Why I think a waiting period is important when working on printers.

[Tin Ho]

Joseph, one other point I want to make clear if it isn't already clear: never leave a print head with ink in it exposed to the air for more than a couple minutes. This means if you remove a cartridge to refill it, make sure you get the whole process done quickly so that you can return the filled cartridge back to the print head within a couple minutes. If you can't do this, you should put some other cartridge in the print head so that ink doesn't dry out inside the print head.

This also means that if you're going to remove the print head from the printer to flush it or for any other reason, don't leave it exposed to air for any substantial length of time or you will surely have lots of clogged nozzles. Do whatever you're going to do as quickly as possible.

I once was in a seminar by the CEO of an inkjet technology start up company who was a director of an HP's inkjet printer R&D group. In the seminar a brief introduction of the inkjet technology was given. A very interesting technology related this thread was introduced. Basically it was about how to prevent ink from drying up from the print head nozzles. If the print head nozzles are filled with water then the print head is left esposed to air the water will vaporize and dry up in less than a minute. This would have been a show stopper issue to the inkjet printer technology if ink would dry up so fast. What was invented is an additive that forms a very thin layer of film on the surface of ink. This film layer can prevent the ink from drying up fast. If I remember correctly this is a patented technology by HP. 3rd party ink manufacturers use different additives to achieve basically the same thing. So there is no patent infringement involved.

I believe it is really not an issue to expose the print head to air for a while. I have exposed my print heads over 30 minutes or even hours without any problems. I at one time had a small vial of ink exposed to air and left in my bathroom for at least two weeks. The ink did not dry up. I could not see any loss of ink from the vial.

 

[Tin Ho]

I learned three things from my experience with the carts that leaked:

1. The advice on this site may not work.

2. When the advice does not work it is best to stop and go back to square one and wait.

3. The best thing is to do after filling carts is to wait overnight before performing a nozzle test.

Thank you.

It is very true that many advices given by this forum by members were false. Take those advices carefully. This is the nature of a discussion forum. People gave advices based on good will including false advices.

I am sorry I do want to point out that the 3rd point you made here is not true. I have refilled cartridges for my Canon printers since 2003. I almost always use the refilled cartridges immediately. I never had any problems with this practice.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I believe it is really not an issue to expose the print head to air for a while. I have exposed my print heads over 30 minutes or even hours without any problems. I at one time had a small vial of ink exposed to air and left in my bathroom for at least two weeks. The ink did not dry up. I could not see any loss of ink from the vial.

I took a print head out of one of my friend's printers and set it aside while I put in another print head and worked on it for at least an hour, maybe two. When I put the first print head back in another printer at the end of that time, numerous pigment black nozzles were clogged and I still haven't been able to unclog them.

 

[fotofreek]

I've stored carts for months as well with no drying issues in sealed containers BUT one did develop mould inside! so be careful of long term storage. I think grandad35 once warned of this as well and there was a recommendation to put some alcohol or something inside the container as well. Can't recall exactly.

As I recall, Grandad35 sugested putting a paper towel with alcohol in the container and I did that for a while. I don't recall the problem that occurred, but I stopped using the alcohol/paper towel when I had a problem. I mentioned in a previous post on this thread that I stopped storing a large number of refilled carts. Reducing the number of reserve refilled carts reduced the weeks or months that they sat unused, and it also eliminated the possibility that I would have residual ink more than two years old in carts that had been subsequently refilled several times.

 

[pearlhouse]

I agree with fotofreek. I have over 40 carts refilled and ready to go on my shelf now.
I now have decided to refill as I need them. I can refill a whole set in a few minutes so there is no point in keeping these extras just sitting on the shelf waiting for something to happen with them.

 

[The Hat]

There is an alternative, if you switch to a printer that uses the PGI-9 cartridges then shelf storage is no longer a problem.
These cartridges are sealed completely by their unique orange clips and can be stored indefinitely for as long as your refill bottles can..

 

[stratman]

There is an alternative, if you switch to a printer that uses the PGI-9 cartridges then shelf storage is no longer a problem.
These cartridges are sealed completely by their unique orange clips and can be stored indefinitely for as long as your refill bottles can..

When you figure out how to modify a PGI-9 to work in place of a PGI-5 in my MP830 then let me know.

 

[The Hat]

There is an alternative, if you switch to a printer that uses the PGI-9 cartridges then shelf storage is no longer a problem.
These cartridges are sealed completely by their unique orange clips and can be stored indefinitely for as long as your refill bottles can..

When you figure out how to modify a PGI-9 to work in place of a PGI-5 in my MP830 then let me know.

Thats a real simple puzzle to solve stratman,
just change your printer and then you don't have to mess with the cartridges at all, job done..

 

[stratman]

Ahh, the old Kobayashi Maru maneuver.

I figured you would try this.

 

[pearlhouse]

Ok I have done an inspection of my refilled carts that have been sitting on my shelf for quite some time. I guess I would have to say covering the vent on these carts. would be a waste of time. I found all the outlet ports were still wet and when I weighed them they were well within what I had originaly weighed them in at. So now hopefully we all agree that sealing the vent is not necessary unless you tend to overfill and start to force ink out through the vent.

Hey by the way Hat, is there a printer on the market now that uses the PGI-9 carts that I can purchase new. I may be getting ready for a new printer as my mx860 is starting to make strange noises when it is getting ready to print. I have no idea what these PGI-9 carts look like but it sounds like something that is better than 221s or 226s.
Now I got a new problem that I will post under a new thread.

So thats my theory and Im stickin to it.