18+ months old ink cartridges for MP830 - are they still OK!?

[pharmacist]

nonsense: the first step can be easily done with plain tap water, the last 2 flushes you will need about 20 ml's of distilled water. This tiny amount of distilled water is more than enough to get rid of most of the dissolved salts. Each time you will rinse with 20 ml's of distilled water the amount of dissolved salts will be eliminated with at least 99 %, so 2x 20 ml's will become 99.99 %, which is pretty near 100 %.

 

[OM2]

nonsense: the first step can be easily done with plain tap water, the last 2 flushes you will need about 20 ml's of distilled water. This tiny amount of distilled water is more than enough to get rid of most of the dissolved salts. Each time you will rinse with 20 ml's of distilled water the amount of dissolved salts will be eliminated with at least 99 %, so 2x 20 ml's will become 99.99 %, which is pretty near 100 %.

awesome - i'll go with tap water at first in that case

but then, i still have some questions...
(i have tried looking through this forum - but couldn't find a general guide - or read before u post thread)

- 20ml of distill water - how do i put this through? using a syringe? using a ketchup bottle? it seems such a small amount of water!

- the whole through which you put the water through - can you say more about this?
do u drill an extra hole just for purging?
is this hole different to that u make when filling using the german method?

- drying - how do u dry? how long do u wait? how do u know when it's completely dry?
in the first video i gave a link to above, the guy said u have to leave under a lamp for a week to dry out!
and that was after vacuuming (disalimer: i may have got that wrong)

thanks!!

 

[Redbrickman]

STRATMAN,

I bought a new squeeze bottle from a store. It's a clear plastic and has a tapered nozzle. For flushing it works really well as I just place it in the refill hole, press to keep it sealed against the cart top inlet (where the ball was) and squeeze with light pressure.

The water is forced through the cart easily. I moved the cart as I do the flushing so water tends to flow all through the sponges and not in just one direction.

Last night I did 4 X 521 and one 520 in short space of time. The cyan and magenta are a lot harder to clean, but I used only about 1 litre of distilled water.

This time I heated the water in a microwave until warm but not too hot. I did a short flush, then left the cart to soak with some water in the reservoir. This seemed to make it easier to clean in the end.

The final stage is to empty the bottle, then use it to force air through the cart and clear the excess water.

An overnight dry in the airing cupboard/hot press has left them ready for their first refill

 

[OM2]

redbrickman: that helps, thanks

but can someone confirm if i still need to drill a hole?
does this always need to be where the ball is?
is this place in the same place on all cartridges?

pharmacist said that u ONLY needed 20ml of distil water - how come ur using 1 litre?

overnight in airing cupboard? surely that doesn't *completely* dry out the sponge?

let me know

thanks

 

[emerald]

OM2: Most of your questions are answered on this post.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I would not drill an extra hole for purging if you are using the German method of refill. That would remove the biggest advantage of using the German method which is that you don't have to worry about sealing that second hole to be absolutely air tight.

You can also purge the sponge part of a dried out cartridge before you make any hole in it by turning it upside down and running water into the outlet port and out the air vent. All you really have to do is get the sponge saturated. Then you can blow most of the dirty water out by blowing into the air vent and repeat several times. Then use this method to drain out the sponge. You can repeat until the sponge is as clean as you want it to be. Then after you make the German refill hole, you can inject water into the tank and suck it out again to get it clean. Of course you can do all this even if you had already made the refill hole, it's just that you get water squirting out the end of the cartridge which may be a little messy but doesn't hurt anything. I use this method if I want to vacuum refill because I don't make any refill holes.

By the way, did you notice that there are two cuts in the first youtube video on post #10 so it probably took 300 gallons of water!!

 

[stratman]

I did a short flush, then left the cart to soak with some water in the reservoir. This seemed to make it easier to clean in the end.

Good story on your technique. So many ways to skin a cat.

Without an additional top hole during flushing, having the spongeless side filled with water (or whatever flushing fluid you choose) facilitates flushing of the sponge. How cool is it that refilling is not only fun and saves money but also teaches physics/fluid mechanics principles on the sly.

 

[l_d_allan]

By the way, did you notice that there are two cuts in the first youtube video on post #10 so it probably took 300 gallons of water!!

Agree ... I would guess that less than 1% of the warm tap water that was being poured towards the inlet port was making it into the cart and out the vent hole or outlet port. Seems wasteful and very sloooooooow. YMMV (your mileage may vary)

 

[l_d_allan]

I bought a new squeeze bottle from a store. It's a clear plastic and has a tapered nozzle. For flushing it works really well as I just place it in the refill hole, press to keep it sealed against the cart top inlet (where the ball was) and squeeze with light pressure.

The water is forced through the cart easily. I moved the cart as I do the flushing so water tends to flow all through the sponges and not in just one direction.

I've done something like this, and seemed to work well for purging/flushing used carts. I've also used a 60 ml syringe to purge carts ... also worked well but squeeze bottle would have advantages.

I did a short flush, then left the cart to soak with some water in the reservoir. This seemed to make it easier to clean in the end.

I did something similar with the batches of empty, virgin CLI-8/PGI-5bk carts. I stood all of them up in a stain-resistant cookie sheet with sides that had about 1/4" inch of distilled water in it. The outlet port was open, and submerged in the water. Quite a bit of the water wicked up into the cart, which started the purging/flushing, as well as softening the semi-dry ink with the carts.

The cookie sheet ended up with quite a bit of mixed ink from the mixed carts in it. That wasn't an issue as I was going to do thorough purging/flushing afterwards. I use top-filling, and had already removed the plastic ball from the inlet port. Carefully drain the cookie sheet.

I don't use German refilling, but if I was going to prep a batch of carts for German refilling, I'd do something similar, but abbreviated.

* Leave the plastic ball in the inlet port. My understanding is you want to leave the plastic ball within the inlet port for German refilling, and not disturb the label tape that further seals the top.

* Put the carts separated by color in Corelle-like glazed plates that won't be stained by flushed ink. Disposable paper plates with a water-proofing finish might be better, especially for pigment ink carts.

* Let the carts soak several hours or overnight, with standing distilled water in the plates wicking up into the carts, and ink coming out. Carefully drain the plates. Clean the plates.

* The virgin, empty carts I've bought from eBay have arrived in very good condition, and I speculate that this minor purging/flushing would be completely sufficient.

* Shake out as much water as will shake out of the cart, and dry out with wicking into a paper towel. I have a older dish soaking plastic pan that fits within the sink that would prevent a mess when shaking out the carts. With this abbreviated purge/flushing, the sponge/foam within the carts isn't all that pristine white, as grealy diluted ink remains.

* Depending on your thoroughness and concern about the dried ink condition within the cart, perhaps repeat.

 

[stratman]

OM2:

Emerald and ghwellsjr have both given you great information. Of course you can improvise as you see fit. Refilling has some great guidelines, like the German Method of refilling or the traditional top hole method, but you can let your creativity flow. Ghwells ingenious kitchen paper towel method of wicking moisture from the sponge is extremely useful if you flush, since after a short time you will be able to refill the cartridge (there can be dampness to the sponge which you'll need to gauge).

So many ways to flush a cartridge. Emerald and ghwellsjr have given you a few ways. Redbrickman posted his method, which sounds excellent and also benefits from water conservation. I have used flexible tubing connected from the faucet to the ink outlet port of the cartridge. Some of my cartridges have top holes and some do not. Others have modified a syringe to fit over the ink outlet port or attached tubing to the syringe which then goes over the ink exit port. Others have built ingenious contraptions out of cartridge holders with attached tubing to direct water flow while keeping excellent control of the cartridge. Another built a cartridge holder out of wood with a handle, the entire thing looking like a golf putter to me, in which the ink exit port was pointing up towards the ceiling and was placed under a faucet and water let flow.

Read all the methods and pick one. Or, figure out your own method using the others as guide. It's all good. Maybe ghwellsjr's suggestion of just turning the cartridge upside down and direct tap water over the ink exit port is the easiest way to proceed initially, since it requires nothing additional. If you want, you can do a final rinse with distilled water as Pharmacist suggests. The last steps are sucking excess water out with your needle and syringe and then blow on top of the cartridge over the sponge side to remove water from the air vent system. Some people have used a shop vac to suck/blow water from their cartridges.