Important : Canon Pro-100 Cli-42 Yellow Ink

[jtoolman]

I just flushed out a OEM CLI-42 yellow cart with CONE's Piezoflush of which I had a bit left over. Water alone is not enough. I decided to just not wait till this OEM cart was empty. Water flushing is simply not enough to completely clear out the Yellow OEM ink.
In fact as I flushed it out is left residue on my sink simply by contacting water!

I filled the cart till the sponge took up the PiezoFlush and waited a few hours. Then with a 60 ml syringe and plenty of warm water I was able to flush out the cart till the sponge looked bone white. Ran about 2 litters of H2O through that cart.
I am sure the much cheaper Windex would have worked just as well.
I had reported to Mike that I had developed a Yellow Clog even though I had never let water contact the OEM CLI-42 Yellow cart. Never flushed it before filling with the PC inks. Apparently having any leftover OEM yellow left in the sponge is sufficient to start the inevitable reaction.
I am now running the PC yellow ink from a CLI-8 Yellow flushed cart with the CLI-42 Yellow chip attached. Luckily I did not fry the head during the clog problem.
To revive the head I removed it and dropped some Windex on to the yellow inlet port and let it sit. I also soaked it and rinsed it in H2O till clear. I was very lucky indeed that the head revived itself to now perfect running order.

Joe

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

Are we sure this is dye? Is it transparent or translucent?

 

[Emulator]

Why only yellow?

 

[pharmacist]

Ironically a few years ago, I already mentioned the possibility of a phase change dye to pigment ink type, which can be printed in dye ink Canon printers, being dye in cartridge and when the droplet leaves the print nozzles of the print head, but when cured on paper, it turns into pigment and my idea about substituting the green and red ink cartridge in my previous Canon i9950 (the predecessor of the Canon Pro 9000 without chips) with grey and light grey to obtain neutral black & white printing.

It seems that Canon has somehow fulfilled my ideas into this Canon Pro-100 printer: dye based K3 ink set and supposedly a phase change type dye ink for the yellow .

 

[PeterBJ]

Here is a list of Canon ink MSDS: http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/about...sortColumn=msdsNumber&pageKeyCode=50&act=page and here is the MSDS for CLI-42Y: http://www.usa.canon.com/cpr/pdf/MSDS/IC3718_0101.pdf and for CLI-42M: http://www.usa.canon.com/cpr/pdf/MSDS/IC3717_0101.pdf and for comparison CLI-8Y: http://www.usa.canon.com/cpr/pdf/MSDS/IC1456_0404.pdf

Both the CLI-42Y and the CLI-42M are specified at a pH level of 7-9 and the composition seems the same except for different amounts for some ingredients,

For CLI-8Y a pH level of 8-10 is specified, and some ingredients are different from those used in the CLI-42 inks.

 

[mikling]

PeterBJ

I browsed through the MSDS a compositions of the two inks in question appear different in the type of dye used. Could any of the chemists here comment on the differences if they know.

Now looking further into the different dye ink, Canon does not list dye in some of them at all or in some substances that might be of color.

What shoould be noted is that I compared the CLI-251Y ink and they have the same dye family but on the 42, Glycol is listed twice and only once on the 251 ink. So it appears that for some reason, two types of glycol is used on the CLi-42Y ink and only one on the CLI-251Y ink.

That does suggest that attention be paid to the CLI-251Y unless Canon has another proprietary Glycol that is really the cause of this reaction and is used on the CLI-42Y and others that we may not know about.

 

[The Hat]

If the CLI-521 /251 yellow cartridge is affected by this same problem, I guess the safest thing to do if the print head goes bang is just dump the printer and get a new one + another free set of cartridges.

I am being the Devils advocate here but would it not be safer for anyone who has refilled their CLI-42 yellow cartridge to soak their print head in a good solution for 24 hours to remove any possible chance that this yellow gel could still damage the inside of the print head ?

 

[PeterBJ]

I wonder if the researchers at Image Specialists are now working on finding an additive that prevents the gelling, and doesn't violate Canon's patents? Has anybody told them about the problem? BTW somebody experienced in patent searching might find more clues to what Canon did to their new yellow dye inks?

 

[iPeach]

hmmm. *ponders aloud*
I wonder if an additive that prevents gelling may have an unexpected effect in the performance of the ink / across the nozzle. If this is a deliberate attempt by Canon to create the proposed phase change ink, or to increase archival properties (although - why yellow as the test bed? I don't know enough to know if yellow tends to archive more poorly!) then is there a possibility that there are other changes (print head / nozzle) that are yet undiscovered?

 

[mikling]

If the CLI-521 /251 yellow cartridge is affected by this same problem, I guess the safest thing to do if the print head goes bang is just dump the printer and get a new one + another free set of cartridges.

I am being the Devils advocate here but would it not be safer for anyone who has refilled their CLI-42 yellow cartridge to soak their print head in a good solution for 24 hours to remove any possible chance that this yellow gel could still damage the inside of the print head ?

NO at this point I would think this is exactly the wrong thing to do. We know that when small traces are exposed to water or the Canon ink is heavily diluted, the reaction occurs. So to go soaking now is to move towards that direction and invite problems.

The important thing is to minimize use of the printer, until a replacement cartridge is acquired, filled with pure refill ink and then installed with an extra head clean to get the Canon ink out. If anything, the ideal thing is this.

With the replacement cartridge and chip installed, refill with pure refill ink.
Remove the printhead and place over a paper kitchen towel or something absorbent.
Using windex with ammonia or ammonia based window cleaner, drip windex onto the intake ports of the yellow channel.
Do this until yellow ink exits the printhead and soaks into the paper towel.
Continue doing this until the yellow coming out the paper towel is heavily diluted or pale.
Thereafter, simply reinstall the printhead and cartridges and perform one extra head clean. Good time to top up and reset ALL cartridges too.
Do a nozzle check and when good do some printing to move more ink through and get all the windex out.
Your worries are over. Don't forget to toss the CLI-42Y...you know where.


The windex flushes out the Canon yellow and disables its "badness". Then the refill ink comes in and replaces it. If anything is left, the windex would have neutralized it.

If you've been affected by the Canon ink, the above procedure will take care of it. The gel particles are highly soluble in windex with ammonia and does not turn hard, it is of sufficient viscosity and gel to block the intake ports. If the windex does not absorb, then use a syringe and place it on the intake port and pull a vacuum to bring it back out. Thereafter, just dropping the windex should fix it.

The cascade solution that I mentioned before ( filtered first) will knock out the particles into solution in a flash.

So as nasty as the problem is , there is a solution to fix it without exotic measures.