My MAXIFY 5350 is on refill ink

[palombian]

Hi @steven.va

My idea indeed is to save the waste pad.
I suspect the priming after cartridge change consumes a considerable amount of ink (will weigh the magenta when I change the other carts).
OTH why worry since with OEM carts it would be at least as much.

From what I know now I admit @mikling has a point with his "forget the chips".
The ARC's give you the nice feeling to have a well managed printer, but since they do not indicate the real level, you can as well leave the one-time chips with a 'X' and refill all carts at once every 1500-2000p (there is for sure ink monitoring in the printhead, but I didn't risk to provoke this, there have been some rumors about unresettable errors in particular on later models - strange, what is the advantage then ?).
The larger capacity, together with the ease of refilling are a real advantage of the "new chinese carts" over refilling the OEM's.

I did not explore refilling OEM's further, but when you have 2 sets of carts, place ARC's on them, and seal the ink outlet and the air entrance (pierced by the needle in the printhead) after refilling, you can mimic buying OEM carts as we used to do with other printers, wich may be handy for people who do not want to hassle with refilling themselves (although I would try to put more than 19ml in the CMY).

The slight problem with the cyan has nearly disappeared, it happens from time to time on the first lines of the first print of the day, so probably linked to the cartridge filling. Will see after refill.

Octopus office also sells the Inktec ink for Maxify, only in liter bottles at €29.99/l.
https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/...r-canon-pgi-1500-pgi-2500-schwarz-pigmentiert

Since I will never print that much I ordered their own brand claiming better colours (€24.99/500ml BK and 3x €19.49/250ml CMY).
Enough for 15-20k pages and 3-4 years of printing (ideal shelf time is 2y but longer in real life).
The colours are indeed very bright and can produce a wide gamut with only 4 inks.

https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/...500-yellow-pigmentiert?number=CP250YP2&c=4108

Greetings

 

[steven.va]

Hi,

There could be another advantage of filling multiple colour cartridges at the same time:

Here is my tought / speculation.

When a big cleaning cycle is run, with a new -say a Y cartridge inserted ....
...doesn't that suck also color out all of the other color (CM) cartridges?

When looking at a Canon print head. you have BK nozzles and have CMY nozzles.
These two blocks of nozzles are grouped (BK + CMY).
If there is a pump in Maxify it can only purge either BK or CMY. But if it's CMY
then it will do all three colors at the same time?

I am not sure it can purge an individual color.

What do you guys think?

Anyway, either way will work great. At worst the cleaning cycles it will be just like "oem performance".

Happy 2018!


8<------------------------Aftertought---------------------------------------------------------

Probably not easy, maybe too difficult / but just a tought I had for Canon/Epson/HP:

Maybe Canon should develop the "Waste Ink Recycling System (tm)"
Like Brother does on some laser printers (waste toner on drum is put back into main toner cart)
Of course it would not be that easy to implement for inkjet I think.
And you have to engineer a way to put the ink back into the cart. You have to re-engineer a new cartridge and printer for it. And you would need to design a print head that can be suck C M Y separate. It would be easier for just the BK color to implement it I think.

But still...

 

[palombian]

As usual, most probably there is one purge pump for all the nozzles.

Happy Newyear !

 

[The Hat]

I am not sure it can purge an individual color.

These Canon printers have only 1 purge unit, so purge 1 colour, purge all, and Canon are not about to change that system, they benefit hugely from ink sales...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Maybe Canon should develop the "Waste Ink Recycling System (tm)"

Too late - just get a waste ink potty

http://www.printerpotty.com/

and refill that ink back into the black ink cartridge, but that is more a dark gray than a real black because the mix of inks including a light yellow don't give you a good black anymore.

 

[palombian]

HAPPY NEWYEAR to you all !

It would be nice when in 2018 more readers of this thread report their own experiences with the

Canon MAXIFY printer series.

Strengths:

- relativily inexpensive
- pigment inks, no fading (also the refill inks)
- fast start
- fast printing
- low running costs (even with Canon ink)
- excellent print quality
- network and cloud connectivity
- two sided printing standard on all models
- one-pass two sided scan on higher models
- large (refillable) ink cartridges
- ink flow monitoring protects printhead

Weaknesses:

- size
- noisy paper feed (slower low-noise setting possible)
- no borderless printing
- no single sheet feeder (for an occasional envelope)
- no replaceable waste ink container
- no resetter (use ARC or one-time chips - or read on)
- strict procedure to change cartridges (not a major problem, but read on)
- nozzle checks only from cassette 1 (do not print nice on envelopes)

Opportunities:

- better than expected for photos

Threats:

- new firmwares blocking refill

Models:

2050 2150 1 paper tray, small cartridges
2350 2750 2 paper trays, small cartridge
5050 5150 1 paper tray, large cartridges
5350 5450 2 paper trays, large cartridges
4050 4150 printer only, 2 paper trays, large cartridges

small cartridge = PGI-1500XL, 34.7ml BK (1200p), 12ml color ( 900-1000p)
large cartridge = PGI-2500XL, 70.9ml BK (2500p), 19.3ml color (1300-1500p)

 

[stratman]

Well done, @palombian !

Happy New Year to you and all the folks at PrinterKnowledge.

 

[steven.va]

Maybe also under Strength:
- Two sided printing standard on all models.

I tried it, and find it very fast. The dry time is very short to non-existant before page in taken back into the printer

Greetings

 

[Redbrickman]

Despite what you woud expect from an "office" targeted printer with limited number ink colours the Maxify can produce a pleasing photographic print. Give it a try if you own one and you may be surprised just how good it turns out

 

[nickb]

What's the better option for photo printing, one of the Maxify models (with PC or Octo pigmented ink) or one of the Epson eco-tank printers (ET-3700/ET7700)? Seems the OEM Epson ink is priced competitively against the 3rd party options for the Canon.