My MAXIFY 5350 is on refill ink

[palombian]

How are the nozzle tests.. do you see significant banding on some (or all) colours?.
Mine are perfect for black, magenta and yellow but cyan shows banding. It doesn't improves with cleaning but, at least, it hasn't gone worse during the last months.
As real life prints on standard quality are fine and I seldom print in colour with my MB5150, I'm not concerned.
All the same, my next purchase of ink won't be Inktec, but GI-56 bottles. In fact, I'm more or less forced to purchase OEM, because my usual supplier of Inktec inks seems to have disappeared.

P.S.
For what it seems, practically all people here who used third party ink on a Maxify has experienced problems sooner or later. Usually starting with mild banding in the nozzle checks, sometimes progressing to more severe issues: i.e. a dead printhead ( that’s me ).

We need somebody with a ‘virgin’ printhead that hasn’t seen anything else but OEM ink from the setup carts and afterwards GI-56 ink, This is the only way to tell for sure if this bottled Canon ink is a reasonably safe bet for the health of the printheads.

BK PFI-701BK, C+Y GI-56, M octopus-office.de (as all others before)

 

[The Hat]

This is what I have..
click to enlarge..

The problem I have is my black which has a half dozen holes that effects text, and the magenta is having issues with a compatible cart and 3rd party ink, my other OEM magenta cart is leaking..

New Cartridge is in the post..

 

[palombian]

This is what I have..
View attachment 13460 click to enlarge..

The problem I have is my black which has a half dozen holes that effects text, and the magenta is having issues with a compatible cart and 3rd party ink, my other OEM magenta cart is leaking..

New Cartridge is in the post..

Strange enough with me the magenta channel never failed and still is pristine, while it never saw other ink than octopus-office.de.

 

[palombian]

I printed today a manual of 457 pages (double side, the page counter on the nozzle check counts 230 sheets).
Mostly text, with some pictures an text in colour.
Also refilled the cyan, had to do 2 cleaning cycles afterwards (as most of the time).
Actual nozzle check with 600 dpi (sorry seems this forum compresses a lot).
The upper cyan row has some irregularities from the beginning, but it does not show on prints.

 

[Artur5]

Your nozzle check is way better than mine (see pictures below) and probably than those from other Maxify users here.
That's encouraging for people like me, who are considering to replace their current third party inks with GI-56 OEM bottles.

I have news from one of my autoreset chips. Months ago, magenta and cyan chips didn't reset back to full after being declared empty and the cartridge refilled and reinstalled. They reported less than half of the real level and have stayed so until Yesterday. I was printing a document and suddenly a message appeared on screen saying that the magenta ink level couldn't be detected. No error, instead of a yellow warning or red X, just a question mark.
I replaced that magenta cart with the one from my second set and I weighted the first cart. Still had a bit on ink, not much, around 3 ml.
My guess is that the chip reported empty but the ink control chamber of the printhead saw ink flowing normally, so my Maxify was puzzled and decided that the chip was bonkers (and maybe it is .. ). It's the first time that this happens to me, but I seem to recall that other Maxify users have already reported a similar behavior from those autoreset chips.
It will be interesting to see what happens when I reinstall back the first cart. Logically it should be still in 'unknown' condition, because it hasn't been declared empty but, who knows...

 

[palombian]

Did you clean the chip contacts yet ?

 

[Artur5]

They looked totally clean but yes, I cleaned them with isoprop. alcohol. Anyway, I didn't bother to put that cart back in the printer because I already have installed my second magenta cart.
When that second cart runs out of ink, I'll see what happens with the 'weird' chip of the first one

 

[palombian]

@Artur5 , there were times my cyan nozzles were as bad as yours.
I used ink from an expired 701C cart for a while and it enhanced.
Since GI-56 is available I use this, obviously it is better.

 

[The Hat]

I'll see what happens with the 'weird' chip of the first one

The delays with everything because of Covid means I still haven’t got my new Maxify print head or magenta carts yet, and I won’t try anything till
I get the new head installed and refill the other 3 carts to start afresh. Feck what the chips says about ink levels..

there were times my cyan nozzles were as bad as yours.
I used ink from an expired 701C cart for a while and it enhanced.

P.S. I found when I switched to OEM inks it was better than a laxative for cleaning out old bits of dried ink from the nozzles too..

 

[Artur5]

As you can see in the enlarged photo, the cyan bands in the nozzle check of my printhead show noticeable irregularities but, fact is that real prints, even at standard quality setting, show no visible defects at all.

Now I have no more Inktec cyan or magenta inks. Time to purchase GI-56 bottles I guess.
I can get them at 21.5€ each ( free shipping for two or more bottles). Good price ?