CLI-42 Refilling

[André]

See the attached pic. The cart at the back is a CLI-42 that I flushed with LA Awesome and it came out looking pristine white and the sponges look quite saturated after filling (with the exception of a small spot bottom left).

This led me to wonder if my workflow is wrong. The cart at the front is one that is currently in my rotation of carts and as you can see, the top sponge does not look well saturated at all. I use a Mac and have the canon driver for the printer. I change my entire set of carts when I get a low ink warning on any of the carts. I’m wondering how come the top sponge is looking that way and if it’s normal?

Also as an aside. This was my first time using LA Awesome and I did not dilute it. Should I have? It doesn’t say so on the bottle to dilute the solution but thought I remembered seeing that somewhere that I should when rinsing carts with it.

 

[André]

Also as an aside. This was my first time using LA Awesome and I did not dilute it. Should I have? It doesn’t say so on the bottle to dilute the solution but thought I remembered seeing that somewhere that I should when rinsing carts with it.

And I apparently can’t read as the bottle does say dilute before use but I’m not seeing what the ratio is

 

[turbguy]

"LA Awesome" is a very strong cleaner! It works well on outdoor cooking grills and similar really greasy deposits. On the bottle, it notes it is not recommended for glass. The recommended cleaner for Canon carts is Original Windex. I would NEVER let LA AWESOME (diluted or not) enter a print head. Hopefully, you flushed it out very well with distilled water.

That being said, I have found that it is practically impossible to prevent the top layer of sponge from saturating while/after refilling, and those carts still print like a champ! Sometimes, I even see a layer of liquid ink atop the sponge. You MUST keep the cart upright during storage or handling, to prevent ink from blocking/clogging the serpentine air vent atop the sponge compartment.

Some have recommended to block off the serpentine vent above the sponge compartment during refilling, but that never made much difference (for me).

During ink usage from the refilled cart, the first ink used will be from the saturated top sponge layer, lowering it's saturation level until a passage (for air) is exposed between the sponge "compartment" and reservoir "compartment", and air is permitted to enter the reservoir compartment to permit liquid ink to flow into the lower sponge.

LA Awesome "may" have removed some coating or changed the properties of the upper sponge material, and maybe not...

If you ever find a work-around to stop the saturation of the upper sponge layer (the sponges are two different materials), please let us know.

Otherwise, you should be good to print away!

 

[André]

That’s great, thank you for the lengthy response. To be clear, it was my first time using that cleaner. The cart with the desaturated top sponge is one I received flushed from PC and have never done my own flushing on it.

"LA Awesome" is a very strong cleaner! It works well on outdoor cooking grills and similar really greasy deposits. On the bottle, it notes it is not recommended for glass. The recommended cleaner for Canon carts is Original Windex. I would NEVER let LA AWESOME (diluted or not) enter a print head. Hopefully, you flushed it out very well with distilled water

The CLI-42 cart that i flushed is a third cart I had kicking around that I wanted to test out the cleaner with and worst case if I should not use now that I’ve used LA Awesome in it then I’ll chalk it up to a learning cost.

That makes me wonder though now. I did flush it multiple times with water but city water which is supposedly “very soft”. Rated at 30mg/L of hardness. I was under the impression that distilled water was recommended for hard water. Am I wrong about that?

Thanks so much again for the reply. This is a great community

 

[Ray Westfield]

New on here so please be qentle
Looking at the comments on flushing here in the UK Windex apparently does not contain the same ingredients as in the USA. Is it still OK to use or do I have to use something different? Also on the water question - Is it OK to use tap water to flush or does it have to be distilled?
Can you use softened water?

 

[turbguy]

Some use dishwashing soap (Fairy?) instead of Original Windex, since ammonia is under restrictions in some countries.

Distilled water is recommended as a final rinse (or two) to remove ANY hardness minerals from the cart.

 

[stratman]

You can use water flushes for all CLI-42 cartridges EXCEPT YELLOW.

If you are flushing the YELLOW CLI-42 cartridge for refilling then you should use a a solution with a small amount of ammonia in it, such as Windex with Ammonia D or similar window cleaner in your country. Using a different solution/cleaner may cause the Yello Gello phenomenon.

Read our trusty Moderator's recommendation on this here.

 

[stratman]

Is it OK to use tap water to flush or does it have to be distilled?
Can you use softened water?

If in doubt you can flush with your tap water and then do a final rinse with distilled water.

 

[SkedAddled]

I've never heard of LA Awesome cleaner until now.
An interesting read about its ingredients can be found HERE.
I would be hesitant to use it to flush an ink cartridge which
is made under very tightly-controlled conditions
for use in such a finitely specific application.

here in the UK Windex apparently does not contain the same ingredients as in the USA. Is it still OK to use or do I have to use something different? Also on the water question - Is it OK to use tap water to flush or does it have to be distilled?

You can use water flushes for all CLI-42 cartridges EXCEPT YELLOW.

If you are flushing the YELLOW CLI-42 cartridge for refilling then you should use a a solution with a small amount of ammonia in it, such as Windex with Ammonia D or similar window cleaner in your country. Using a different solution/cleaner may cause the Yello Gello phenomenon.

Read our trusty Moderator's recommendation on this here.

Ray and Andre: @stratman puts it succinctly and accurately:
The key to eliminating the possibility of 'Yello Jell-o' seems to be a cleaner
which contains ammonia. Windex and others the world over do contain
this ingredient, but not all. Read the label for surety.
I posted about the CLI-42 Yellow cleaning procedure a short while back,
and came away from it with no trouble. It's sort of long, but you may find
the thread useful; you can find it HERE.

 

[André]

This is great. Thanks everyone for the information . I’m learning.