How clean is a clean flush

[Tin Ho]

Everyone is talking about flushing their cartridges before refilling. Am I the only one not doing it? I am not trying to refute it but I really have not bothered to flush my cartridges. I refilled my first printer i960 back more than 10 years ago. I refilled close to 8 printers since then, not as many as some of the gurus here have, but seriously I never had a problem.

I admit I have never been critical to the possible color transition from OEM to 3rd party ink. I figured the color transition, if exists, will eventually settle down after the cart is refilled the 2nd or the 3rd time.

 

[The Hat]

I don’t purge any of my carts either, but there comes a time when a cart won’t deliver sufficient enough ink to the print head resulting in poor print quality, and no matter how many times you try to fix or refill the cart, it still fails to preform satisfactory. (Ink starvation)

When this happens, there is no alternative but to purge or discard the effected cart for another one, this problem very seldom happens but when it does, what other choices are open to the user, in my opinion frankly none.

An underperforming cart will cause some damage to your print head when you least expect it, and eventually cause its early demise, so always be on the lookout for poor print quality and stop the printer immediately, don’t wait to finish the page...

 

[stratman]

There are four times that flushing is advisable.

1) If you are selective about color fidelity when switching over from OEM ink to third party refill ink, or, changing between two different third party inks.

2) The refilled cartridge no longer delivers ink appropriately - ink starvation patterns in the print - despite having plenty of ink. This may take a number of years, or not.

3) To avoid Yello Gello.

4) You obtain empty cartridges of unknown providence, or have had old cartridges laying around for long periods of time exposed to air, which may have contamination such as bacterial or fungus. Also, the dried out ink in the sponge may inhibit proper flow of ink to the print head. (see #2)

 

[Roy Sletcher]

There are four times that flushing is advisable.

1) If you are selective about color fidelity when switching over from OEM ink to third party refill ink, or, changing between two different third party inks.

2) The refilled cartridge no longer delivers ink appropriately - ink starvation patterns in the print - despite having plenty of ink. This may take a number of years, or not.

3) To avoid Yello Gello.

4) You obtain empty cartridges of unknown providence, or have had old cartridges laying around for long periods of time exposed to air, which may have contamination such as bacterial or fungus. Also, the dried out ink in the sponge may inhibit proper flow of ink to the print head. (see #2)

Maybe we should call this the "Royal Flush" selection. Your deal!