Old ink?

[stratman]

Canon technical support told me there is a 2 year shelf life for sealed (never opened) cartridges. The ink may still be usable but no guarantees on color accuracy after that time period.

 

[jack in the uk]

I have seen this before regarding yellow ink, dont ask me why the stuff does look a tint or tad orange

if you have a clear bottle or ink and hold it to the light its yellow or orange(ish) - i have couple old bottle of ink thats been in my draw for donkeys and they are now slightly different ie they seem to have darkened

Couple months ago i took a drop of each on to an A4 sheet and smeared the drop with a cotton bud - thinking ermmmm

Perfect i assure you yellow bright as - so my call is try it and see, test a colour filled yellow box and them maybe a picture and see if all well? Carry on. You soon see if the prints are good or not

 

[websnail]

Perhaps the best analogy here is paint in the tin vs' paint on the walls vs' dried paint on the walls...

There are differences in solution, on a surface and once applied and dried... Yellow is always a fun one with folks regularly checking with me asking why they have two magentas...

 

[ghwellsjr]

It is not uncommon, as Grandexp pointed out, in a printer that has been sitting idle for a very long time, which is probably the case with these two printers, for ink to migrate out of one cartridge, through the print head nozzles, on to the purge pad where the print head parks and up through the nozzles of another color, up through the print head and into the cartridge. I would simply put good yellow cartridges in the printers and watch them on a daily basis and see if any contamination occurs. You will see it first at the outlet port. If it happens, just do a cleaning cycle and hope that fixes it. It's possible that the print heads have an internal leak between two colors and that may be why these printers were offered for free.

But I doubt that the Canon inks change when they get old. I know that sealed OEM cartridges don't visibly change even after many years (I have seven such carts). And I know that empty yellow cartridges don't change color in the left-over ink in the sponge (I have many dozens of such carts). Of course the definitive test would be to unseal a yellow cart and leave it exposed to air for several years to see if it changes color. I suppose that as air evaporates the water out of the cartridge, it could leave the remaining ink a darker shade of color but this would also cause the ink in the reservoir to go down and you said the carts were nearly full.

Well, I've started a test. I've unsealed two of my old Canon yellow cartridges and removed the orange cap from one of them. Both are upright. Check back here in a few years to see what happened.

 

[stratman]

Well, I've started a test. I've unsealed two of my old Canon yellow cartridges and removed the orange cap from one of them. Both are upright. Check back here in a few years to see what happened.

Can you speed that up a bit? Some of us don't buy green bananas anymore.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Well, I've started a test. I've unsealed two of my old Canon yellow cartridges and removed the orange cap from one of them. Both are upright. Check back here in a few years to see what happened.

The first part of the test is complete and it only took a little over 4 months. The cartridge from which I removed the orange cap is almost depleted of ink in the reservoir while the other cartridge shows no difference from when I unsealed the cartridges. I didn't make it clear in my original post but I also removed the tape from the air vent on both cartridges.

So what this shows is the exposed outlet port acts as a good wick to evaporate moisture from the cartridge. This mean that you want to make sure your outlet port is well sealed when you store your cartridges. And for the same reason you don't want to seal the air vent as that can force ink out of the outlet port.

I plan to continue this test to see if the cartridge with the orange cap in place ever shows any evidence of evaporation of the moisture in the ink. I'm predicting that the serpentine air path with the three wells designed to let the cartridge breathe during the daily air pressure cycles will show no reduction in the ink level in the reservoir for several years if at all.

 

[lin]

ghwellsjr, for me I would seal the air vent (or rather air inlet hole as I would call normally call it), sealing it doesn't force ink out of the outlet port if the orange cap is put in place.

Ink that is expose to air for a long period of time, will changes it's (don't know what term to call it) state/properties (probably the surface tension or something) . Which is why they cling to the cartridge plastic a bit longer than the cartridge ink which is newer/fresh if you attempt to stir/shake the cartridge.

I had ink place inside a small cylinder plastic container which I kept as sample. But due to the plastic covers not being air tight, after sometime when I took out the small container I notice that when I stirred the container, the ink took much longer to come down. I think this was mentioned long time ago by a member who also observe that his/her ink cling to the cartridge plastic, taking slightly a bit longer to slide against the plastic wall to come down.

So I would seal the air vent unless I had a airtight storage to minimize the long exposure of air for ink cartridge I am not going to use for sometime or if I had intention of storing the ink cartridge for a longer period.

The serpentine air path to me is to control/regulate the rate at which the air enter the ink chamber during the exchange of ink and air when the sponge absorb the ink and air enter the ink chamber during printing/refilling. (The ink and air exchange path that I am referring to is the grooves at the cartridge plastic in between the sponge and ink chamber). The air that enter the ink chamber acts as a downward pressure as ink get absorb into the sponge.

Without the serpentine air path, ink would get exchange much faster/readily into the sponge chamber (not referring to those flush cartridge that has not be conditioned because they had a difficult in absorbing the ink without being flush with the condition solution which pharmacist introduces).

When canon original cartridges seals the air vent, apart from keeping the state or freshness of the ink, it's also for transportation purpose. So that during transportation, the ink inside the ink change don't get push into the sponge.

Now you try to toss/throw a brand new seal canon cartridge on the floor (not those that you had refilled and tape it yourself), you will see that the ink from the ink chamber don't pushes into the sponge that much. But if you tried one canon cartridges that has the vent hole seal/tape remove and try to drop the ink cartridge to the floor, you will notice some part of the ink get push into the sponge as air enter into the ink chamber.

Lastly, I had canon CLI-8Y yellow from year 2006 or 2007 opened and use a bit then seal tight for storage without any change of ink color. So I don't think the canon ink color changes as well. But recently I received a Canon Yellow cartridge and immediately I notice the yellow looking darker than what I am normally see for CLI-8Y. It's Dark yellow. It's almost as if wrong yellow/formulation has been filled for CLI-8Y. The first thought i had was contamination because there is no other explanation for the different color for original canon CLI-8Y. But it doesn't show sign of contamination. Because if it's contamination, you would see at the filter exit port some darker ink (probably black/cyan etc). The ink inside the sponge and ink chamber looks uniform and doesn't look in anyway contaminated at all. I also had no explanation for the different color.

 

[ghwellsjr]

OK, lin, how about if I start another test? I'll take another brand new Canon cartridge and leave the air vent seal on it but remove the orange cap and then put it back on holding it in place with a rubber band. Is that how you attach it or do use tape or something else?

I disagree with your idea that the serpentine air path has anything to do with ink flow. The rate of ink/air flow is so slight that the serpentine air path can have any effect. Can you think of a test that would prove your idea? If you drilled a hole in the top of the cartridge to make a difference, what test would you perform to see if that had any effect on the ink/air flow inside the cartridge?

 

[The Hat]

Speaking of sealing the air maze is it right or wrong to leave it sealed or unsealed, read on.

I top fill my cartridges and never intentionally sealed the air maze during or after the refill
and would leave them like that exposed on the shelf ready for use till I needed.

I dont exactly know how long they spend there because I dont always use them in order so
it could be 10 days or 10 weeks and I did not had a problem with any of them, but yet something happened.

I have on previous occasions used an 1 piece of rubber tube to seal the bottom outlet hole (thanks to Tom Hock )
which was very successful and it also covered the air maze as well as the outlet hole,
(I taught Great) what significance does that have you may ask.

The only time that three of my cartridges ever leaked ink from the top (air maze) was while I was using these rubber tubes
instead of the usual orange clips for sealing the ends, my cartridges they are always stored upright by the way.

I put it down to the fact that the tubes done such a good job sealing both ends of the cartridge at the same time
that for some reason it didnt allow the cartridges to breath naturally. (Speculation)?

This ink got out of the air maze by capillary action, vaporising action or some other action (I havent got a clue)
but the top of the cartridge was covered in ink under the rubber seal and also right along the top,
the bottom half of the cartridge was unaffected and stayed clean (still sealed).

I stopped using the tubing immediately after Id found the leaks and havent had the problem occur since,
so my answer now is to make sure I dont seal the air maze again accidently or otherwise.

 

[stratman]

The Hat:

Barometric/Thermometer effect?