Freedom Refill Method for Canon BCI 3, 5, 6 & CLI 8 & PGI 5 and others

[ThrillaMozilla]

From ThrillaMozzilla comments he has already tried it on the HP Carts, but from your comments it looks as though the restricted flow through the clip might be the problem.

No, the flow is fine. I would go ahead and use the clips as long as you have them. But see my previous one or two posts.

Do the little nibs on the ink outlet play any part in locating the cart in the printer? or are they something to do with the moulding process ? If the latter presumably they could be cut off to get a better seal, as the contact area of the outlet port is pretty small 0.146" depth on my carts.

Those four little orange dots? Those are what held the cap on the outlet of the new cartridge until you broke the cap off. Go ahead and trim them.

EDIT: I see you had problems due to lack of vacuum. I just tried with a dry cartridge, and it briefly holds a satisfactory vacuum, which will pull back the plunger part way. An ordinary syringe fits the clip and will hold a vacuum. I don't recommend using the InkTec syringes for this, as they have no handle that you can use to pull a vacuum. Make sure you have the vent well sealed.

 

[ghwellsjr]

As long as the system is vacuum-tight and you don't push on the plunger, friction in the syringe will leave a slight vacuum in the cartridge until you remove the tape or the syringe. That means that the cartridge will be filled under a slight vacuum, and the sponge cannot be oversaturated. After rethinking about this a little bit, I believe the ideal is not to push on the plunger at all, but to let the vacuum draw it in.

This has been a point of confusion for just about everybody. I should probably go back and edit my first post and put in bold red lettering, "Never push on the plunger".

But even if it did get ink into the air vent, or if you just wanted to play it safe; after you're done refilling, you can remove the tape from the air vent, clean the ink out of the syringe and reattach it and then suck on the outlet port which will suck any ink remaining in the serpentine air vent path into the cartridge. With the cartridge up-side-down, this will even clear out the ink from the three wells in the air vent path, something that I found very hard to do with my conventional vacuum refill process and one of the reasons I switched to the German method. But now I'm switching to this method because it does not leave any holes that can leak.

Yes, it's easy to clean the vent that way. I even drew in a couple of drops of distilled water just to leave it clean, but this probably isn't necessary.

But if you did use water to clean the air passage, you would still need to suck that water out of the passage which would put it in the cartridge so I would say it not only isn't necessary, it's undesireable.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Do the little nibs on the ink outlet play any part in locating the cart in the printer? or are they something to do with the moulding process ? If the latter presumably they could be cut off to get a better seal, as the contact area of the outlet port is pretty small 0.146" depth on my carts.

Those four little orange dots? Those are what held the cap on the outlet of the new cartridge until you broke the cap off. Go ahead and trim them.

No, he's talking about the four nibs around the outlet port that prevent a piece of tubing from making a really good seal. Maybe the HP carts don't have them. They were a real problem with vinyl tubing because it is rather slippery and doesn't deform well but with the rubber hoses that I'm now using, I don't think they are any problem at all.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

This has been a point of confusion for just about everybody. I should probably go back and edit my first post and put in bold red lettering, "Never push on the plunger".

I wouldn't say "never", but it's probably preferable not to, for reasons that we discussed. I don't understand, though, why people are getting ink explosions. Even with a needle, you have to exercise some care not to use excessive pressure and blow everything apart. It's not that difficult, really.

If the system is not completely vacuum-tight, you may find yourself with a syringe full of air, with no way to draw back on the plunger. In this case, it may be tempting to resort to pressure, but it's easy enough to remove the syringe and reset the plunger. But if the system is just too leaky, it's tedious to do this. That's one reason I like your system. I would think it's easy to seal the system fairly well.

I happen to have the InkTec clips, and I like them. But I sure wouldn't buy these or another clip system without trying tubing first.

 

[ghwellsjr]

This has been a point of confusion for just about everybody. I should probably go back and edit my first post and put in bold red lettering, "Never push on the plunger".

I wouldn't say "never", but it's probably preferable not to, for reasons that we discussed. I don't understand, though, why people are getting ink explosions. Even with a needle, you have to exercise some care not to use excessive pressure and blow everything apart. It's not that difficult, really.

If the system is not completely vacuum-tight, you may find yourself with a syringe full of air, with no way to draw back on the plunger. In this case, it may be tempting to resort to pressure, but it's easy enough to remove the syringe and reset the plunger. But if the system is just too leaky, it's tedious to do this. That's one reason I like your system. I would think it's easy to seal the system fairly well.

I happen to have the InkTec clips, and I like them. But I sure wouldn't buy these or another clip system without trying tubing first.

I still would say "never", as long as the tape is on the air vent and as long as you have ink in the syringe. I have also used the apparatus to purge a cartridge with water when there is no tape on the air vent and even then, you have to hold the cartridge up against the adapter and syringe or it will pop off and you never want this to happen with ink. Like I said, you'll have a squirt cannon and it can eject ink across a room. At least with water, it won't be so bad.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

Well, yes, it depends on the device. And any time you're injecting ink into something you need to be careful, which sometimes gets forgotten. I tend to agree, vacuum is better. Anyway, we're off the subject, which is, ...nice refill method. Now I'm gonna order some larger syringes.

 

[marceltho]

I will be the last one to to bring something new down, but I don't see any advantages over the German methode to be honest. If you know how much ink an empty cartridge needs, you just inject that amount ( or a bit less ) and you are done.

* faster
* no new stuff needed
* keep on using the squeeze bottles we all bought
* nothing to clean in between if you have 2 empty carts or more ( so no waste ink as well )
* no risk - fool proof

 

[ghwellsjr]

I will be the last one to to bring something new down, but I don't see any advantages over the German methode to be honest. If you know how much ink an empty cartridge needs, you just inject that amount ( or a bit less ) and you are done.

* faster
* no new stuff needed
* keep on using the squeeze bottles we all bought
* nothing to clean in between if you have 2 empty carts or more ( so no waste ink as well )
* no risk - fool proof

If you don't agree with my definition of "best", then you're not going to agree that this refill method is best. That's OK. There are plenty of people that will disagree with you regarding the German method and used similar reasons to defend the top fill method. That's OK too. Everybody can have their own best method depending on what is important to them.

However I have to take issue with your last point that there is no risk with the German method and that it is fool proof. Several people have reported leaking problems with it and so have I. Since it hasn't happened to you, you are either unaware of the potential problem or you discount it. But since I discovered that one of the cartridges that I had refilled for a friend via the German method was in the process of leaking ink out of the refill hole on top of his desk, even though I had covered the refill hole with tape (albeit, reused tape), I am very glad to find a refill method where that can't happen and yet is cleaner, faster and easier then the previous vacuum method that I used to use. And that is why I'm switching from the German Method to the Freedom Method.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

For opaque cartridges we might need to rethink this a little.

It seemed to me that this method would be ideal for the opaque cartridges because it is essentially self-limiting. You can repeat the process as many times as you want and it only tops off the reservoir. It doesn't usually saturate the sponge any more then it did on the first cycle and it doesn't usually get ink into the air vent.

Are you sure? If you keep going, can you fill the space above the sponge? I suspect you can.

And there's more to it too. As long as the system is vacuum-tight and you don't push on the plunger, friction in the syringe will leave a slight vacuum in the cartridge until you remove the tape or the syringe. That means that the cartridge will be filled under a slight vacuum, and the sponge cannot be oversaturated.

I won't bother to state the reason, but I think this is wrong. I'll bet you can oversaturate the sponge.

Can you check this on one of your transparent cartridges? Can you fill the space above the sponge? And can you fill it so full that the cartridge drips? This may depend on the quality of the vacuum you can get, but for transparent cartridges it may be necessary to modify the procedure a little. For example, one could fill it full and then withdraw a small, measured volume of ink, depending on the specific cartridge.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

Marceltho, just keep using the method you're using. It's fine. But vacuum filling from the inlet port has its advantages that other people may appreciate. Can we just leave it at that, please, while we work out a couple of details?