top fill clearance

[Trigger 37]

Mikling,... I want to thank you for you "VERY TECHNICAL INFORMATIONAL POST". I will check your web site to see if those "Zero Clearance Plug" are for sale yet. I want to confirm to you that i did use the very similar "Green plug" that has been around for awhile and it did clear the top cover in my MX860,...but it was very close.

As for myself,.. I love the technical information and discussions. You never know when you're going to get yet another new idea by reading someone's latest efforts. For those of you that don't appreciate the techie stuff,..there is a very old expression,..."if you don't like the heat,.. get out of the kitchen"

 

[websnail]

Just to note ... those "zero profile" are the "low profile" plugs I'm providing already...

 

[Trigger 37]

Websnail,...OK,.. now I know.

 

[barfl2]

has anybody actually established EXACTLY the height when it collides and on WHAT CANON models? The low profile type I purchased from Websnail work fine on a MP620.

If you built up a number of layers of alu. tape and carefully pushed the carriage (power disconnected) from side to side until you established your optium clearance this would give you some guidance as to suitable plugs. I would not have thought that Canon would have less than 1mm clearance. The low profile are about 1.5mm and look identical to the mikling 221 pictures.

The original ball I assume is only making line contact but has as a safeguard the very tough tape on top. Has anybody tried running a tapered reamer through a scrap cart and naking a suitable matching taper. You would then be re-producing the excellent tapers on glass decanters/Morse Machine tapers giving full contact area.

 

[websnail]

The tape would be more of a failsafe in much the same way as Canon have the ball plug backed up by their own high strength tape... That tape isn't just for branding, it's a vital part of the cartridges design.


@Trigger37: Not a dig/complaint/etc... Just clarifying for anyone wondering...

 

[Trigger 37]

I thought I had better update my information on this subject,..not that it would change anything,..but just more useful information. My interest in this topic came up when I decided to get a Wireless printer for my office and puchased a used MX860. It was in rather good shape but of course it uses the CLi-221 ink carts that are considerably smaller and cost more. That did bother me since I've always refilled my ink anyway. The difficulty came when I soon learned I could not use the refill process I had been using becuase of the very tight clearance between the top of the ink cart and the inner cover. Definately no room for screws or most all plugs. I investigated the German method and even purchased the CSI carts and drills. I tried that method and had one major ink spill during refill. I tried the Glue,...I tried the tape and had pretty much settled on the Glue,.. since I had received some of the very "Zero" profile plugs and decided I didn't have the patients to use those. ( I am not steady enough to work with Tweezers).

Anyway I had my MX860 hooked up but because of the office setup I did not need to use it wireless since that printer has an ethernet port I just hooked it into my Wireless Router that had an extra port. Now the good news is I only have one wireless network in the house.

About a week later I picked up a used MX850,..which does not have wireless,..but does have an ethernet port. The nice think about the MX850 is that is still uses the Cli-8 ink carts which match my other printers. The better news is that it has just enough space above the ink carts to support the old thin GREEN plugs. This would allow me to continue to use the same process I have used for the last 5-6 years,...plus the ink carts hold a lot more and I already have all of the resetters. So yesterday I switched out the MX860 and I will put it up for sale. I didn't like the new ink carts,..or the clips, and it seems that MX860 sucks up much more ink in every cleaning cycle.

That is another point I wanted to make to anyone that will listen. Long ago I got into the habbit of refilling all ink carts when anyone of the carts required filling. This becomes very important for the MX860 uses since there is less ink in the cart to begin with. If you only refill the cart that needs it,..the printer will detect it has been reset (or a new cart installed) and will do an aggressive cleaning cycle on ALL INK CARTS. If you wait a week or two and then fill some other cart it will do another full cleaning cycle. Refilling all the inks at the same time results in only one major cleaning cycle,..and a lot of ink saved.

As of this moment I can only see performance improvements in the MX850. It starts faster, scans faster, and prints faster. What I mean is that the MX860 has more "Delay" when starting any operation,..especially if it hasn't been used in 12 hours. So right now I'm as happy as a clam. Anyone want an MX860 printer in top condition,..plus a bunch of ink carts.

 

[Emulator]

Trigger 37

since I had received some of the very "Zero" profile plugs and decided I didn't have the patients to use those.

I can't help wondering what the patients would have been suffering from!!

But seriously, keeping the ink cleaning cycles to a minimum is desirable.

If power is removed from the printer after the cartridges have moved to the "removal" position and a cartridge is removed and inserted, does the printer "know" that a cartridge has been changed?

If not then it would be possible to service all cartridges without a cleaning cycle.

I suspect the printer would recognise a change of ink levels and still insist on a cycle, but at least it would be just one cycle.

Interesting, I must experiment next time.

Regards Ian

 

[The Hat]

Emulator But seriously, keeping the ink cleaning cycles to a minimum is desirable.

If you lift the lid on your printer to change all your cartridges at the same time (without powering off)
and so long as none of your cartridges had reached the crucial point of registering low with the yellow triangle warning
then the printer wont initiate a cleaning cycle.

I suspect the printer would recognise a change of ink levels and still insist on a cycle, but at least it would be just one cycle.
Interesting, I must experiment next time.

So the answer to your question is no the printer will be totally fooled and its save save save.

Try this again as another test, do the same as the above but this time
leave one cartridge half full and reset the chip on it to full again.

Then when that cartridges reservoir becomes completely empty despite the chip showing full
youll still get the low ink warning (Yellow triangle) message.

This time the printer isnt fooled and will do a cleaning cycle after you have changed this cartridge.
The secret is to change any or all of your cartridges just before the low ink warning appears.

So understanding how the chip and printer work together is a simple way of saving
a lot of ink over a twelve period especially if you print a lot..
I hope this helps..

 

[Trigger 37]

I think that someone is missing the point of the post. The object is to refill the ink,... and to have the Canon ink monitor keep track of the level. No matter if the power is on or off if you remove and ink cart and refill it (AND RESET IT SO IT SHOW FULL) the printer will detect this and even if you only changed one ink cart the printer "BELIEVES THAT A BRAND NEW INK CART" has been installed. That will alert the logic board and a full cleaning cycle will take place. The only way to defeat this function is to continue to refill the ink carts and ignore the Canon ink monitor and to do that you have to "Disable the Ink monitor function" However I still don't believe that this will shut down the automatic cleaning cycles that are part of the basic design and monitor how long it has been since you last printed. Cleaning when you change a cart is insignificant compaired to the cleaning cycles based on daily usage.

In the newer Canon printers they have not defined in the Service Manual exactly what "Timings" are used to initiate a cleaning cycle. They did this for all earlier printers. However I know that the printer is still doing the process,..they have just decided they don't really need to tell anyone about how, when, and why. Here is the example from the iP4200 printer.

These two charts show the times, the amount of ink dumpted, and the specific conditions. You will notice that It is done after every cartridge change.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

That's a whopping amount of ink, and it explains the outrageous ink use.

It looks like if you print black and white every 2 days and color every 4 days you can beat the purges. And maybe, if you can refill without changing cartridges, you can again beat the purges then too.

One interesting thing is that it looks like you could beat the excessive ink use even with OEM ink.