Help with first-time Cli-8 refilling, please

[andy_48]

Firstly, I am very happy with my newly acquired (New Old Stock) Canon Pro-9000 mkII, bought directly following very helpful advice from this forum. Many thanks to the InkJet Masters for their valuable contributions. I have now ordered a starter kit of I.S. inks and refilling accessories from Octoinkjet and acquired a set of spare OEM Cli-8 carts from eBay (some full, some empty) and I have successfully purged one of them just to prove I can (and that its not hard)!

I have scoured the posts on this forum but am confused about a couple of points and seek guidance.

It is quite obvious that the individual inks will be used at different rates. So, when the first cart needs replacing:

1) Should I wait until its empty or low before replacing it?
2) Can I just top it up with the I.S. ink without purging?
3) Is it OK to print with mixed carts (i.e. some filled with original inks, some filled with I.S. inks)
4) Should I replace all 8 carts at the same time?

I realise that some of these questions are somewhat contradictory. However, I should add that I am very much at the amateur end of photo printing and not looking for perfection. Just having hobby fun!

 

[The Hat]

Glad to have you on board Andy.

(1) If its going to refill then change at the low ink warning, theres no real advantage in waiting.

(2) You most certainly can, but reset the chip before refilling.

(3) Your may see a slight difference if youre very fussy, but I dough it so just print as normal.

(4) It is better economically for your pocket to do so, and better still for your printer.

After replacing a single cartridge the printer will do an automatic cleaning cycle,
so if you change the lot together then you only get one clean cycle and not eight individual ones.

There are two inks in your 9000 that will be very sparkly used (Green/Red)
so dont change them till they get well below half full, which should take a long time,
just ignore them.

 

[andy_48]

Thank you, The Hat. Most helpful, especially as my ink duly arrived this morning!

Just so I'm completely clear (and apologies if I'm labouring the point), when a red or green cart (which currently contains Canon ink) is, say, 75% empty, would you recommend that I:

(a) take it out, reset it, top it up with I.S. ink (which becomes a mix of 25% Canon and 75% I.S. inks) and return it to the printer; or
(b) replace it swiftly with a fresh OEM cart filled earlier with I.S ink; then top up the original with I.S. ink (which becomes a mix of 25% Canon and 75% I.S. inks) and store it for next time; or
(c) same as (b) but purge the Canon cart to avoid this much mixing?

I'm hoping the answer is (b). This would confirm that mixing the inks in any proportion (rather than just refilling an almost-empty cart) is fine. I also remember reading somewhere that it's not sensible to take a cart out and leave an empty slot in the printer for any length of time.

 

[The Hat]

It would seem you are an expert already because you really have grasped the refilling ideology very quickly.

The answer is of course (B) as you suspected but only do it when changing some of the other cartridges as well,
youre quite right it is not very prudent to leave a cartridge out of its slot to long.

It is all right to mix a good quality 3rd party ink in with OEM ink but not to mix two different 3rd party inks together,
because you never know what youll end up with inside the cartridge..