How do I drill hole for German "Durchstich refill method on a CLI-8???

[ThrillaMozilla]

Those can't be the same cartridges. The blurb says the new cartridge has no sponge, but the picture above clearly shows a sponge.

Please DO mess with this cartridge and figure out how it works.

 

[pearlhouse]

Will do!!! I actually think they meant to say the sponge is smaller. I cant see how a cart could work without some sort of feature to slow the flow of ink. A sealed cart with just some sort of vent would not be enough to slow the flow of ink. Ill try and get into this next week.

 

[PeterBJ]

pearlhouse wrote:
I can understand what you are saying about Canon keeping their patents for themselves but how come the large black G&G cartridge appears to look exactly the same as the Canon? Is there some mini difference inside that lets them get away with this.???

Yes there is an important difference inside the cartridges. Canon OEM cartridges have sponges made of a fibrous material and the sponge is actually two sponges with different properties. The lower sponge is hydrophilic , the upper sponge is hydrophobic. This patented two sponge system is one of the things that make Canon OEM cartridges superior for refill. The NON-OEM cartridges use a sponge in one piece, made of a foam material. That is the patented difference which is enforced. Some early NON-OEM cartridges actually used two part sponges, but they were later banned.

Here is a Canon CLI-8 Y OEM cartridge:

And here is a NON-OEM CLI-8 Bk cartridge:

You can clearly see the boundary between the two different sponges in the Canon cartridge, as opposed to the NON-OEM cartridge. Also note the outlet filter blocking attempts to refill the NON-OEM cartridge using the German method.

For a detailed view of the inner works of a Canon cartridge see this excellent photo series by paulcroft: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6221

I look forward to your report on the G&G (?) cartridges. They look very intriguing indeed.

 

[pearlhouse]

Ok Peter BJ here you go:
I have sectioned (1) G&G cart. which is a generic CLI-8. I tried to clean it up best I could but Im afraid the pics arent too good. This cart. seems to be a lot more intricate than the real Canon item. It has several chambers and also two labyrinth passages which are on the outside of the cart but are than sealed with a clear tape. They both have (air?) holes which are open to the inside of the cart.
Maybe someone with more experience than me can make something out of them. These carts. must have got shook up pretty good before I received them as they were leaking all over the zip lock bag. This could be reason for ink showing in the labyrinths.

As the section pic shows there is a chamber on each side of the sponge. There are actually three chambers to the right of the exit port (towards the chip) There is a very thin chamber along side the sponge towards the chip. About half way up there is a wall that separates them into two different chambers. The upper chamber has a hole which leads to the labyrinth on the side but the lower chamber seems to be completely closed and shows no signs of ink in it. The wider chamber next to it seems to be totally blocked at the top and the bottom and by the vertical wall. Although the picture I have of the Cyan cart. does show some ink in this chamber. The only way the ink could get in this chamber is from the hole in the top which is connected to the upper labyrinth.
Now the chamber to the left of the exit port (away from the chip) is probably getting the ink from the top labyrinth as there is definitely a hole right over the sponge and another over the top of this chamber connected with this labyrinth. The hole over the sponge is quite large and could have been used to fill the cartridge. Also take notice that this cart. is a 3 piece assembly. The sponge is a 2 pc assy. and both pieces appear to be from the same material. The chip just slid out to the left or right with having to remove a locating peg. The top piece has 2 different labyrinths with holes at each end plus the large hole has a boss which would push on the sponge. The end of the top piece furthest away from the chip has a nipple extending from the labyrinth hole. When assemble this nipple extends into the chamber furthest from the chip. Actually a way to refill this type of cart might be a top injection method by puncturing the tape over the hole on the end of the labyrinth closest to the chip. This would give you direct access to large ink chamber. Then you would have to seal this hole maybe with a piece of aluminum tape.

 

[stratman]

Great job, pearlhouse! Looks like the Marquis de Sade designed that torturous cartridge.

Thanks for giving us a peak at your workbench too. Mine's a basement sink, which was a good thing as I overfilled the black dye cartridge today and it dripped. I still didn't get ink on my hands. Also unusual, all my cartridges were approximately the same amount of empty when I refilled them today. Except that the Yellow cartridge being first to be marked empty, the simultaneous empty/low amounts of all the cartridges is rare for me.

 

[PeterBJ]

Thanks for the photo series. Nice job

It looks to me like the sponge is actually two part made of a fibrous material, like Canon OEM cartridges. I wonder if the strange design of the cartridges is an attempt to avoid getting sued for patent infringement?

I think the purpose of the labyrinth on the side of the cartridge is for transferring ink from the big reservoir to the smaller reservoirs and the the sponge.

Even if the cartridges use a two sponge design like Canon, I wouldn't refill them. The fact that they had leaked in the bag they were shipped in does not indicate high quality and reliability to me. Even if some form of top fill might be possible, like stratman I would not recommend refilling them.

I think only Canon OEM cartridges should be refilled. Getting one or two sets of empty PGI-5/CLI-8 cartridges and a resetter might be a bit expensive, but on subsequent refills your friend will start saving a lot of money.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

I'm not so sure leaking tells you anything about reliability. It suggests that they may have been overfilled. The only reason I can think not to refill them is that we have no idea how they work or how to do it.

 

[pearlhouse]

I believe the carts were leaking because of the way they were handled in delivering them to me. I dont think there should be any ink in the labyrinth. The holes in the labyrinth appear to be to small for ink passage. I believe they are just air passages. The large whole over the sponge probably is the way the ink is fed into the sponge. They probably are refillable if you can determine how they work. I think its a good guess that the design was to keep from infringing on Canons carts. Right now they are just scrap to me. I told my friend to buy canon carts and then give them to me for refilling or better yet let me buy her some good refillable carts from a reliable source.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

If you look at the Canon patents you will see many different cartridge configurations. I wouldn't assume that these are necessarily inferior.