Clas Ohlson ink experience :(

I like Clas Ohlson as a general shopping experience. Lots of unusual and regular stuff at good prices in a well laid out store. However...

Due to a lack of time and refill ink we ended up with a pack of these:

http://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Ink Cartridge Canon PGI-525/CLI-526/Pr384158000

Wish I'd read the online reviews before buying - which would actually have been a bit hard as I don't speak any Scandinavian - but I can understand 1.2 Star .

Anyhow, the specific problems I'd call out:

1. Blockages and missing colours. Never had this with new or refilled OEM cartridges .
2. Some tanks now visibly empty (they are transparent), but printer status doesn't think they are .

More ink from Octo on the way, and I'm hoping that no lasting problems have been caused .

InkQuisitive said:

...Wish I'd read the online reviews before buying - which would actually have been a bit hard as I don't speak any Scandinavian - but I can understand 1.2 Star ...

Click to expand...

There are 30 user reviews on the website. Under each reply there is a translate link. Even if computer translation is far from perfect you can quickly make out that the users are far from satisfied with the product. An often seen complaint is ink leaking from the cartridges.

There is also a "Translate everything to English" link near the bottom of the page.

It was a distress purchase when my daughter mentioned whilst out shopping that she couldn't print homework due for Mon.

I wonder if leaky ink explains them being empty but reporting still OK. There haven't been any obvious smears, pools, etc.

If I could have got to the reviews while shopping the numbers would have told me enough, and they translate very easily.

@InkQuisitive, I can only sympathise with the terrible experience you had with these junk cartridges, because aftermarket carts are usually pretty reasonable and a good alternative for someone who does not want to temp faith and refill.

I am also surprised that a company like Clas Ohlson would sell such inferior products and not withdraw them from sale, but now thanks to you highlighting these awful cartridges, no other Nifty member will be caught out the same way.

I wouldn’t mind but these inks and cartridges are not cheap or sold by an anonymous seller on EBay, I learn something new every day, thank you again.

.................Anyone contemplating a purchase of these cartridges DON’T..

..........................

New ink just arrived from Martin. Normal service will be resumed this afternoon .

I thought some might be interested in a bit more detail on this, and the printer's recovery .

When the status looked like this with the Clas Ohlson cartridges in place:



The printer test page gave this (very messy pigment black, near missing cyan and yellow):



And the cartridges have an empty tank, but wet looking sponge:

.

After replacing with refilled OEM and no cleaning, etc the test gets a lot better, just some missing yellow:


So I made a single page document with lots of yellow, printed that and then got:



I'm hoping that the smudges to the right (not there before these cartridges ) will soon go as well.

I wouldn’t print another single sheet with the state the print head is in, try soaking it over night in washing up liquid or W5 window cleaner, and try it again tomorrow.

Don’t forget to thoroughly dry the head before reinstalling and then run a normal head clean with known good cartridges..

The Hat said:

I wouldn’t print another single sheet with the state the print head is in, try soaking it over night in washing up liquid or W5 window cleaner, and try it again tomorrow.

Don’t forget to thoroughly dry the head before reinstalling and then run a normal head clean with known good cartridges..

Click to expand...

Well I never knew it came out that easily . When I couldn't see it in the service manual I thought it must be 'even more difficult' .

No time to clean it properly today, but I will sometime soon. Instead it got a wipe over with a damp cloth to shift the gunk (mostly PGBK), but that didn't fix my little smudges so I made a 'polishing' strip of A4 paper to slip under the head carrier and a few left-right strokes seem to have improved things:



Super stuff - very grateful indeed .

InkQuisitive said:

Well I never knew it came out that easily .

Click to expand...

Following the above discovery I'm considering getting a spares / repairs printer with the same head from eBay (only £5-£10 it seems) so I can a clean and store a spare head, then periodically switch them around to avoid having to find a chunk of time when a single head could be cleaned and dried effectively. Are they freely interchangeable, or do they somehow become paired with the printer?

When a Canon print head fails electronically there is a risk that it damages the logic board in the printer. A logic board that has been damaged this way can damage a new print head. If the logic board is damaged the printer can be considered a total loss.

So even if Canon print heads are not locked to one printer but just needs to be the proper type number, swapping print heads between printers for testing/troubleshooting is a very bad idea. If a Canon printer is sold for 5 to 10 £ at E bay, there is a very high risk the print head is defective and might kill your printer if you try that print head in your printer.

What is your printer model? Maybe your print head is available at CRC Tasktron UK if you might need a spare.