Problem with MIS ink

[Darth]

I had a Canon I950 printer and have been using MIS inks for some time (4 oz bottles). Lately, I started having color problems and discovered that my black ink had seperated. MIS said this can happen if the ink is "old" (My ink was over a year old). I ordered a new bottle of black. Next my Photo Cyan started stopping up the syringe with long stringy "snot". I stupidly tried to save it by filtering through a coffee filter, which seemed to work for a while, but finally stopped up my print head.

I tried every suggestion I could find to clean the print head from hot water, to compressed air, to rubbing alcohol to no avail. In desparation, I bought a can of denatured alcohol (not noticing on the label that it contained some Ketone) and it cleaned the nozzles I guess, but it also eliminated the printed circuit on the print head.

Instead of buying a new, expensive printhead, I decided to purchased a new Canon IP5000. I am considering Formlab ink, but I think that I should only buy smaller quantities if the inks fail with age.

 

[Nifty]

Wow.... I can really picture the "long stringy "snot" from your post... ewww!! I can't imagine having stuff in my ink that is so thick that it actually plugs my syringe. Yes, I'd agree that a plugged syringe is definitely a sign to toss the ink.

Yes, with whichever supplier you purchase from I suggest asking them to send it to you in smaller sealed bottles than one big bottle.

BTW, bummer about the printhead and VERY good info / warning about the denatured alcohol!!!

 

[drc023]

From what I've seen, the 'long stringy snot' is a problem with PC ink regardless of who manufacturers it. I've used Formulabs ink for a very long time. I had a 16oz bottle which took some time to use up and it indeed developed a problem with the stuff. I have a supply of smaller bottles and extracted the ink from the larger bottle with a fine syringe and put it in the smaller containers. The purpose was to eliminate excess exposure to air. It took a while to get rid of the "strings' but nearly all the ink was salvaged. Since the foam in the cartridges acts as a filter it didn't seem to cause any more problems. I used that ink in an older s820 and i950. I've never been a fan of PC or PM and that's one of the reasons I like my iP4000 so much. It doesn't use those two inks. There is a thread here in nifty-stuff which goes into detail about this problem. For quite sometime the general belief was that it is caused by an algae growth, but one of our regulars pointed out that it's more likely due to a polymer problem. I can't remember any more details, but with a little reviewing of the older threads you should be able to find it.