Intake seal wear issues?

[websnail]

Would it not be better then when adding any washers to accomplish a better seal,
to actually put them underneath the excising OEM rubber seal itself,
height restrictions would apply of course ?

Tried that... the rubber skirt was still under more pressure and stress... As I indicated it wasn't particularly empiric in terms of research so pinch/salt required and the silicon shims I was using were limited in terms of size so there's may be a way of achieving the desired effect.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

No wonder you had problems if you used silicon seals. Silicone would probably work much better.

However, as you pointed out, the seal needs to be hard enough to prevent movement and maintain contact between cartridge and print head needs, but for CIS it also needs to be flexible to accommodate movement without leaking. This seems to be a contradiction(!), which suggests an inherent difficulty in making a trouble-free CIS.

If the feed tubes are allowed to put any stress on the cartridges and transmit any motion to the cartridges, then this will also stress the seals. It seems to me, the feed tubes should be anchored directly to the print head carriage, to avoid transmitting motion to the cartridges.

 

[Grandad35]

One time, after servicing a printhead, I reinstalled the cartridges WITHOUT those inlet seals and the printer worked perfectly. I did not notice that the seals were missing until I found them in a little cup I had placed them in. This was on my Pro9000.
This tells me that the printer can work WITHOUT the seal sealing.

Interesting observation!! So it appears that the "seals" may actually be "pseudo-seals" whose main function is to block free air convection to minimize drying on the bottom surface of the filter and the top surface of the ink pickup? It makes sense that ink's surface tension is is capable of pulling ink from the filter even if only the center portion of the filter is in contact with the ink pickup and the rest of the filter is exposed to the atmosphere, and that a seal isn't necessary to keep the ink flowing as long as the "ink link" is kept intact.

When using single use OEM carts (Canon's design point), even if the filter gets clogged around the ink pickup it's no big deal since the cart will be discarded after it empties and the new cart will have a clean filter.

When refilling, it might be a good idea to blow into the vent on the sponge side (with paper towels under the cart, obviously) before installing a new cart to force several drops of ink to flow from the surface of the filter and provide a cleaning action. Obviously, purging a cart will put the filter back into like-new condition, and this may be the main reason that periodic purging is required by some people (those who have relatively low ink usage and don't change carts very often?).

This also points out a potential reason why getting a CIS to operate properly on a Canon printer is so difficult; a near-perfect seal must be formed between each cart's exit and the print head in order to generate the vacuum required to pull ink from the CIS bulk containers. It is obvious that Canon's original rubber seals and the bottom surfaces of the carts are not designed to provide the seal quality required for a CIS, even though they are perfectly adequate for use with replaceable carts.

 

[The Hat]

This also points out a potential reason why getting a CIS to operate properly on a Canon printer is so difficult;
a near-perfect seal must be formed between each cart's exit and the print head in order to generate the vacuum required to pull ink from the CIS bulk containers.

Good point, its for that very reason you have to use your CISS almost daily to prevent the ink
from migrating back into the container bottles and empting the cartridge of all ink.

 

[Smile]

If one has a printer that the print head is out of warranty (BTW how many years does canon now give warranty?) you could use a good quality epoxy glue and make the inlets in the print head something like epson has. I mean you could glue hard plastic tubes to ink inlets, then it would be far more easy to connect silicone tubes then to fight with proper seal.

If anyone attempts this make sure the plastic material is glueable, not some PP, or other hard to glue plastics.

 

[barfl2]

It would appear that a lot of forum members including several very experienced ones concur on the probable reasons Canon printers do not accept CIS systems very readily.

How then does aaa get his interesting home made system to work ? I have probably missed some obvious design point, I have not studied it closely.

 

[The Hat]

It would appear that a lot of forum members including several very experienced ones concur on the probable reasons Canon printers do not accept CIS systems very readily.

How then does aaa get his interesting home made system to work ? I have probably missed some obvious design point, I have not studied it closely.

CISS systems do work quite well in most Canon printers but not all, dont quote me on that.
It will all depend on how good and careful the system was installed in the first place.

A set of refilled OEMs are a safer option by far, (My opinion) because you can control your output much better than a CISS can
and you also have the added bonus of not wanting to pull all your hair out every time the wheels come off..

You have to look after both ends at the same time and its a never ending job
like babysitting in hell, hence the hair loss..

 

[Grandad35]

If one has a printer that the print head is out of warranty (BTW how many years does canon now give warranty?) you could use a good quality epoxy glue and make the inlets in the print head something like epson has. I mean you could glue hard plastic tubes to ink inlets, then it would be far more easy to connect silicone tubes then to fight with proper seal.

There's no need to glue the tubing - 3/16" vinyl tubing slides snugly over the ink pickup. If you remove the rubber seals, you can get a fair length of tubing to engage over each ink pickup. You can use a short piece of vinyl tubing for each ink and glue/seal the silicone tubes into them - this would allow the tubes to be easily removed without damaging the print head.

Of course, all of the standard warnings apply about getting the pressure balance on the CIS supply just right to keep ink from leaking out of the print head or the prime from being lost.

 

[The Hat]

Nice try Grandad35, but I dont think it would last five minutes without been ripped out when it snags on something its not suppose too,
theres not very much room inside a Canon printer.
Just my two cent worth..

 

[Smile]

Vinyl tubing does not hold seals tight, it keeps it's form once it has been stretched for some time.
If the tubing used would be like EPSON uses in it's purge units, light grey color outside, black inside. Two layer not silicone tubing only 3/16 diameter (4mm) then that should provide better sealing than vinyl.

Anyone know what that tubing is called?