Progress report on pigment ink clogging test

[barfl2]

ghwellsjr I have checked again can see the end metal bracket and gearwheel showing in your picture I assumed purge pads were soft did not realise they were ceramic I just cannot see in well enough but I think I can see the top of the rectangular one. In front of the grey ribbed plastic at the back is soft foam. The purge pads on my previous HP were coarse foam and I assumed incorrectly these would be similar. would be nice to get lid up completely for a better view but I think best to leave well alone . Anyway great article how do you get so clear pictures in such confined space ?
barfl2

 

[ghwellsjr]

Those pictures were taken while the printer was dismantled.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi ehuesman:

PGI-5 is the older non-regionalized version along with the CLI-8 cartridges. The one you are looking for is the PGI-520 (EU) which is the PGI-220 (US) and the PGI-820 (Asia).

 

[ghwellsjr]

I'm in the 11th week of testing and have a couple more things to report.

First off, a couple weeks ago I stopped testing Hobbicolors, Inktec for BCI-3eBk, and Inktec for PGI-5Bk because they are just making a mess in the bottom of the pill bottles and I can't even tell how much ink to put in them each week because the side and bottom of the pill bottles are totally coated in black gunky ink. I would avoid these inks.

Also, last week, the two Canon OEM inks started coating the sides and bottom of the pill bottles and this week the OCP ink started doing the same thing. Although the Inktec for PGI-220Bk had already started coating the sides and bottom of the pill bottom, that one ink takes many days to dry. All the others dry in about a day.

 

[ehuesman]

@ghwellsjr - In your last post, you didn't mention the two KMP inks or the IS ink you were testing, and I couldn't find anything on them since your 6-week update. Are they still being tested, and if so, how are they fairing? Thanks for all of your work on this.

@pharmacist - Thank you for clearing that up.

 

[aussierob]

ghwellsjr

This is my first post, but I am no stranger to experimental design.

Your test seems to have demonstrated a difference in the ability of the pad material to absorb various pigment inks. The take home message from these preliminary results is to use Canon OEM pigment inks if you do not wish any problems. Which in itself is not a surprise.

What is not clear is how this relates to what is actually going on in the printer. In order that others may reproduce your results, I will pose a few questions for you to consider:

1. The MP780 printer has a finite lifespan of five years according to the service manual. So what time frame of normal usage does your test similate?
2. We know the weight of ink used and thus can approximate the volume used in the deep cleaning cycle. So how many deep cleaning cycles does it simulate?
3. What volume of ink did you use in each cycle, and was this proportional to each MP780 deep cleaning cycle?
4. How does the area of pad material relate to the area used in the MP780 and other printers.

As others will look to you for guidence in ink selection and to protect yourself; I would not make any recommendations (for letigious reasons) on a public forum. I would merely present your results and let others draw their own conclusions.

 

[ghwellsjr]

@ghwellsjr - In your last post, you didn't mention the two KMP inks or the IS ink you were testing, and I couldn't find anything on them since your 6-week update. Are they still being tested, and if so, how are they fairing? Thanks for all of your work on this.

I am still testing those other inks but they are not showing anything different. My main concern was if the two Canon OEM inks continued to show no staining or clogging that it would show a significant difference between them and those other inks but since they are now exhibiting the same behavior just a few weeks later, I'm less concerned about those other inks.

 

[The Hat]

aussierob

I dont know about anyone else, but I have no idea where you are coming from at all.
Lost for words.. :|

 

[ghwellsjr]

ghwellsjr

This is my first post, but I am no stranger to experimental design.

Your test seems to have demonstrated a difference in the ability of the pad material to absorb various pigment inks. The take home message from these preliminary results is to use Canon OEM pigment inks if you do not wish any problems. Which in itself is not a surprise.

What is not clear is how this relates to what is actually going on in the printer. In order that others may reproduce your results, I will pose a few questions for you to consider:

1. The MP780 printer has a finite lifespan of five years according to the service manual. So what time frame of normal usage does your test similate?
2. We know the weight of ink used and thus can approximate the volume used in the deep cleaning cycle. So how many deep cleaning cycles does it simulate?
3. What volume of ink did you use in each cycle, and was this proportional to each MP780 deep cleaning cycle?
4. How does the area of pad material relate to the area used in the MP780 and other printers.

As others will look to you for guidence in ink selection and to protect yourself; I would not make any recommendations (for letigious reasons) on a public forum. I would merely present your results and let others draw their own conclusions.

1) The life span should at least be as long as the waste ink counter takes to reach 100%. Most of the printers I had the problems with were around 35%. My test has no correlation to actual printer usage.
2) I used a lot more ink than would be used in a cleaning cycle.
3) I put the same size square piece of pad in the bottom of each pill bottle and filled the ink up to the level of the top of that bottom pad. There could have been variations in the amount used each time.
4) The configuration of the pads in the printer was totally different than my test. In the printer, there is a plastic well about 3/16 inch high (if I remember correctly) that has no contact with any pad except at the top. The ink is deposited through a hole going through all the layers of the pads into this well. I don't know if it sits there until enough is collected to finally make contact with the bottom of the bottom pad and that starts the absorbtion process or if each injection of ink "wicks" up the sides of the plastic well and into the bottom pad. I didn't realize until after I started the test that there was a dimple in the bottom of the pill bottles that raised the bottom of the test pad off the bottom of the pill bottle but I learned that in the good inks, all the ink would soak up into the pad leaving the bottom of the pill bottle completely clean, at least for several weeks. One of the printers that I bought used and never put my Inktec ink into was dismantled and the well was absolutely clean. It was so unlike any of the other printers that had the Inktec ink in them.

The purpose of my test was to find a good replacement for the Inktec BCI-3eBk ink and to see if they had fixed the problem in their PGI-5Bk ink, clearly, they had not. But their new PGI-220 is so unlike their earlier inks and all other inks, I'm quite sure that they realized they had a problem and came up with a good solution to fix it. I'm amazed how long it takes for that ink to dry out. The real test would be to use it in a printer for a long time but unfortunately, the only way I can buy it in the USA costs twice as much as their other inks which are already twice as much as other brands of ink, so I don't think I will be trying it in a printer.

Thanks for asking your questions and if you or anyone else has more questions, ask away.