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Anyone who has looked carefully or removed the label from the top of a Canon BCI-3e, BCI-6, PGI-5, or CLI-8 cartridge has observed a serpentine groove in the air vent path that also has two "wells" along the path. What are they for? Here's my theory:
Due to the daily cyclical change of ambient air pressure, air is constantly forced in and out of the cartridge. This daily change is approximately 0.5% of the total air pressure but can be greater than 1% over a period of many days or weeks.
For this reason, there needs to be a path whose volume is at least 1% of the volume of air in the sponge part of the cartridge. I haven't tried to measure either one of these volumes but it appears to me that without the wells, the volume of the air path would be way too small and so Canon added the wells to increase it to the proper volume.
What if your third-party cartridges don't have this path or don't have the wells or you otherwise bypass the serpentine path in the air vent in Canon carts? The result will be that the water in your ink will dry out at a faster rate than it otherwise would.
Due to the daily cyclical change of ambient air pressure, air is constantly forced in and out of the cartridge. This daily change is approximately 0.5% of the total air pressure but can be greater than 1% over a period of many days or weeks.
For this reason, there needs to be a path whose volume is at least 1% of the volume of air in the sponge part of the cartridge. I haven't tried to measure either one of these volumes but it appears to me that without the wells, the volume of the air path would be way too small and so Canon added the wells to increase it to the proper volume.
What if your third-party cartridges don't have this path or don't have the wells or you otherwise bypass the serpentine path in the air vent in Canon carts? The result will be that the water in your ink will dry out at a faster rate than it otherwise would.