Refilling

[mikling]

The cost of refill ink may be inexpensive but the cost of labor is not. Refilling when a cartridge goes to empty halves the number of times the printer's cartridges are refilled if originally done as per your advice - which may be he best practice. Also, Cymark would not be spilling as much ink as as in your scenario and filling his waste pads sooner - neither a big deal as you say in the grand scheme of things. But, Cymark is paying double for a job that could be done one-half as frequently AND that manpower could be used to take care of other duties that would need to be done as well.

None of this may matter much on a small scale but Cymark has 200+ cartridge refills a day! I do not know how much he pays the person dedicated to refilling each day, but it adds up to more than the savings you mention, and the worker can do other duties in a more timely fashion.

Also, none of this matters if waiting for a cartridge to be marked empty ultimately results in poor ink outflow from dried ink in the sponge and the cartridge needs flushing or the print head malfunction. The remedies for these issues have significant labor and or parts costs.

I wonder what the cartridge and print head failure rate is for Cymark?

If you did not stop and think and analyse the implications, then I have to spell it out to you.

In Ontario the minimum wage is tor is to rise to $10.70 per four Cad soon. With a target of $15 in the future. If Cymark remuneration is higher then the cost is even higher.

First the wasteage of 0.5ml per cart is way generous. It is more likely to be in the order of 1/10 or 1/5th of this. 0.5ml of ink is a lot of ink. So the real cost of wasted ink is actually less than 3-4 cents.

At 4 mins a refill set the cost to refill from a labor standpoint far exceeds the cost of wasted ink on all 8 carts. $0.75 in labor. In business time is money and this exemplifies that.

The larger cost is the lost time in printing especially if there is a failure. The 0.75 cost in labor is very small considering that his machines are running full tilt and when refilling or attending to the printer not operating properly, the cost of lost production far exceeds the lost time. So you need to keep the printer running as smoothly as possible. That means that you need the most reliable method of refilling in any employee hands. You cannot implement practices that require specialised skills as you will with the German method. Any practice that minimises downtime is extremely important.

The topfill method does allow a very fast and easy overfill resulting in a longer cycle number of prints between refills...nearly approaching what an OEM cart would provide from new to empty not low.

You obviously have your biases but you cannot beat a topfill in speed when you are trying to overfill with the German method.

If cymark goes one more step and stops using my squeeze bottles but goes on step further and puts up an Arduino based automatic refiller where all 8 carts are filled to the exact weight with one press of a button it is viable for not too much money. The hardware is simple, all available on Ebay and the programming is actually not that hard. Load cells are not that expensive. valves are around $6 and the controller can be had for less than $20. Just need a creative engineering mind. I am currently considering a similar project to automate a few things. many home built 3d printers also use Arduino.

Finally, you have not admitted the number of failures of German refilling including, Hat and others. Now try hiring an employee and teach that method and develop the skill for it within 3-4 refills.

Stratman, I won't waste my time on this point again as you've tried to egg me on this one again. You do not print a ton of images hour after hour after hour. Before I outlined the method to not drain the cart too low, I was getting inundated with cartridge flow issues with customers after not a lot of refills. When I outlined the trick the issues fell off the cliff. With this method many many many customers get over 30 fills when printing pictures. Not just text and spot images on plain paper. Again, I am dealing with a user base in the thousands in photo printing applications which is a lot more statistically significant than a handful running AIO printers. I rest my case and wish to end my participation in this thread here.

 

[mikling]

I recall discussing this but do not recall the proof of how the optical sensor and the chip counter work. Early tests of chipped Canons, where the optical sensor masked masked off with tape did not result in any significant change in the general end point of an cartridge marked as empty.

I also do not recall tests whereby the function of the chip was bypassed successfully.

What is your proof?

The proof is my own tests with triple verification. Ask hat what he concluded. The testing is not for simple minds. Just like the maintenance routines is also not as simplistic as some are making it out to be.

You want real proof just phone your local Canon tech support and ask to speak to the firmware engineers and hold the line. It'll take less than a minute.
https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/

 

[Cymark]

I didn't get involved in this tread to debate which method of refilling was better I simply wanted to share my experiences and share it with the community. The guidance that Mikling and Joe have given me is priceless and I am forever indebted to them.

Mikling is correct that the main issue that affects my business is a malfunctioning printer due to ink flow or clogged print-head. Following their guidelines to refilling Pro 100 cli-42 carts has minimized malfunctions to where they are almost nonexistent. Over-filling the carts with ink using the top refill method does allow us to print more photos between refills which saves us money on labor. Waste ink is a non factor in my opinion, a few drops max per refill.


We regularly schedule cart purges after 30 refills for two reasons: (1) keep the carts flowing properly which helps eliminate any print-head issues and (2) after 30+ refills we see a decline in the saturation of the sponge causing a lower print count per set of carts.

Prior to following these refilling guidelines I constantly experienced print-head issues - I can prove it with our scrap heap of 30+ printheads. The majority of my time was spent trouble-shooting print-head clogs. Now, the only print-head issue we experience is due to what i believe is overuse. We start to see a small quality degradation at approx. 8000 prints. At 10,000 prints we experience print issues for certain types of paper and print settings - we will still run the print-head til approx. 12,500 prints at which time we replace the print-head due to wear and tear.

 

[wilko]

@wilko - Are you taking The Hat up on his generous offer of a free chip resetter? Awfully nice!

Very generous offer but I already have a resetter for these carts. Thanks though to the Hat. He is a top bloke.

 

[wilko]

Why do you think ARC cartridges will prolong the life of a print head?


I do not consider purity the test of best. There is nothing that is known to be better constructed and functioning than an OEM Canon cartridge. If you can get a chip resetter then refilling an OEM Canon cartridge is the best way to ensure print head longevity against ink starvation other than new OEM Canon cartridges and probably new, prefilled, high quality, single use only 3rd party cartridges.

If you want or must use 3rd party cartridges then OK. Just realize the risk of malfunction may be increased compared to an OEM Canon cartridge. Tolerance to risk is a factor if there is a choice in cartridge use and also if you are essentially forced to use non-OEM cartridges.

As far as ARC chips versus OEM Canon resettable chips -- I have no data to compare reliability other than the type of ARC chip that does not allow early refilling, in other words, does not allow for a reset before it is marked as empty. The main issue with this (all things being equal otherwise) is wasting more ink due to pulling a cartridge out one at a time for refilling than topping off all cartridges at the same time. Early filling of the waste diaper means early loss of the printer or hassle of replacing / cleaning the diapers. Some will not care, some will.


Congratulations! It is terrific you had a "fresh" one ready to go.

A properly stored unopened print head may last many years. However, this does not mean a long life cycle. The print head must be used till dead to know its life cycle, unless you are talking production life cycle, which is typically 5 years manufacturer since first released for a Canon print head.

Refilling is personal. It is somewhat opinion driven on the user's end. Whatever feels right in addition to what logically seems correct are the motivators of what we do. Even when we use the same methods for refilling there is variability and is reason some people have more issues than others.

I'm not promoting ARC chips over OEM cart refilling. Just trying to prolong my PH life and trying something else. I've been using the German refilling method for several years and must have saved hundreds of pounds/dollars in the process. At the same time I've lost several PH's sometimes by just turning the printer on. Canon print heads are not built to last and clogging, like with all other printers can be a problem.

I use good quality ink but I really don't think that the quality of ink is the problem in affecting the longevity of the PH. I suggest that ink starvation is a major cause of PH failure. However, this would be difficult to prove as Canon print heads are not exactly robust, at least at the lower end of the range.

So far refilling ARC chips in my IP7200 and now my IP4500 has proved faultless. It may be early days but what are the alternatives for future refilling? The much loved IP4500 is long gone so what alternatives exist to ARC chip carts? At least it allows us to continue with refilling.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Very generous offer but I already have a resetter for these carts. Thanks though to the Hat. He is a top bloke.

Agreed - a TOP HAT.

Probably showing my advanced age. Suspect many today do not even know what a top hat is.

rs