mailing refilled 221 oem cartridges

[mrelmo]

ok i know i asked this last year sometime, but maybe there is a better idea since then. most of my refilling has been for family that is local, but now i have a relative that is residing out of state and i will be mailing refilled 221s to them. So what are the issues or best way to mail the cartridges and not have them leak do to changing atmospheric pressures, during transit. I am using the orange after market clips for storage after i refill a cartridge, also i do the top fill with plugs. my latest idea is to use the clips, tape the vent maze closed then use a vacuum sealing machine, not to suck the air out just to get an air tight seal. any thoughts, or what have other people been doing. thanks​

 

[mikling]

Your best bet is to skip the vacuum. The storage clips will seal the bottom. The vent maze exit should be sealed with something like aluminum tape that is known to seal well. Roll the edge or fold over to make a removal tab. Do not use the vacuum seal because if the storage clip or aluminum tape fails, it will force the ink out. If no vacuum is applied, even if the tape or clip seals fails, the chance of ink coming out is small. Place each cartridge into an individual plastic bag. Sealing bag, would be helpful...I would not vacuum seal it.

 

[The Hat]

When mailing any of mine when full, I don’t take any special precautions, just pop them into a Bubble lined bag and just post them, mine have never leaked on arrival yet !

 

[mrelmo]

thanks each one will go in a seperate ziplock bag with foil tape over the maze

 

[ghwellsjr]

Put a good seal on the outlet port but leave the air vent open. That's what it's for: to allow air pressure differences to balance the inside of the cartridge with the outside. If you do put tape on the air vent, you better hope that it is not a better seal than the seal on the outlet port because if it is, what will happen is that you will get ink leaking out of the outlet port. Best to leave the air vent open and let it do its job properly.

This also applies to stored cartridges: leave the air vent open. As a test, I left a new cartridge with the original air vent tape removed but the orange outlet port cover intact (never removed) and even after a couple years, there was no evaporation of ink and the reservoir was as full as brand new.

 

[mikling]

With air vent open. If during travel, the carts ends up in an unpressurised area, the air left inside the reservoir will expand and force the ink out of the reservoir. The displaced ink will then leak out any port and naturally by the vent maze.

By sealing the vent maze port as well, we isolate the remaining air inside the reservoir from these pressures.
The only volume displacement that would result from the loss of pressure would be the expansion/flexure of the plastic walls of the cartridge and this would be a lot less than the expansion of the air left in the reservoir in the alternate situation.

It's not the evaporation that is the main issue.

 

[ghwellsjr]

There's no tape that will hold up against the cartridge being unpressurized.

My comment regarding evaporation had to do with long-term storage of cartridges.

When I get a chance, I will seal some "full" cartridges (some air left in the reservoir) and put them in a vacuum chamber to see what happens.

 

[mikling]

Ha Ha Get ready.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I cannot find a product called Aluminum Tape. Is that the same as Foil Tape for duct sealing?

 

[mrelmo]

yes that is the foil tape that everyone is talking about, when items are mailed and i assume that at some point they may go via cargo plane in an unpressurizer cabin, so say at what 20,000 ft what is the difference in pressure than at sea level, i think this is my concern