Red cartridge keeps going. Should I replace?

[OM2]

Always OK after 1 or 2 head cleans, but always fails again

I had a similar problem with the blue. Solution was to replace

Should I do the same? Or maybe try flushing the cart first and giving that a try?

Thanks


Omar

 

[The Hat]

Try purging the magenta cartridge first, plus use a drop of fairy liquid in it as well and then rinse it out with clean water and wick dry it.

It only cost a bit of time to do that and it might save you having to get a new OEM cart, and while you’re at it do the same to the other spare Cyan cart also..

 

[OM2]

@The Hat, thanks
purge: flush with normal water and then finish with distil water?

thanks

 

[Emulator]

Are there any suggested methods of testing ink quality/ageing from the ink bottle, before loading into the cartridge? I have had a couple of instances when replacing the ink solved the problem. Perhaps we should concentrate on devising some new ink tests. It could prevent a lot of downstream work.

 

[Emulator]

One or two things come to mind, surface tension, viscosity, contamination (fungal, bacterial, foreign material), density.

It would be necessary to establish test methods that could be used by the average user and standard specifications to test against.

 

[Grandad35]

One or two things come to mind, surface tension, viscosity, contamination (fungal, bacterial, foreign material), density.

It would be necessary to establish test methods that could be used by the average user and standard specifications to test against.

• This thread gives crude (and inexpensive) methods to measure relative values of viscosity and surface tension.
  
• A low cost hydrometer will measure specific gravity.
• Pouring the ink through a coffee filter inserted into a small funnel will catch/show any contamination larger than 50 microns or so.
• You can use a petri dish to check for bacterial growth.

 

[The Hat]

I never put much blame for any of my problems down to the inks, so far it’s either been me or the cartridges that’s at fault, I have an added advantage in that I can use any of my other printers as a bench mark.

You see I use exactly the same inks in all of my printers so if one ink and cartridge is playing up then it stands to reason that it can’t be just the ink ! So I usually replace that cartridge and that solves the problem straight away but it’s not always that easy especially with this particular printer I don’t have another spare cartridge !

I’m using a CLI-8 instead of a normal CLI-521 cart that’s now on its 4th purge in as many days because I just can’t get the darn thing to flow properly; within one or two prints it begins to show the classic signs of ink starvation.

I have tried all the normal standard ways to bring the cartridge back to new again but have failed miserably with this pesky cartridge, it’s now sitting with pharmacists special formula inside it, and I intend using the sock centrifuge to remove this solution and then leave it sit till tomorrow to refill it.

I have never had so much trouble with any cartridge before but this one is certainly testing my ability to the last, I don’t know this particular cartridges history but when cleaned up checked and tested it passes with flying colours, but if it fails again it will surly hit the waste bin..

 

[The Hat]

This is an up-date on my OEM carts; I gave two other carts the same treatment so I could compare all three to see how they’d behave.

I filled all three carts slowly over three hours this morning with the air maze covered with tape till I could seal up the refill hole, then on fitting two of them back into the printer the first indications were pretty good.

but the Cyan cart (Troublesome one) soon started to fail again on the third print so I confined it to the waste bin, it’s surprising how I then taught it could be the print head even dough I knew it wasn’t, I have ordered some more empty carts from Octoinkjet..

 

[Emulator]

I decided to purge/clean all eight CLi8 cartridges using tap water and Fairy Liquid, followed by thorough flushing and emptying by pumping air into the fill hole with a 20ml syringe and wick drying. They came up bright white. Dried over night on top of the hot water cylinder.

As others have observed the rate of spread of the ink in the sponge on refilling was very slow and I put them into the printer and left them to settle, with the printer unpowered. Three days later I examined each cart and all the sponges were fully coloured up with ink.

I am uncertain as to the conclusions that can be drawn from this, perhaps it suggests that treatment with pharmacist's solution is necessary or perhaps it is normal behaviour.

 

[The Hat]

I still never find out what was wrong with my duff cartridge, it got all the proper treatment but would not pass the drip test when full, can anyone speculate as to why the air could not pass down through the two sponges, the maze was clear and the cartridge would only drip if I blew into the top of it !