Canon Pixma ip8500 complete refill newbie - need help

[jctrader]

I have the Pixma ip8500 and have been paying full price for oem cartridges since printer was purchased and I am tired of it. I have read these forums for a couple of hours and while I am more informed, I am also more confused. With the Pixma ip9500:

Do I need to purchase a chip reseter, there appears to be no chip on the oem cartridges I purchase so I presume not?
If not, how does this printer sense cartridge ink level?
Is the German refill method more reliable or is filling from the top better?
Some of these refill kits contain only one syringe and needle - wouldn't it be better to have to have a separate syringe for each color?
I'm in the US - what ink supplier would you recommend (I've read both Hobbicolors and PrecisionColors which sell their products through ebay are good)?

Sorry for the idiot questions. Thanks for your help.

 

[irvweiner]

I suggest Inkjetcarts: http://store.inkjetcarts.us/ip8500-c106.aspx Everything you need is here, including separate syringe/needle per color. Your refill ink cost per cart will ~$0.50.

There are several excellent vendors among the posters of this site, check the resource list or search my postings for a list I suggested (and thankfully re-posted by others).

I am very satisfied with top refilling, dont overfill. Rubber plugs are available for your OEM carts, check Rjettek (http://rjettek.com/)--they also supply the excellent OCP ink I presently use.

There are no idiot questions, only the unasked ones that cause the troubles!

irv weiner

 

[mrelmo]

seperate needles for each color are not necessary, when you are refilling you should have 2 plastic cups i filled with clean water the other empty if you just be sure to triple rinse the needle and syringe before changing colors you should be fine. by triple rinse i mean flush the syringe and needle 3 times you will see on the 3rd flush that you now have clear water in the syringe. as far as a resetter you are in luck as those cartridges do not have a chip and do not need to be reset happy printing

 

[Dumbledore]

Why using the syringe when there are those squeasy fill bottles on octoink... it's so cool to refill with them, without any problems at all... one bottle per color and no problems)

 

[wilko]

Why using the syringe when there are those squeasy fill bottles on octoink... it's so cool to refill with them, without any problems at all... one bottle per color and no problems)

I agree they're brilliant. I'm refilling by the German method and my syringes are now redundant

 

[nche11]

IP8500 ? Hum... How many people still have this little gem? This printer is a treasure.

Anyway, you don't need stinky chip resetter to refill. There are no chips on the BCI-6 ink cartridges. Are you using OEM cartridges? That's probably why your printer is still alive today. If you want to refill you will want to refill OEM BCI-6 ink cartridges. You already have them. They are the best.

There is an optical sensor at the bottom of the printer on the left side. When the print head passes over it the sensor checks the emptiness of each cartridge. This sensor checks for empty cartridge only. The printer uses internal memory to keep track of the ink level. The printer does not have any means to measure the actual ink level in the cartridge.

If you are in the US check out Hobbicolors on Ebay. They have the best refill kit you can trust. There have been a ton of sellers of 3rd party inks on Ebay over the years. Most of them came and went. Hobbicolors has been there for many years and they are going strong still. I just looked at Ebay and was surprised that Hobbicolors is the only seller name that I know there. All other sellers are new and strangers to me. Their inks are real thing. That's probably why they are still in business after so many years and so many competition there. Alotofthings, a Formulabs ink seller, was on Ebay before. It was among a few good sellers there. Not any more. There has been a significant change on Ebay. Maybe another wave of new sellers will arrive soon. But for now Hobbicolors is the only seller I still recognize.

I am using Hobbicolors UW8 ink for my PRO9000. Very happy with it. Your IP8500 is basically the predecessor of PRO9000 in a smaller footprint. I think my PRO9000 has a same print head in your IP8500.

 

[easytimes]

Hi jctrader,
I have also found the Canadian store of Precisioncolors to be pretty good on my IP8500, and my IP4200 as well. I haven't tried refilling my IP4700, but I suspect it will do as well. I'm in the US, too... and there is no problem getting Precisioncolor ink delivered here.

I'm glad not to have gotten rid of my IP8500, since it makes refilling so much easier... no chip resetting. But the IP4200 resets like a charm, as long as I reset it before I fill the tank. After filling resets are a bit messy.

I still make mistakes and get a little inky fingered in the process, but Scotchbrite scrubbing pads take the ink right off.

If you do limited printing, those sqeezy-fills are convenient and easy, but if you refill fairly often, you will want the 16 or maybe 32 oz. bottled batches of ink, and syringes seem a little easier to me for refilling with those. Also... I tried various plugging methods, and the best so far is hot glue. The silicone plugs don't usually go in deeply enough, and tape doesn't seal very well for me. You will take a little time to get the various skills down that get the refilling job done, but once you do, it won't be as big a problem as it originally seemed. Just keep in mind that at their best retail price, two of your BCI-6 tanks cost more than an 8 oz. 8 color refill kit. Now that's incentive for me.

Don't throw away any of your orange bottom caps... and get some rubber bands to hold them on. Be sure to recap your empties with the caps, when you pull them out of the printer.

You can drill a hole in the top, or use a hot screw to pull out the little ball plug on the original fill hole. I'm sure YouTube has instructions for all of that... I learned about pulling the ball valve from YouTube, and I like that method, so far.

I have read all the methods, and still don't know the name of the method I'm using. I think it's a little of all of them. Doesn't matter what you call it, as long as it works, and I'm saving lots of money. I do find that doing some printing to clear the print head helps to get the colors corrected... since I have cleared some of the tanks before filling. I probably didn't get them dry before filling... but like I said... mistakes happen... and all you have to do is work through them, and allow the ink to normalize. I'm sure others with more experience can explain this situation a little better. But that's the only real problem I've had, and doing one or two test prints seems to straighten things out.
Good luck,

 

[irvweiner]

easytimes. to make your time even easier insert a plastic check valve between your squeeze bottle and the needle. No dripping when grasp and manipulate the bottle and no frustrating suck back when you complete the fill.I brought this idea up some months ago and member listed some sources -cant find the info at this moment so search this site.

I too started with hot glue then advanced to plastic and.or stainless 6-32 screws.
From rjettek (http://www.rjettek.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/58_62?osCsid=90a5e5063d4018139bc4b15b72922048) I found the 1916 plugs that do seal the ink entry port and the 1813 cap that seals the exit port on the CLI8 carts, which I use now . There are other interesting 'goodies' here that make refilling much easier, including the OCP ink I use in my Canon Pro 9000.

Now what I would like to see is a spray that will 'transparentize' all the gray and black carts being issued by the egregious printer mfgrs!!!

irv weiner