Spongeless refillable cartridges

[Lucas28]

Ive bought many empty refillable cartridges and I want to share the experiences.

Because it is almost impossible to refill the latest generation OEM cartridges I switched to refillables. These carts can be filled and refilled over and over again. Filling is easy: just remove a plug and insert the ink. There is an ARC chip on each cart, so no chip resetter is needed. ARC stands for Auto Reset Chip.

For the Epson B40W: T0711 to T0714.
The B40W is the best printer I have. Its fast and I havent had a single nozzle clogged yet (knock on wood). This printer doesnt drink much ink.
I bought empty cartridges from AliExpress.com and filled them with OCP pigment ink.
The quality of the cartridges is excellent. The ink flows well and there is no leaking.

The same goes for Epson T0611 to T0614.
These carts were obtained from a local store. There were no problems, everything worked as planned. The advantages compared to filling OEM carts: the auto reset chips and no drilling.

Epson T007 and T009, from LinExports.com
The carts came with a set of 6 syringes. Very nice!
The carts were filled with Lyson Quad black. They worked fine.

Epson T007 and T008, from a local store
The T007 was all right, but the T008 was leaking. I think the cart manufacturer installed the wrong size washers. The T008 was thrown away.

Canon BCi03 series, from LinExports.com
Lin Exports sells empty carts for older printers. The advantage over OEM carts: they are spongeless. I couldnt try these yet because the print head of my printer is broken.

 

[turbguy]

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Canon BCi03 series, from LinExports.com
Lin Exports sells empty carts for older printers. The advantage over OEM carts: they are spongeless. I couldnt try these yet because the print head of my printer is broken.

Spongeless?? What holds the ink in the cart?

Wayne

 

[PeterBJ]

turbguy wrote:

...Spongeless?? What holds the ink in the cart?...

A single sponge I think.

I found the site and it looks to me like the refillable cartridges for Canon are the traditional sponged cartridges. See this: http://www.linexports.com/en/product/item/707/product_detail.html

I wouldn't use these cartridges. By cleaning used Canon OEM cartridges and fitting a proper plug, you have very high quality refillable cartridges. The secret is in the sponge design and quality of manufacture. Canon uses a double sponge design, the compatible cartridges use a single sponge design for patent reasons. The sponge design is very important for regulating the ink flow, so I recommend using only Canon OEM cartridges, either new or refilled with a quality brand refill ink.

Epson Cartridges are very different from Canon cartridges. Some Epson OEM cartridges use a spongeless bladder design like Canon PGI-9 or HP 45 cartridges, but much more complicated, to make refill difficult or impossible. Note that linexports only claim that their Epson cartridges are spongeless: http://www.linexports.com/en/product/item/791/product_detail.html

Epson OEM cartridges are difficult or maybe impossible to refill, that is why refillable cartridges are popular, but Canon OEM cartridges are easily refillable, so for Canon printers there is no reason to use third party cartridges.

I don't own any Epson printers, but if I got one I would study the Epson forum to see what kind of cartridges and what ink others recommend.

 

[Lucas28]

Look, no sponge!

Actually this one replaces an Epson T007, and there is a sponge in the OEM cart.
Don't know how they do it, but I've got two of these and they work fine.

 

[PeterBJ]

You are right, this cartridge for Epson looks like it contains no sponges. I did a search and found that spongeless cartridges for Canon were also advertised, mostly for edible ink, as the sponge might hold bacteria.

I found this old forum post about a spongeless Canon cartridge: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=584 . I think it looks like the spongeless cartridge was inspired by an Epson cartridge: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=60608#p60608

I cannot figure out how these spongeless cartridges work, maybe someone can explain?

 

[fotofreek]

I reread the thread noted by PeterBJ, and it confirmed my memory of reading that thread when it was new and active. The bottom line was that spongeless carts for the Canon printer were not completely reliable. Since the OEM carts work so well when refilled I'm still not tempted to try the spongeless carts. For anyone sufficiently adventurous to try them, please keep us up to date on your progress in using them.

 

[The Hat]

Im curious as to why anybody would want to try them out,
an empty set of OEM carts are cheaper and you know youre buying quality and reliability,
so could these sponge-less carts be any better than that.. ?

 

[martin0reg]

My opinion

1. epson spongless refillable
Pro: new empty carts built to refill, with plugs and mostly with ARC
Con: has to be "primed", sometimes difficult to fill the important central chamber
If not primed poperly, air in the ink flow can occur, which results in stripes.

The epson piezo printhead can tolerate this far more better than canon bubble jet printheads
- canon nozzles will get burned by printing without ink/with air!

2. canon OEM with two sponges (lower to hold the ink, upper to "breathe" i.e. air exchange
Pro: cheap and good OEM carts, can be refilled "german" or in the ink chamber
Con: Has to be drilled and has to be flushed, can get "stained" or otherwise worn out and therefor has to be re-flushed from time to time

 

[Lucas28]

Agree, Martin.

And sometimes we need empty carts to fill with extraordinary fluids, that shouldn't be mixed with ink remains in an OEM cart. It can be edible ink, cleaning fluid or grey ink (for B&W photos).