Canon Pixma 620 United Office refills

[barfl2]

A couple of months ago I was able to buy a complete set of inks which I carefully put away in a cool darkened cupboard. Today I tried the cyan and the printer refuses to acknowledge it. Tried pressing the yes button a couple of times but no joy. The red light is not on.

Maybe PeterBj or other UK users may be able to suggest something

 

[The Hat]

If you have only used the Cyan cartridge out of the set and mixed it in with OEM cartridges that could be the problem.

Some compatible cartridges need to be fitted in sets and not individually so try using the other colour cartridges (Set) to see if that makes any difference..

 

[PeterBJ]

Maybe PeterBj or other UK users may be able to suggest something

I'm Danish, not British. Did you mean "EU users" as Lidl is present in most or all EU countries?

United Office is a Lidl brand, and AFAIK Lidl has not sold refill kits but sold various compatible cartridges for Canon and HP. I have tested a set of their PGi-520/CLI-521 compatible cartridges in an iP3600. The cartridges worked well, but are not suitable for refill. The chip is not resettable using a resetter for this cartridge family.

My guess is that the chip is defective. Maybe you could get a refund or another cartridge, next time the Lidl offer these cartridges? Maybe you could transfer a working and resat chip from a Canon OEM cartridge, the chips look to be same size, so this might be a possible work around?

 

[CakeHole]

Take the chip off the new Office supplies cartridge and the chip off the old cartridge (empty one) you removed and swap them over, placing the old chip on the new Office supplies cartridge. Power on and then press and hold the Stop button for about 10 seconds. That will disable the ink level monitoring but should allow you to use the new cartridge. It is not an ideal solution and some will shout at me and say it is a bad idea, which to a degree i agree on but if you are desperate to use a budget cartridge its a potential solution.

 

[PeterBJ]

I guess I was wrong in assuming that Lidl never sold refill kits. See this post by Lucas28. But I don't see how a refil ink can cause a chip to malfunction, unless some ink was accidentally spilled onto the chip. But I guess we are discussing cartridges?

Here are my impressions of the cartridges. It is not a complete review, but I found that the cartridges were good compatibles. For best photo print results, using the popular United Office / Sihl photo paper, the saturation should be increased slightly in the printer driver settings.

 

[barfl2]

Thanks for various suggestions. Error code is UO43. The chip attachment is totally different to the OEM and the contact area pivots on a little block. Unfortunately I bought these with some food so did not retain the receipt, which I always do for items with extended guarantees. Sorry PeterBJ you are of course Danish and come from the happiest country in Europe accordingly to the Daily Mail.

Due to poor health and running out of I.S. ink and my previous travails with cyan/magenta with this MP620 I have been using mostly IJT/Choice Stationary compatibles with good results, my previous clogs disappeared had perfect nozzle checks. I had already reduced my output and mostly printed in greyscale.

I was weighing up the cost of more bulk ink versus usage and my previous refilling experiences so snapped a full set of these United Office carts.

 

[CakeHole]

If you can upload an image of the chip area someone for sure will be able to tell you if a chip swap is possible. I imagine it will be the only carts i know with a totally different design were peach carts for some models of canon. I used to use Choice Stationary many, many years ago when i had an Epson C42 printer. I personally think the quality declined in their own carts a little. Good, reliable company though (or they were years back dunno about now) i never had issues beyond that with their carts or their service.

Personally with a Canon Printer i would never put a cheap aftermarket cart in my printer unless i know what ink is in it. Canons use a thermal technique to deliver the ink, and poor ink can cause flow and other issues.

Me personally id say order a set of Empty carts from octoink, if they do them for your printer (sorry if you mentioned the model and i missed it) along with a set of refill ink each 100ml colour bottle will refill a cart around 10 times (give or take a couple of fills depending on model of carts). At around £5 per bottle that works out to 50p a refill. Cheaper than any aftermarket cart and you know it will be quality ink.

 

[PeterBJ]

The Canon OEM chips are the same dimensions and layout as the United Office chips, so a Canon OEM chip can be used instead of defective United Office chip. Here is a scan showing the cartridges, chip holders, a United Office chip and a Canon OEM chip, and a wooden cocktail stick used to remove the United Office chip.

The chip holders can be removed by pulling downwards. The chips are not glued into the holders but might be a tight fit, so a wooden cocktail stick is recommended to remove the chip. Insert the cocktail stick into one of the chip mounting holes and use the cocktail stick as a lever or mini crowbar to loosen the chip. The Canon OEM chip fits perfectly into the United Office chip holder and also works perfectly in the printer and with the resetter when installed onto the United Office cartridge.

Here is a post by The Hat showing how to remove the chip from a Canon cartridge. Be careful not to cut the fine conductors on the chip PCB.

Here is a photo showing 4 United office dye cartridges plus one OEM PGBK cartridge in a Canon MP540. The magenta cartridge is equipped with a resat Canon OEM chip. It is seen that the LED on the Canon chip also works with the light guide system on the United Office cartridges. I have also tried other combinations of OEM and United Office cartridges and any combination works. The magenta cartridge with a Canon chip is number two from the left:

I have tried to reset the United Office chips using an original Redsetter for PGI-520/CLI-521 cartridges, but the Redsetter does neither reset nor destroy the chips. When attached to the Redsetter the chips give the usual short flash, but never shows the constant light. So I don't think a resetter can cure the defective United Office chip. Here is a photo showing the ink status. It is seen that the magenta cartridge with a Canon chip shows full, the other United Office Cartridges still show half full, unaffected by my reset attempts:

This might be more fiddly than refilling an OEM cartridge, but it will allow you to use the ink from the United Office cyan cartridge.

Edit: Just a thought: Maybe the chip holder on the offending cartridge isn't seated properly, try pushing it up against the cartridge housing to make sure it is in the right position.

 

[CakeHole]

Looking at your first image Peter it appears the United Office carts are either a very good clone or are in fact just recycled original canon carts, if they are just recycled Canon parts its a shame they changed the chip to a non-resettable version, would otherwise be a great source for buying cheap originals

Great work in confirming a chip swap is possible and pretty straight forward for the poster concerned.

 

[PeterBJ]

The United Office cartridges are different from the Canon OEM in design. Here is a scan showing some of the differences:

Starting from the top left: The first cartridge is a United Office compatible for CLI-521. The cartridge in the middle is a Canon OEM CLI-526 and the cartridge at the right is a Canon OEM CLI-521. Second row left shows the chip and mounting on a Canon OEM CLI-521. Second row middle shows the chip and mounting on a United Office cartridge. Second row right shows the top and label of a Canon OEM CLI-521 cartridge. The bottom shows the top and label of a United Office compatible CLI-521. Note differences in the vent.

There are more differences. The Canon cartridge has a fill hole at the top and under the label sealed by a plastic ball that can be removed without damaging the cartridge, the United Office cartridge is sealed with a stainless steel ball also under the label. You cannot remove that without ruining the cartridge. The Canon OEM cartridge has a two part sponge made from fibrous materials with different properties, the United Office cartridge has a single sponge made from a foam material. The partition between the ink and sponge chambers have ridges to help regulate air flow to the ink chamber from the vent in a Canon cartridge. These ridges are not present in the United Office cartridges.

IMO these differences make the Canon OEM cartridge a higher build quality and very well suitable for refill. IMO compatible cartridges should not be refilled even if they work well if used only once. Maybe the single foam material sponge is responsible for the ink flow problems often encountered when refilling single use compatible cartridges? Furthermore the chip on the United Office cartridge is not resettable.

If you really want to, you can remove the label on the United office and drill a hole and top fill the cartridge and seal the cartridge with hot glue or aluminium tape after the refill, and disable the ink level monitoring to allow printing. But visual inspection of the ink level is impossible so you risk burning out the print head due to lack of cooling from a steady supply of ink.

My conclusion: The United Office cartridges work well if they are only used once as intended, but they should not be refilled. Not even with a resettable Canon chip from a defective Canon OEM cartridge attached.