Rubber Plugs

[mrelmo]

recently i have been having problems refilling with the german method as it has been leaking out of the needle hole and the ink has been rising through the vent hole when filling, this is only happening with the blacks, so i am looking to go to a different fill method, pull the ball out of the reservior and use rubber plugs from alot of things, so my inquiry is, has anyone used these plugs and is there a down side to using them as they appear to be a good alternative. i will still have to plug the needle hole i am using is super glue the right glue or will it melt the plastic of the cartridge

 

[Tin Ho]

Use hot glue. Hot clue is compatible with the plastic material of the cartridge. It will stay on. You don't need to pull the ball out. It is not necessary. Just drill a small hole in the space next to the ball. Then use hot glue to seal. It's fast and easy. The hot glue can be easily pealed off next time when you want to refill again. I have abandoned whatever plugs and used hot glue for a while. It takes a few minutes to heat up and a while to cool the glue gun. Other than that it really does a clean job in sealing the hole.

 

[panos]

Yes!

I am using rubber plugs and I have recently tried the german durchstich method on them with success. Instead of slowly piercing the sponge, tt's much easier and faster to:

1) Push the needle through the plug
2) Refill
3) Set the cartridge so that air will go to the ink area
3) Refill again
4) Pull the needle using some tissue to hold the plug in place and protect your fingers from spill.

As mrelmo reported, I had troubles using the durchstich on pigmented black. Perhaps I should try to refill slower -- I'll try once more and report. I intend to create a new thread because the title of this one is not quite descriptive.

 

[stratman]

recently i have been having problems refilling with the german method as it has been leaking out of the needle hole and the ink has been rising through the vent hole when filling, this is only happening with the blacks

What brand ink are you using?

Is this the dye-based black CLI-8 or the pigmented black PGI-5 that is problematic?

Are you using OEM Canon cartridges or aftermarket cartridges and if so, which brand/retailer?

Did you use something different in making the fill hole for the black cartridge or possibly reamed it out more than the other fill holes on other cartridge?

Just trying to figure out why you would be having a problem, especially when your other cartridges are not an issue.

 

[avolanche]

I have had bad luck with any type of flexible plugs.I went to tapered #8 stainless steel screws and they do well(especially the type that have a taper under the head-rather than being flat like a pan head).The taper seats into the hole and seals it.I pull the plastic ball out of the top of the reservoir and the screw goes there.

But.......I just started using the German method and have put hot glue around all the screws to get an even better seal.A really good seal is essential to proper refilling.I'm convinced that it is the #1 problem with refilling.You MUST seal the fill/purge hole unless it's the hole in the sponge area used in the German method.I can still remove them later to purge occasionally and am getting better results this way.

 

[mrelmo]

it is the PGI-5, i am using canon cartridges, the hole was made with a push pin the same as the other colors. i am not sure as i lost track of the cartridges but it might be the cartridge that i flushed

 

[stratman]

mrelmo:

Now we know that your dye-based inks are performing properly, as is your refilling technique. Good!

You didn't say what brand of ink you are refilling with. It might be that the ink you are using to fill the PGI-5 cartridge is not of the same viscosity/density/etc as OEM ink. If your aftermarket ink is too thin a mixture then you may experience the issues you stated. Additionally, if you inject too fast or too much total volume of ink then you may have those problems as well.

Another possibility is that there is a leak/crack somewhere inside/outside the cartridge causing an alteration in pressure/flow equilibrium. You didn't talk about a mangled sponge, or an out of position sponge, so I am assuming your issues are not due to the sponge. (Your sponge is properly seated after refilling?)

Please tell us the brand of ink you are using, complete with manufacturer or other identifying alphanumerics, so someone might be able to help better. And you might save someone the irritation in the future too.

 

[Smile]

This is why I use vacuum fill technique, only good results ever since.

 

[mrelmo]

the ink i am using is truecolor imaging lot# 06:58:15, the sponge is in position and there are no leaks, another problem i noticed when filling this cartridge i could see the ink moving to the vent maze, so i would pull the plunger on the needle pulling air out of the resevior i needed to do this several times to fill the cartridge. at this point i believe that i will seal the injection hole and drill a small hole atop the reservior to fill through and plug it with hot glue or rubber plugs, the leak is not bad but any leak is not good

 

[lin]

this is my experience with seal plug to seal the default hole on canon original cartridge

The plug (c) sometime can seal into the default hole, sometime cannot. So it's kind of a hit or missed cases. Hence out of all the above-mentioned seal plugs that I managed to try out, personally, I prefer the seal plug (e) as it fits well without any modification and has less hit or missed cases since the default canon cartridge hole looks like

Note that the Printhead carriage will raise up during dvd/cd printing and when one open the printer case cover where the printhead carriage will move to the center. So it's preferabbly to get the plug that seal flat.

In my early days of refilling and where online purchase is almost not prevalent yet , these plug are very hard to acquire so I also use hot glue to seal the small hole created by heating with the paper clip. This is better than drilling the hole as that will cause plastic shavings to fell into the cartridges which can makes one mistaken them as glop later when the ink cartridges get empty. However flushing the cartridges will remove these plastic shavings. Canon tries to make CISS more difficult for those who DIY CISS using original canon cartridges by lowering the corner plastic case.

Should you use the hot glue, just remember to try to keep the hot glue flat (or reduce the height) so that the harden glue does not cause movement obstruction to the case plastic.

Other alternatives is using o-ring screw (but try to find one that does not react with the ink such that it has a tendency to be corrosive/rust the screws).

Here is a thread with replies by others on sealing of the canon original cartrides. Somewhere in this thread is a picture of a blue plug from computer friends mention by Neil's website that was said to seal well.
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=28

By using hot glue, you don't have to go all the trouble to find seal plugs.