German Durchstich refill method for Canon carts with pictures

[SpideRMaN]

thanks for your reply.

That's what surprised me cos as I said above I seal the refill hole with insulating tape every time I refill

 

[ghwellsjr]

Sorry, I missed that.

An experiment you could do is take this cartridge with its taped up holes and wick ink out of the outlet port using paper towels. Watch the ink reservoir and see if bubbles form in there after a while. If they do, that means your tape is not forming an air tight seal. I really wouldn't expect it to. The only reason why I would expect the tape on the refill hole to work is because the normal air vent is open and there is never a large pressure differential to allow air to try to break through the seal.

 

[ruffin]

Guys, I have obtained a number of empty Canon CLI-8 cartridges, never refilled before. Please advise if the dry sponges in these cartridges will re-saturate when ink is added using German method. Is it really necessary that the cartridges be purged with hot water prior to refilling process. I am hopeful that the sponges can re-absorb the fresh ink. Super info here on this site. Regards to all.

 

[stratman]

Guys, I have obtained a number of empty Canon CLI-8 cartridges, never refilled before. Please advise if the dry sponges in these cartridges will re-saturate when ink is added using German method. Is it really necessary that the cartridges be purged with hot water prior to refilling process. I am hopeful that the sponges can re-absorb the fresh ink. Super info here on this site. Regards to all.

CLI-8 OEM ink is water soluble. Appropriate refill inks should be water soluble as well.

The short answer to your question is yes - CLI-8 aftermarket refill ink "should" saturate the sponge, even if the sponge is completely dry, and any dried OEM ink "should" dissolve in the refill ink.

BUT, any ink may harbor bacteria and/or fungus even though chemicals are added to OEM ink, and ostensibly to good aftermarket ink, to prevent growth.

My thought is that since you do not know how these catrtridges were stored, nor how long they have been stored, you may want to consider flushing them out before refilling. Easier to prevent a problem now than fix it later. Probably a lot less messy now as well.

 

[ghwellsjr]

But if you are going to flush your cartridges, you must get them completely dry before refilling or you will significantly dilute the ink. I have had no problem refilling very old bone-dry cartridges. You can always try refilling them without flushing them and then if they don't work, flush them and refill them.

 

[yupkime]

Even black pigment ink cartridges with residual ink inside?

Color ones are easy and no problem but I've flushed some pigment ones as best I can and the
sponges are still dark. They are drying now but I wonder whether the ink will be able to "get through"
or not.

Let us know your experience!

But if you are going to flush your cartridges, you must get them completely dry before refilling or you will significantly dilute the ink. I have had no problem refilling very old bone-dry cartridges. You can always try refilling them without flushing them and then if they don't work, flush them and refill them.

 

[SpideRMaN]

Sorry, I missed that.

An experiment you could do is take this cartridge with its taped up holes and wick ink out of the outlet port using paper towels. Watch the ink reservoir and see if bubbles form in there after a while. If they do, that means your tape is not forming an air tight seal. I really wouldn't expect it to. The only reason why I would expect the tape on the refill hole to work is because the normal air vent is open and there is never a large pressure differential to allow air to try to break through the seal.

Yes, i did what you said and the cart was taking air from the refill hole so it was doing two jobs and both were well done !!

Thank You.

 

[ghwellsjr]

You're welcome.

 

[Nifty]

Today I received the "low ink" message from my i560 that I've been waiting for!! Yes, it sounds odd, but I've been wanting my carts to run out so I could finally give the German Refill Method a try.

I currently have two 3rd party carts and one OEM cart (all BCI-6 non-pigment based) in my printer that needed refilling. I guess I could have swapped the non-oem carts with some of the empty OEM's I have on hand, but I thought I'd give the GRM a try with both just for experimentation purposes.

As I showed in a post earlier in this thread, it is VERY important to note that you can't go into most 3rd party carts at the same direction as with OEM carts. Most have a solid sponge material that protrudes and would be in the way of the needle. With these carts I simply went in at an angle and was able to access the reservoir without too much problem. Of course, you have to punch / drill through the sponge material which isn't ideal or nearly as clean / effortless as going between the sponge and plastic bottom of the cart as you would with OEM, but it is still doable.

Well, the process went better than I could have expected. Making the holes was easy, inserting the needle (especially in OEM) was easy, and refilling was easy. The only thing I had a problem with was one of the non-OEM carts which was a yellow that had been refilled in the traditional method before. As I slowly injected ink into the cart yellow ink bubbled out of the exit port (facing up) and the air hole (facing down). I don't know why this happened with this 3rd party cart, but not it's identical brother in Cyan. The issue was made a little better by injecting even more slowly, but not by much. I'll need to experiment to see if it was a function of the cart, the needle, position of the needle, or something else that caused this issue in this cart but not the others.

Note: I used 2" sharp needles which I had blunted a bit on the grinder (I had a nasty prick with one and decided that I wouldn't take that chance again... they are nasty little devils).

Also, before undertaking this process I had the goal of sealing the hole I made, but now that I think back, I put the carts back in the printer without doing this. I'm debating if I should bother or let it be and see what happens.

Fun times! Thanks to all who have contributed and promoted this method!

 

[SpideRMaN]

As I slowly injected ink into the cart yellow ink bubbled out of the exit port (facing up) and the air hole (facing down)

Check the airvent cos it could be blocked

blow some air with your mouth through the air vent (take care cos ink will exit from the exit hole if the vent is clear)