Which 'disposable' cartridges last the longest?

[jayjay22]

Hi,
Just a general question for anyone who has an opinion to throw in. Of the cartridges with the 'disposable' printhead built in, which last the most number of refills. The reason I ask is because I just purchased a new HP 57 color cartridge for my PSC 1210 5 days ago. I only refilled it 3 timesfrom half empty before apparently some resistors burned out in the printhead because the cyan began coming out very streaked, and now is worse after running cleaning cycles, printing test and purge pages. The blue is nearly not coming out at all. I am nearly 100% certain it is not caused by a blocked head, as the cartridge is only 5 days old and has printed fine for the first 3 refills. Also, yellow and magenta are perfectly fine, just blue is not working anymore. I have read that what causes the limited life of these heads is the small circuitry such as resistors which burn out over time. Just wondering if anyone knows if any of these types of cartridges (lexmark, HP, etc) are made better and last longer for more refills before burning out.

Thanks to any who offer any wisdom

 

[Grandad35]

Jayjay22,

I have refilled HP 56/57/58 carts more than 10 times/cart. I switched to a Canon printer because I got tired of only being able to print about (10) 8x10 pages between refills (30 pages by refilling 3 sets of carts at once). You can actually get 15-20 pages on a refill, but if you run out of any ink and get air into the passages between any ink chamber and the nozzles on any color you are in for an extended battle to get that cart printing properly again - running empty is usually the kiss of death for these carts.

Since I had to refill 6 inks to get 10 pages, I was getting less than 2 pages per ink color refill. On my 8 color i9900, I am averaging over 12 pages per cart (averaged over all colors), or 6 times as many pages per ink color refill.

See (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=540#p540) and scroll down to find a discussion on "slinging" HP carts. I have used this technique to successfully rescue air locked carts, but it usually takes several refill/sling cycles to fully revive a dead cart. It can also be messy if not done properly - I still have ink dots on the ceiling of my garage.

You may be interested in buying a "priming clip" (see http://216.219.159.185/tools.html about 1/2 way down the page for a HP 56/57/58 priming clip). This clip can be used to pull a vacuum on the nozzles to suck out air and prime the nozzles. I have never personally used this device, but others have said that it helps.

I am not sure of the maximum number of refills on these carts, as I stopped using this printer - it still worked the last time I checked it and the carts refilled successfully the last time that I refilled them with over 10 refills.

HTH

 

[jayjay22]

Thanks for the reply Grandad35. I tried the sling method and it did not bring back the print quality of the blue. Everything prints except blue. I would not be surprised if I did wear it out since I printed about 35-40 full page photoquality DVD case covers with the paper type set to photo, all in the course of 5 days. As cheaply as those printheads are made, they may not have been able to handle the heat from so much constant printing in such short time.I will keep trying other things, and maybe even try the sling method that you recommended again, but I think I just print too much for these cheap disposable printheads to keep up with. Thanks all the same for the info, it definitely was worth a try, and I will try it again.

***EDIT***

My bad, I just read your recommendation again grandad35 and I must have skipped over the part where it said "usually takes several refill/sling cycles to fully revive a dead cart". I will try to refill/sling it a few more times and see if I have any luck. Sorry, I'll have to read more carefully from now on.

 

[Grandad35]

Jayjay22,

A few more points on these carts:

1. I assume that you are also using a "58" cart with the "57" cart. The 57 has Cyan ink (not blue), and the 58 has "Photo Cyan" (weak Cyan - PC). On the lighter blues, the PC is used in place of the Cyan. Is it possible that it is the PC and not the cyan that is the problem?
2. As recommended by others on this forum, press the nozzles onto a folded up paper towel for a few seconds to see which colors wick out of the head. You should be able to see if both the cyan and PC are feeding ink along the entire length of the nozzles.
3. It is possible that the electrical contacts on the front of the cart have a coating of ink residue from refilling and are not making good contact with the printer. Use a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol to clean the contacts.
4. When refilling, I always inserted the needle on a diagonal into each corner of the ink chamber and injected about 1/2 CC of ink into each corner to help remove any air.
5. Push the needle to the bottom of the cart (I used a 1.5" long sharp needle) at various places and you will find a "soft" area. I believe that this is the "filter" (like a cigarette filter) that is the exit point for the ink. Push the needle about 1/8" into the filter and SLOWLY inject the rest of the ink at this point - this will push some ink from the nozzles and help to remove any air from the ink passages.
6. As far as overheating the print head and causing a failure, I never saw this happen. I often printed (10) 8x10 sheets on a refilled set of carts as fast as the printer would print them, and never burned out a head. Before I became paranoid about counting the number of sheets printed/refill, I sometimes accidentally printed several sheets after a color ran out, and even this abuse (the ink is what cools the print heads) did not burn out the print heads.
7. My problems (before I developed the "10 sheet rule") were always related to getting air in the cart, and running a cart empty was a good way to guarantee lots of quality "one-on-one" time with a cart.

 

[jayjay22]

Thanks again for your reply and time grandad! Very much appreciated. I am actually not using number 58 cartridge, though I can see why you may think that since I said I was printing photo quality. I am just using a black #56 and tri-color #57. I never bothered to purchase a #58 because the regular color cartridge provides very decent results when printing at the best resolution and on decent paper. This filter that you are talking about is actually a screen or mesh material over the ink intake port which leads to the printhead. The only reason I know that is because after my old cartridge died before I bought this new one, I figured what the heck, I will operate on it in a last ditch effore of fixing it. It was dead anyway and I planned on purchasing a new one, so I may as well satisfy my curious mind. I got out my trusty dremel and cut the top off and began to explore the inyards of an hp #57 color cartridge. It was a very interesting journey, unfortunately I only got as far as taking out the sponges filled with ink and washing out the printhead thouroughly from above and below. Did not fix it once I had reassembled it. Was fun anyway. I want to actually use the dremel to cut the printhead off and disect that. May prove interresting to see what makes that bad boy run. I can post images if you or anyone else are curious. I will try the suggestions to see if I am able to bring my current cartridge back to life. If not I will probable be purchasing a Canon Pixma tomorrow. I like the idea of separate ink tanks and with such cheap "compatibles" available, I may not even need to refill at all (though I probably will anyway, just for the extra cost savings and fun of it . Thanks again for the time you took to respond, and for all the suggestions.