Vacuum locked black cartridge

[WES]

Canon I550. BCI-3eBK cartridge. My cartridge will not feed ink into the sponge area. When I remove the refill screw the vacuum is released, in the reservoir side, and the ink then floods into the sponge area. The ink in the sponge area will run dry and stop printing (run out of black ink), because the ink, in the reservoir, stops flowing into the sponge area. In the past I have found many cartridges that have pulled a vacuum (when I remove the refill screw to refill) , but they were still supplying ink. This is the first time that I have had one actually stop printing (run out of black ink) when there is still plenty of ink in the reservoir. I have back-flushed the cartridge. This is the first refill since the back-flush. I am using MIS ink. Is there a work-a-round for this? Any thoughts?
Thank you.
WES

 

[Nifty]

WES, check this out: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=35

I had the exact same problem. Are these OEM carts? Grandad had suggested that it may be an issue with the sponge not being situated correctly and that tapping the cart to get the sponge situated to the bottom of the cart and away from the reservoir may help. I ended up just using other cartridges so I wasn't able to test this theory.

Keep us posted on what you find.

 

[Grandad35]

I agree with Rob's comment about the sponge being shifted, especially since you recently backflushed the cart. See (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/docs/canon-BCI-6-cartridges.php) for a write-up on backflushing and a few photos showing how the sponge can shift and block the ink passage. If air can't easily get into the ink chamber because the sponge is tightly pushed into the vertical grooves in the back wall of the sponge chamber, ink can't flow into the sponge (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=769#p769).