Spongeless cartridge from inkjetreset.com

[mapsy]

Hi Lin:

We do still have some stock left of the spongeless carts. We have many customers who love them and some customers who must use these because they use them for cake icing designs. I don't always remember how to post a picture but let's give it a try so you can see them up close and personal Lin

wow, that worked, I can shoot you other pictures too, just let me know. These carts can be completely sealed, and I have not found any others that have this capability. I don't believe we have ever had any returned that were not still saleable. But if you want to test one or a whole set, I am sure we can work something out. We do sell them for $24 for a set of 5 and I think it is quite reasonable. But talk to me. It is always refreshing to work with people who are doing research to get the best outcomes for all of us.
Thanks for connecting.
Michele
InkjetReset.com

 

[The Hat]

lin

I use the PG-9 cartridges from Canon which I refill and they work flawlessly.
I have tried the PG-9 replacement cartridges on the market at the moment but reverted back to OEM cartridges because their performance was less that adequate.
The replacement cartridges have a filler hole at the top and an air vent and are completely sponge less.
Whereas the OEM cartridges have no sponge and no air vent on the top and are filled from a drill hole in the bottom..

 

[irvweiner]

Some comments and concerns about this cart and how 'we' respond.

I have been using this cart since April '10, I do not print 100's of prints weekly, 50+/mo is more likely. Thus, I cannot give yet a solid evaluation of its performance YET!
I purchased a set of 10-12 carts for my new Canon Px Pro 9000 and my older i9900--I was impressed by the robust construction and the removable, replaceable covers for the top air vent and exit port. Even the lever holding the reset chip can pop off and be replaced. The foam cylinder can be easily plucked out, washed, cleaned and dried and be replaced. In a jam, the 'reset chip lever' or the air vent lever can be swapped in from another spare cart and work continue without missing too many heart beats. Storage of filled backup carts is complete and safe--the supplied 'orange' clips seal the exit port and air vent. None of my backups have leaked since their setup in Apr.

Refilling is quick and clean thru the top ink chamber hole after the exit port is sealed with the snap on clip. Emulation of the 'german' method could be achieved by inserting the syringe needle or squeeze bottle thru the plastic/rubber top ink port plug but I see no advantages. The cart is quite transparent and the ink levels are easily observed.

Performance: my only difficulty was with the YLW cart, the symptoms indicated 'air starvation'--after several large prints YLW would drop out. This did not occur with my basic startup 8 color 'purge' or the first print. The small plastic nib on the air vent lever appeared to be oversize and partially blocked the air vent port--I filed it down slightly--looks OK now.

I will be starting to recycle my OEM carts shortly, again thru the top method since I purchased rubber caps for the top ink chamber and exit port that fit snugly from Rjettek--read NO rubber bands!

Concerns about how we respond:

It not very helpful to read: 'this xxxx is an accident waiting to happen' or 'I've had bad results with xxxx'. From the well informed posters I read in this forum, certainly a few more words describing the situation in greater detail is no hard task.

Mikling repeats the 'accident' syndrome of a previous poster and states this is due to the trapped air each time the cart is removed and replaced. Whenever a cart is r&r'd air (some more than others) is going to be trapped/captured, the printer then runs a 'cycle' to replace that air with ink. I'm not being testy here, I respect and admire the many, many posts you made assisting others (and me) maybe I missed something.

The comments made about this cart have literally doomed it to the trash heap without any meaningful first person reports. My glowing report may turn into a flaming fiasco in several months, if so I will supply the details. Possibly you can supply a few of these carts to others who print in moderate quantity-doesn't have to be a full set, just one or two to be used within a working set. The feedback should be worthwhile.

Thanks for listening irv weiner

 

[lin]

There is another Sxxxxxxx cartridge whereby the sponge is reduce to 1/2. This inner design is not very effective. The inner compartment hole (at the divider) where ink enter the sponge compartment is rather small and it lacks the "rails" on the divider like the original canon cartridges. These "rails" in Original Canon Cartridge are important as it helps to promote the efficient action of ink and air exchange from the sponge compartment (where the air enters from the inlet air hole at the sponge compartment) to the ink compartment. The inklet air that enters into the ink compartment then acts as the downward pressure on the ink inside the ink chamber when ink from the sponge gets capillary out of the exit port. And the "channel" in Original Canon Cartridge is to help to facilitate the flow of ink inwards as the sponge absorb the ink. For the Sxxxxxxx cartridge, as the divider hole already being small, the lacking of the 'rails' makes the exchange of ink and air less than efficient further. Currently there is no "channel" on these 1/2 sponge Sxxxxxxx cartridge. It may or may not need the "channel" on these 1/2 sponge Sxxxxxxx cartridge as the sponge are lesser. Or maybe a shorter channel for this 1/2 sponge Sxxxxxxx cartridges may helps to improve the ink flow. Now one may print ~50 - ~150 or more.... (depending on what they print, photo printing may uses more ink as it makes more passes depending on the type of photo setting chosen) without any problem until some point where they start to experience problem with their printing. During heavy and consecutive printing, the air and ink exchange may not be as readily as the printing demand required and the ink starvation can occur.

Left Picture : Sxxxxxxx cart Right Picture: Original Canon cart 'rails' at the divider

I had poor experience with Sxxxxxxx as a company 2 years back. Feedback to their marketing/sales personnel is pointless as they don't really listen or value feedback. And any feedback probably remains at the sales personnel who never brought up to the engineering or top management. There are two type of company one where they are defensive and nonchalant to feedback and then one where they value feedback and would look into the comment raised and if see improvement could be made or if improvement is necessary.

mapsy, by the way, do you by any chance has picture of the other side of your cartridge? And also picture of the top with the orange cover removed?
As I don't have your cartridge on hand to examine, I supposed the inner chamber air and ink passage is on the other side of the cartridge.

Updated: Edited naming out the manufacturer of the cart

 

[stratman]

Performance: my only difficulty was with the YLW cart, the symptoms indicated 'air starvation'--after several large prints YLW would drop out. This did not occur with my basic startup 8 color 'purge' or the first print. The small plastic nib on the air vent lever appeared to be oversize and partially blocked the air vent port--I filed it down slightly--looks OK now.

To clarify... is the YLW cartridge printing appropriately since you filed down the "small plastic nib"?

I assume you are talking about Mapsy's products, but could you please link to the cartridges you are referring to.

I will be starting to recycle my OEM carts shortly, again thru the top method since I purchased rubber caps for the top ink chamber and exit port that fit snugly from Rjettek--read NO rubber bands!

Link to the caps you talk about please. (I know... broken record!)

We all like to hear about handy dandy gadgets and techniques and where we can get them!

 

[siusiuenen]

@ irvweiner :
Have you try to print 100-200 pages at the same time, you'll find the weakness of this cart( If you talking about spongeless cart). Difference from you, yellow cart is the only good one that i got.

 

[irvweiner]

As mentioned in my post the caps are from, Rjettek http://rjettek.com/ Contact linda hunt

Part # 1813 Inkport Cap for BCI6/CLI8 25 pcs @ 0.30 $7.50
1916 Plug CLI8 100 0.09 9.00
1814 Inkport Cap for BCI3/PG15

Download their pdf catalog and search for plugs, caps, OCP inks and other 'toys' or refilling equipment sold.

The carts discussed are from mapsys, the YLW cart is physically identical to all in the set. The air vent hole is initially sealed with a disc of tape, pressing in on the air vent lever pierces the tape, tape shards remaining could constrict the air path. I now check and clean. The nib filing occurred 2 days ago, test needs more time. Since I have refilled (all carts) several times without any leaks with the air vent open and the exit port cap on I feel that snipping off the nib may do no harm. When I remove the exit port cap and return the cart to the printhead no leaks show up during that short time. Note that for long term storage the air vent cap function is replaced by another cap that seals the air vent.
I do note with some concern that it is possible for 'stray' ink droplets to gather at the air vent post and crystallize, this too can restrict the air path temporarily. I say temporarily because the working carts get 'whipped' around quite violently when printing and self cleaning can/may occur. However, between print cycles of several hours or more crystallization can build up and air starvation be induced after several prints have been made but before any self cleaning action takes place-if it really does.

Lin, the other side view of the mapsys cart is 'blank' there are no new features or structure visible. The inner air and ink passage are clearly visible on the side shown in the lower right corner just above the exit port cap. The 2 horz bands are the channels connecting the ink chamber to the 'cigarette' sponge and air chamber. The big cap on top of the cart seals the air vent for storage only (it is lifted off when printing) , the vertical orange object on the right vertical side is the air vent lever containing the 'nib'. This lever is pushed inward to 'properly' restrict the 'designed' air flow and snapped outward (but not removed) when refilling.

Just googled 'Skyhorse Cartridges': http://www.inkhouse.cn/en/Series_product.asp?op=4&xop=1&id=831 This is the Canon cart page, the CC8 cart appears to be what I have, the CC4 appears in your post. This is not a 'fly-by-night' organization, in 22 yrs they have built up quite a substantial organization near Shanghai--carts,inks,toner, paper, started in 1988 making printer ribbons!!.
As an engineer I am quite impressed with their entrepreneurship, I hope these carts live up to their achievements. If not we still have the enduring Canon OEM'ers--and as I have posted, when they make them in black plastic, we will stick a light-pipe in them to check levels.

regard irv weiner

 

[irvweiner]

siusiuenen, thank you for your reply. Can you indicate the failure modes encountered? I'm curious to know if they similar or varied widely.

Secondly, how did you solve this problem? Dumped them or found a fix/fixes.?

Thirdly, did the failures indicate air starvation after printing a group of pix or immediately at startup? How did you recover and continue printing?

Carts that do not deliver consistent output can be irksome or devastating. If one is printing a test target for creating a new profile, slight variation in the output of one cart or more may not be immediately recognized by the viewer in the output target, but the profile created will be off. If the test prints made from this new profile are way off, we stop and check our workflow, but if it's color cast, checking becomes more elusive. The worst case can be when we print several pages of target with hundreds of tiles and the cart(s) is/ are randomly inconsistent-a real nightmare! Air bubbles in the cart(s) can be a contributing factor.

When I run a new profile, I print a test print of color bands representing each cart color, next a full nozzle check--before and in between target pages. This has kept my aspirin bills minimized!


thanks again, irv weiner

 

[stratman]

Irv:

Thanks for the info. If the caps work properly then I would consider them over the rubberband/OEM orange cap method since rubberbands break.

More questions:

1) Where are you inserting the #1916 CLI8 Plugs? It looks like Mapsy's aftermarket spongeless cartridges come with a refill hole plug.

2) Are you injecting through the plug?

3) Longevity of the plug?

4) How easy is it to remove the plug if you don't want to inject through it or remove it for flushing the cartridge?

5) Last question concerns your post about printer profiling using the spongeless cartridges. Since you've had so many headaches and compelled to print test prints and nozzle checks inbetween target pages, why not use dependable refilled OEM cartridges for these mission critical jobs?

 

[pharmacist]

Air trapped inside the cartridges is linked to Epson cartridges, not to Canon carts, since the sponge material is filtering out air bubbles. Actually I do not understand all the fuzz about these refillable spongeless cartridges. A few years ago I had similar cartridges (I believe Skyhorse too, because mine looks very similar to these) and after a few pages the ink was starving. Even the sponge based aftermarket cartridges work better than these. I second stratman about using refilling OEM cartridges for mission critical jobs, actually I think every print should be without problems.