Canon CLI refilling experiences?

[fotofreek]

Neil Slade's original writings about refilling described his technique for refilling "on the fly." I did that for more than a year. Remove the nearly empty cart, put a (gloved in my case) finger over the ink outlet, open the fill hole, refill, seal the fill hole, remove your finger from the outlet and let it drip till it stops, blot the outlet against a paper towel that is on a flat surface so you dont dry out the filter in the ink outlet, and put it back into the printer. With the Howard squeeze bottles this takes less than two minutes.

 

[Grandad35]

...snip... When you take one cartridge out for refilling close (lower) the printer lid before you reinstall the refilled cartridge. By closing the lid the print head will move to its parking pad. The pad will protect the print head from drying from the bottom side.

Wouldn't a missing cart register as "full" (no light will be reflected back)? If the cart previously registered as "empty", this will trigger a cleaning cycle which will suck all of the ink for the missing cart out of the print head. When the refilled cart is reinstalled, the printer won't see an "empty-to-full" transition for the cart, so you will have to initiate a manual cleaning cycle to refill the ink channels.

 

[Orerockon]

Where do you get the needle from?

Here you can get them in printer refill online shops like this or this for about 0,30 apiece.

Pharmacys may have them, too, or specialised shops for medical stuff. I think they are normally used for extracting spinal fluid or something like that.

I found them at the aforementioned Howard Electronics. I used the Luer Lock syringes and matching 2 inch 20 gauge needles (they are blunt but worked just fine; I have a problem with spinal tap needles anywhere in my house lol). A 1/16 inch drill bit was just the right size. No fuss, no mess, no plugs, o-rings, screws, hot glue guns, solder, epoxy, welding, lasers, or other assorted cartridge surgery. Took me about 30 minutes to refill all my carts and I am sure this will be faster now that I have the holes drilled and know what I am doing. I found that it was easiest to point the needles upwards (with the cart upside down as in your YouTube video), slide them along the bottom of the cart, and then wiggle them downwards until they slid into the ink tank. That way the sponge was not pierced or damaged in any way. I am not sure that could be done with a sharp needle. I found that when the ink level was "very low" according to the printer they only took about 9 mL of ink (color) or 18 mL (black) as opposed to the 13 and 26 mL that the refilling kits for these carts say they will take.

I had one question, however. Do you continue filling until the sponge or the overflow compartment is full? If I did that they might accept 13 or 26 mL of ink. I stopped after the ink tank was full and the ink was approaching the hole I drilled.

 

[canonfodder]

I had one question, however. Do you continue filling until the sponge or the overflow compartment is full? If I did that they might accept 13 or 26 mL of ink. I stopped after the ink tank was full and the ink was approaching the hole I drilled.

Remember that the lower sponge holds quite a bit of ink. If it was not depleted, you might only get 9mL or so of ink to go in. Don't force the ink on up into the upper sponge. You won't necessarily create a disaster, but the upper sponge was not intended to hold a lot of ink, and the vent air has to come down through that upper sponge in order to move on into the ink tank. If you should block that air, the cart will stop releasing ink even though it is not empty.

If you think that the ink monitor is not correct when running OEM carts, remember that when the ink tank is just freshly empty, the monitor will likely be warning of low ink, but won't declare it empty, because of the ink held in the lower sponge. Canon did not ignore that that ink will do a good bit more printing. If you are refilling, and you pull a cart to check the ink, and find the ink tank empty, remember that the sponge may still be backing you up. That can be the reason that you still had good prints with no skips. Don't wait, however. REFILL now! An empty tank can not be ignored just because the prints look good. Procrastination = dead head.

I have been playing with some CLI-8 cartridges for some time now, so I understand exactly how they function. They are neat and quite special. I don't believe any aftermarket carts can function as well as the OEM cart, and it has strong patent protection. If you want alternative ink for its lower cost, there are only two ways to go.

1. Refill original OEM carts. They will work the best. My iP4200 NEVER plugs up, even after long delays between printing. Canon has done a great job with this new cart and the printers which use it. They deserve lots of money for their carts! Everyone who wants to give them that money, keep on buying! Myself, I just hate them. I hope to buy only 1 set of Carts from them over the next year or so. I refill and am about to install a new CIS System of my own design.

2. Install a CIS System which uses the OEM Canon carts in the printer. It is not yet known how often the carts may require purging, but the printer function will be so reliable that purging will be very acceptable. I will post the construction of this CIS System soon, but don't hold your breath. I am very busy.

 

[canonfodder]

A warning about CLI-8 carts !

This warning concerns a manner in which a cart can be blocked from releasing ink, resulting in missing color in your print when such blockage occurs.

We should all know that the carts have an air vent up in the top through the thing we call the labyrinth. If you should refill and force a lot of extra ink in, with the result that a bit of ink comes out of the air vent, you are in danger of having an ink blockage. A good slug of ink in the labyrinth may not want to move. The capillary forces are exaggerated due to the small and long path. If you have refilled, seen ink come out the vent, and have a printing problem of the "no ink flow" variety, take a soda straw and, as best you can, give that vent a small puff of air. Not too much, or you will force ink out the exit port and make a mess down below. If one try seems to not work, give it a second try. You can do this with the cart still installed, or you could pull the cart and do it with towel paper under the cart. Not every ink blockage will be from this cause, but I have experienced it in my many experiments with the CLI-8 carts, and the same blockage of this type could happen with any cart which has this type of vent.

 

[mikling]

The newer BCI-7 and CLI-8 Canon carts have refinements in how the ink is delivered to the sponge side. On the BCI-6 the Canon cart was already much superior to ANY compatibles or aftermarket virgin carts. With the new features, the gap has become wider and you really need to think seriously about why you'd consider using ANY aftermarket carts over the originals. I'm using the BCI-7 empties on where I used BCI-6 before to take advantage of the improved design. They fit and the prism, while smaller on the BCI-7 seem to work. To alleviate any possibilities of what Canonfodder experienced I always add a small air vent to the sponge side with a push pin and never experience lockup.

So I'm using chipped carts on a non chipped printer! Crazy huh!

 

[Defcon2k]

I had one question, however. Do you continue filling until the sponge or the overflow compartment is full? If I did that they might accept 13 or 26 mL of ink. I stopped after the ink tank was full and the ink was approaching the hole I drilled.

I refill as soon as there is still a little bit of ink at the bottom of the tank chamber, so the sponge won't dry out too much.
When I refill, I do it like this:
I fill the tank chamber, then turn the cart around and let the sponge absorb as much ink as he likes, but I do not force ink into the sponge. Then I turn the cart around again and fill the tank until it is 99% full (with only a small air bubble in it). Then I remove the needle.
That way I am quite sure that I don't overfill the cart, so it won't drip.

 

[canonfodder]

When I refill, I do it like this:
I fill the tank chamber, then turn the cart around and let the sponge absorb as much ink as he likes, but I do not force ink into the sponge. Then I turn the cart around again and fill the tank until it is 99% full (with only a small air bubble in it). Then I remove the needle.
That way I am quite sure that I don't overfill the cart, so it won't drip.

Defcon2k,
Your method of determining how much filling is correct sounds very good. I know that you are using the approach where a long needle is put through the back end of the cart, right at the bottom, having that needle go under the bottom sponge to reach and enter the ink/air passage connecting to the cart ink tank. Then you inject ink, which is going directly into the cart ink tank.

Do you get ANY drips out the exit port when you are finished? I would expect 1 or 2, but I may be wrong.

Do you cover or seal the exit port while injecting the ink?

Thanks, canonfodder

 

[Xalky]

I use Miklings method of refilling the cli-8 carts. However I've found that the second hole on top closest to the ink tank is not neccessary.

First, I cap the outlet port with a cover and elastic band, then remove the screw on the tank section. When I refill I inject the ink thru the rear hole into the sponge with the needle deep into the sponge. I inject quickly (relatively) at first so that the ink completely saturates the sponge but not so much that it spews out the vent. Once the sponge is fully saturated I slow the rate of filling and watch the tank fill making sure to maintain the small air gap over the sponge. There's a small air gap at the top of the sponge, 1/16- 1/8", which I monitor as I fill. I leave about 1/8" of air in the tank to allow room for the screw. When finished filling I pull the syringe out and insert the screw, remove the outlet cover, let it drip, and reinsert into the printer. I get very little dripping, maybe one drip most of the time. I dont even tape over the small fill hole in the sponge area. The capillary action of the sponge seems to keep any excess drippage under control just fine. It's more important that the tank side is sealed completely as this will allow leakage. If I get excessive dripping, I know it's because the screw is leaking.

As explained by mikling, the reason for saturating the sponge, is so that the new ink can dissolve any old dry ink that might occur at the top of the sponge.

 

[mikling]

Xalky, keep an eye on the ink that is left near the dividing wall between the sponge and tank. You will notice that there are small grooves on the wall there to act as "pipes" to supply air to the tank. The second hole is made to ensure that any dried viscous ink ink as a result of air exposure is dissolved out to that those grooves can continue to feed air properly to the tank side. You'll notice that very few compatibles have these set of grooves.

Another refinement of the CLI-8 and BCI-7 over the BCI-6 is to look at the bottom details of how the ink is fed to the sponge. Notice a constriction and channel and gradient involved. There's a lot more to the Canon OEM than initially meets the eye.

OK, so what about the grooves.....if you look at how it feeds ink to the sponge you'll see a Mariotte bottle or balanced pressure CISS in disguise. Why do those grooves only start after the second layer of sponge?... to allow the top layer of sponge to give up ink before the tank side starts to feed. How is this ensured? by having a more porous sponge, the top layer has less ability to hold ink so it gives it up much easier than the tank side feed. Also once the top is saturated with ink it blocks the flow of air into the tank so the tank cannot feed ink. Once the top layer empties itself first, it becomes easily porous to air. Thereafter it becomes a set of huge baffles to minimize drying of ink of the second layer and retain a near total saturated vapor atmosphere to minimize ink evaporating from the lower sponge.
Once it becomes porous, the grooves on the side wall become little pipes or conduits to allow air to replace the ink that is pulled by the sponge from the tank.... that's your balanced feed. Just like on those CISS systems. So yeah, those Canon carts have built in CISS systems!!!!!! albeit with small capacities.

So if you thought that those prefilled compatibles were just as good as the original, you might just change your mind about this notion. Now are these features absolutely necessary? probably NO, not all of the time. Do they minimize the problem of insufficient and incorrect ink flow ( the most common death of Canon printheads.... which normally gets diagnosed as clogging by those who didn't know better) Absolutely Yes. and that's a good safety measure to have. You can see Canon refining this aspect in their new tanks so that's telling you something.