Purge unit clogs with Hobbicolors pigment black ink

[ghwellsjr]

Did you just get this problem recently? There were some discussions about this dated several years back. I believe it was something in the past if it ever existed. I have been using Hobbicolors ink for at least 2 years and I use a lot in a dozen or so of new/old Canon printers. I don't believe ever got a problem with any purge unit. The printers are used by many employees and I did have a number of issues and had to replace a few print heads. I do not blame the ink though. Some of the printers have printed boxes and boxes of pages and keep going strong.

If you ever had the problem with any of the printers you supplied ink to, you would not forget. It kills the printer. If you never had to replace one of those printers because the pigment black ink would no longer print and couldn't be fixed with a new print head or cleaning, then you never had the problem.

But the question is why can some people, like you, have no problem and other people do have problems? The answer may have been provided by Tin Ho in post #2 where he told us about his conversation with Dave from Hobbicolors:

I was also told, and this is something to pay attention to, is that their black pigment ink has evolved for many generations through different sources over the years. The evolution was driven by quality improvement. He said to me that their latest black pigment ink is made in Mexico by a US company which set up the factory there. I was assured that the quality of the ink is top rated. Dave said in fact that US company makes OEM inks for printer manufacturers. I could not get details of which ink for which brand of printers. At that point I had reasons to believe the company is Sensient Technologies, a very large US corporation indeed. It is the company that made Formulabs inks in the past marketed by Alotofthings. Of course this is unconfirmed. Dave did not tell me the name of this US company.

Dave admits that he continually changes his supplier of pigment black ink. Maybe you mostly got good stuff. Maybe the bottle I used in my test was from a bad batch. Maybe you buy his ink in large bottles and Dave always uses one supplier for large bottles. Maybe the smaller bottles are always from a different supplier that has the problem. Maybe the large bottles are always from a later supplier and maybe he is using up older inferior supplies in the smaller bottles. Maybe the people who run the printers you maintain never tell the printer they are printing on plain paper. Maybe they always specify a photo paper (which doesn't use pigment ink). Maybe you, like me, used a lot of Windex to keep the nozzles clean. I did not have the problem on my printer, it was all the other printers at other locations that had the problem.

We'll never know the details about Hobbicolors suppliers, because Dave will not disclose them, but we do know that pigment black ink he supplies is a moving target. I'm sure that in his quest to improve the product, he is concerned about the quality of the printout. How dark is it? Does it clog the nozzles in the print head? Does the ink smear on plain paper when water is dripped on it after it has dried? Does a highlighter smear the printout?

But does it ever occur to anyone to be concerned about whether the waste ink absorber pads will clog with the ink? In my tests, it is obvious that none of the third party inks came close to the Canon BCI-3eBk ink in this regard. Canon, of course, had to be concerned about this issue in their design not only of the ink, but of the printer and its absorbent pads. By the way, I also found that the Inktec ink also clogged the foam in the cartridge if it is ever allowed to dry out. Maybe you never had these problems because you never let the ink dry out in the cartridges. Maybe your printers never clogged because they were used much more often and the waste ink never dried out.

By the way, did any of your printers ever reach a full waste ink condition? If they did, what did you do about it?

 

[turbguy]

I drill the recommended size hole for hobbicolors plugs, and clean our the flash around the hole with slight reaming using the recommended bit. It's still a struggle at times. It's a close fit requirement. If hobbicolors were to provide a larger plug, such as from Octoink, that would be fine with me. The blind hole in the center of alternate plugs certainly helps to enable holding the plugs for insertion with a pin (or equal), and makes the plug more compliant, too.

Does Dave at hobbicolors read this forum? He should....

Wayne

 

[turbguy]

Better watch out for Hobbicolors Pigment Black. After 6 months of service on my MP730, I experienced SOLID clogs in the purge unit (the type you have to clean out with hard instruments, not flushing) and gelling of the pigment ink on the waste pads.....so much so that they would not absorb waste ink....

Also, ever notice the Hobbicolor plugs are hard to get out/get re-inserted?? I guess that's the price of a good seal. If someone would make a removal/insertion tool for them, that would really help.

Wayne

Did you just get this problem recently? There were some discussions about this dated several years back. I believe it was something in the past if it ever existed. I have been using Hobbicolors ink for at least 2 years and I use a lot in a dozen or so of new/old Canon printers. I don't believe ever got a problem with any purge unit. The printers are used by many employees and I did have a number of issues and had to replace a few print heads. I do not blame the ink though. Some of the printers have printed boxes and boxes of pages and keep going strong.

The plugs from Hobbicolors are just fine. If you have problems you may need to review how you drill the cartridge. If the hole drilled is too small you will have some struggle with them.

I suffered the problem about a year and a half ago. Thank goodness I was able to find detailed disassembly instructions on line for the MP730. Without that, the printer would be toast. Even with the disassembly instructions, one of the 12 ribbon cables that required disconnection required rework, as a piece of one foil curled up on re-insertion into one socket, and produced a repeatable print head problem (repeating pattern of missing lines in a service test print grid). I had to trim about 1 mm from the damaged ribbon and reinsert it. The printer worked fine (full grid) afterwards.

Perhaps hobbicolors has changed the formulation of the pigment black ink, and the absorbancy test for their current product should be repeated?

Wayne

 

[jimbo123]

5 year recap with more details:

- 100% Hobbicolors ink, German Method, squeeze bottles, w resetter
- 50,000 pages printed
- MP830 #1 died after 22,000 pages (waste pad utilization at 76%)
- MP830 #2 still going strong at 28,000 pages (waste pad utilization at 68%)
- on second print head
- no purge unit clogging issues

- CLI8 - Black, original cart, refilled 32 times
- CLI8 - Yellow, original cart, refilled 42 times
- CLI8 - Magenta, original cart, refilled 46 times
- CLI8 - Cyan, original cart, refilled 45 times
- PGI5 - Black 149 refills, on third PGI5, never purged. one PGI5 made it to 82 refills.

the CLI8's are 5 years old, all original, pretty amazing they outlasted first printer, still going strong.

PGI5s and CLI8s never purged, have had no purge unit issues.

have started 3 others refilling MX860/870s, all using Hobbicolors ink, also no purge unit issues.

J

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Printers: Canon MP830, IP4500, MX700, MX860, MX870, MP980
Method: German Durchstich Method
Ink: Hobbicolors ink, PMT-BK, UW8
Misc: Squeeze bottles - so much easier than syringes

 

[stratman]

5 year recap with more details:

You should post this on the top filler thread.

 

[ghwellsjr]

- MP830 #1 died after 22,000 pages (waste pad utilization at 76%)

Died? Of what?

 

[jimbo123]

logic board in MP830 #1 died.

it caught an error code 6500 or 6A00. worked with canon support, new logic board was more than i had paid for the canon refurbished MP830.

given that the waste pad was at 76% utilization, i passed on the new logic board. i just moved over the print head and ink carts to a spare MP830, was back printing in under 5 min.

i had loaded up on a several spare refurbished MP830s back in the day, $69, $89, price range, slightly more than the 5 ink carts alone.

last count was 314 ink cart refills over 5 years, spread over 7 ink carts(4 orig CLI8s, and 3 PGI5s)

J

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Printers: Canon MP830, IP4500, MX700, MX860, MX870, MP980
Method: German Durchstich Method
Ink: Hobbicolors ink, PMT-BK, UW8
Misc: Squeeze bottles - so much easier than syringes

 

[websnail]

First off, I'd like it noted that the testosterone noted earlier in this thread was not sourced from me and much as I'd love to claim it was manufactured carefully in a fully professional fab, under the care of highly trained gnomes, it's more likely subcontracted to the tooth fairy on a piece rate...

Absurdity and other silliness aside I'd like to interject that there have been instances when other inks have shown similar issues but a critical point of this post though is that a whole heap of issues and variables are being missed.

1. Inks develop over time so ink X from 2006 may not be ink X 2012 (especially if you don't have supplier, batch, order code info')
2. There can be batches of ink that can have a "bad day"
3. Environmental factors exist (heat, humidity)
4. Additional factors such as time between prints, whether the bottle was shaken (to reduce settling issues) or similar have not been discussed..

Ironically the KMP stuff I have in does have this rep' for being better with regard to waste ink clogging but there are other questions about colour matching, etc... so nothing is ever 110% (mainly because there's no room for an extra 10%).


... and as to the whole "won't disclose suppliers" stuff. Seriously? It's nice for us tech heads to know where things are coming from but from experience if people know you're selling brand X, they'll look for the cheapest option unless your customer support, returns policy, etc... is better (I am well aware of this following a gentle learning curve). Such factors tend only to gain in importance once a customer has rediscovered the wheel design, so as a business proposition it's not ideal. So perhaps consider trust issues and talk to your therapists. If you don't trust, don't buy... but if you do buy cheap, remember the various old proverbs, sayings, etc... peanuts, monkeys...

 

[Tin Ho]

1. Inks develop over time so ink X from 2006 may not be ink X 2012 (especially if you don't have supplier, batch, order code info')
2. There can be batches of ink that can have a "bad day"
3. Environmental factors exist (heat, humidity)
4. Additional factors such as time between prints, whether the bottle was shaken (to reduce settling issues) or similar have not been discussed..

Agreed. And I would add another, a user factor. Not everyone uses their printer the same way in terms of light, heavy and intermittent use of the printer. Also how the user refill by which method. Is the cartridges refilled correctly or else.

I also can think of a possibility in terms of ink formulation. Good ink is definitely contains full strength of dyes or pigments. Cheaper and lighter inks contain certainly less to reduce cost. The richer and better ink then naturally has a higher tendency to dry up, to clog or is harder for the purge unit. The ideal user would be one who uses the printer regularly and frequently.

In my experience whenever there is a problem 95% of the time (estimate of course) it is wrong to blame ink. Rather, it has something to do with all the 4 above and what I add here. Ever notice that every time someone came in and reported a clog or something that person was unexperienced every time? Refilling cartridges is not a feature designed for the printer. Not every mom and pop can jump in, start to refill without some training before running into problems.

 

[turbguy]

Ever notice that printers fail even if you use OEM carts??

Wayne