[rodbam]

Yes that sounds like a bridge to far a

 

[barfl2]

I got a small weep when I tried topfill on a German drilled cart. To be on the safe side I fill hole with expoxy resin, hot glue gun did'nt stick but only have hobby grade sticks. I also have had puddles big ones with top fill. But no more with Octoinks excellent clips, leaks I now realise were caused by using one of my motley collection of clips with elastic bands. If you do not have the original canon one a leak is possible.

Mind you I stilll cannot get a full cart with top fill about 3/4/7/8" before the inky bubbles start coming out. Perhaps I should be satisfied with that The Hat always advocated not filling more than 3/4 and if anybody should know it is our Irish friend.

If you are going to convert a german drilled cart I would have thought it would be wise to fill the hole, wont it leave air leakage path?

 

[websnail]

If you are going to convert a german drilled cart I would have thought it would be wise to fill the hole, wont it leave air leakage path?

That's what I did after I'd cleaned up the mess and smacked myself about the chops for such silliness.

Used a glue gun with my high grade adhesive and Top Hat's little trick of metal straight over the glue to flatten it down then remove cleanly.. it seems to have done the trick..

But yes, leaving it would have left it free for air to leak so best not left as was.

 

[The Hat]

websnail wrote:
Used a glue gun with my high grade adhesive and Top Hat's little trick of metal straight over the glue to flatten it down then remove cleanly..
it seems to have done the trick..

The trick of flattening the hot wax with the metal coin was joseph1949s, I think and all credit to him for that one.

Now before anybody comments on me saying Hot Wax, I called it that
because unlike glue it can be made back into a liquid by simply heating it,
thats my reasoning behind it, So Boo..

barfl2 wrote: Mind you I stilll cannot get a full cart with top fill about 3/4/7/8" before the inky bubbles start coming out.
Perhaps I should be satisfied with that The Hat always advocated not filling more than 3/4 and if anybody should know it is our Irish friend.

There is no need to over fill an OEM cartridge, i.e. filling it to the very top I mean, again my reasoning for that is.

If filled to full there is still 10% more ink in your cartridge than there is in a brand new OEM one,
and you also avoid the possibilities of getting ink into the air maze.

The myth of under filling is that the ink will run out before the chip/printer can register empty, not so.

So long as there is sufficient ink to cover the prism inside the reservoir and with the chip reset to full again,
the printer WILL still show firstly the low ink warning followed later by the out of ink notice. (No difference)

The only downside of putting a small amount of ink into the cartridge is the need to refill it again so quickly,
which doesnt make sense to do in the first place, its over filling that can cause all of the troubles...

 

[websnail]

Now before anybody comments on me saying Hot Wax, I called it that because unlike glue it can be made back into a liquid by simply heating it, thats my reasoning behind it, So Boo..

Based on that logic, you'll be rebranding my company name to "HumanInk" because I'm not an Octopus...

So boo back atcha!