Storing Spare Cartridges

[Cedar]

When storing filled or partially filled cartridges, is it necessary/advisable to tape over the air vent? (I previously did this with 4 carts, and one of them overflowed through the air vent. They are CLI-8, if that makes a difference.)

 

[The Hat]

I tried storing my carts once with the air vent covered and they too leaked, so mine now are all left uncovered, I’ve notice after several months very little deterioration of the ink inside.

If a stored cart fails to work properly after installing in the print head (Some can) I just replace and purge it later, but save the ink...

 

[stratman]

In a cartridge otherwise left alone and stationary, temperature and barometric pressure can cause a cartridge to overflow when the air vent is blocked. The air vent appears to be used to both equilibrate pressures inside and outside the cartridge created by changes in the environment and allow for smooth flow of ink flow while printing.

 

[The Hat]

In a cartridge otherwise left alone and stationary, temperature and barometric pressure can cause a cartridge to overflow when the air vent is blocked. The air vent appears to be used to both equilibrate pressures inside and outside the cartridge created by changes in the environment and allow for smooth flow of ink flow while printing.

@Cedar, See I knew you’d get the technician guys to explain it better to you...

 

[stratman]

@The Hat

Gadzooks!

 

[SkedAddled]

Reviving old topic to potentially help others with my experience.



I've just discovered that my set of 225/226 carts have leaked.
Cyan, yellow and magenta, in fact.
PGBK 225 is unaffected.

They were flushed & refilled, sitting in a plastic food storage container
with its lid atop but unsealed. Storage clips, silicone plugs inserted, vents open.
They've sat just this way for a few months now.
I've checked on them periodically, with no change.
After a couple of weeks since my last check, some have leaked out.
The affected carts were likely a bit overfull for such storage,
though I thought they would be okay.

Considering that temperature has remained constant the whole time,
I suspect @stratman is right-on about atmospheric pressure. The weather here
is finally giving over to a seasonal change, which is overdue for this region.
Today I finally opened windows a small bit, letting in cooler air,
so the temperature most certainly did NOT rise.

Figuring the smaller volume of color vs. PGBK carts, it would appear that
smaller carts are more likely to be affected by atmospheric changes, if my
own 3-of-4 versus 1 are an indication.

 

[mikling]

This is a good discussion of why I actually dissuade users who do not print a lot to not have a second set of cartridges.

There are two aspects to sealing. If the cartridge is perfectly sealed at the bottom and air vent, for all intents and purposes it is pretty resistant to atmospheric or barometric fluctuations. In theory there could be some but given the plastic sides are rigid enough to suppress most of it.

However, the cartridge will be subject to thermal fluctuations. You might say, but it is sealed. Yes, but internally the cartridge has essentially two compartments, these two compartments do not undergo volume expansion equally. On one side is the sponge with breathing slits down the sides. On the other side, the reservoir with both liquid and air. These elements cause some interesting actions when the cartridge undergoes thermal changes...especially if the air cavity on the reservoir side is substantial.

What happens is that when the cartridge is heated the volume expansion of both liquid and air is exhausted through the vent hole. If the cartridge is not overfilled, then liquid should not reach that far up into the vent area.
Now what about the reservoir side? What happens when that undergoes expansion? Well the liquid at the bottom will exhaust INTO the sponge side.

Now what happens when the cartridge cools back down? Will ink return back into the reservoir side? Not likely all of it. Why? because of the breather slits on the side separation wall. The slits/grooves are there to allow air to enter the chamber. The sponge is saturated but it is not a malleable liquid to block the grooves. As a result a pumping effect is generated. The air volume inside the reservoir starts to pump ink out with each cycle. As the air volume grows, so the volume pumped out will also increase.

This is one reason but not the only reason why one should NEVER store a printer with partially empty or nearly empty cartridges...
Overfilling to the production user is ok and no harm at all, but overfilling to the normal user...could be harmful at times.

Even with perfect sealing, you can still encounter "some" pumping but is a lot less because the sponge side expansion is maintained against the reservoir side pressure.

Putting the cartridges inside a container does not insulate against pumping due to thermal variations BUT it will mitigate atmospheric effects.

All cartridge are subject to these thermal and atmospheric. I once explained some of the effects on MAXIFY cartridges once before and many principles hold here. CISSes are notorious for pumping effects that most don't grasp....well unless you're a mechanical engineer or have some technical training that allows you to understand the principles of what is happening. All Epson type cartridges also experience this as well.

Pure simple sponge type cartridges do not have atmospheric or thermal issues except for drying out.

 

[avolanche]

This is a good discussion of why I actually dissuade users who do not print a lot to not have a second set of cartridges.

There are two aspects to sealing. If the cartridge is perfectly sealed at the bottom and air vent, for all intents and purposes it is pretty resistant to atmospheric or barometric fluctuations. In theory there could be some but given the plastic sides are rigid enough to suppress most of it.

However, the cartridge will be subject to thermal fluctuations. You might say, but it is sealed. Yes, but internally the cartridge has essentially two compartments, these two compartments do not undergo volume expansion equally. On one side is the sponge with breathing slits down the sides. On the other side, the reservoir with both liquid and air. These elements cause some interesting actions when the cartridge undergoes thermal changes...especially if the air cavity on the reservoir side is substantial.

What happens is that when the cartridge is heated the volume expansion of both liquid and air is exhausted through the vent hole. If the cartridge is not overfilled, then liquid should not reach that far up into the vent area.
Now what about the reservoir side? What happens when that undergoes expansion? Well the liquid at the bottom will exhaust INTO the sponge side.

Now what happens when the cartridge cools back down? Will ink return back into the reservoir side? Not likely all of it. Why? because of the breather slits on the side separation wall. The slits/grooves are there to allow air to enter the chamber. The sponge is saturated but it is not a malleable liquid to block the grooves. As a result a pumping effect is generated. The air volume inside the reservoir starts to pump ink out with each cycle. As the air volume grows, so the volume pumped out will also increase.

This is one reason but not the only reason why one should NEVER store a printer with partially empty or nearly empty cartridges...
Overfilling to the production user is ok and no harm at all, but overfilling to the normal user...could be harmful at times.

Even with perfect sealing, you can still encounter "some" pumping but is a lot less because the sponge side expansion is maintained against the reservoir side pressure.

Putting the cartridges inside a container does not insulate against pumping due to thermal variations BUT it will mitigate atmospheric effects.

All cartridge are subject to these thermal and atmospheric. I once explained some of the effects on MAXIFY cartridges once before and many principles hold here. CISSes are notorious for pumping effects that most don't grasp....well unless you're a mechanical engineer or have some technical training that allows you to understand the principles of what is happening. All Epson type cartridges also experience this as well.

Pure simple sponge type cartridges do not have atmospheric or thermal issues except for drying out.

Hi,

I have 2 questions from your post. Would refrigeration (which maintains a fairly constant temperature) help?

What is a a "pure simple sponge type cartridge? Would this be different from say a CLI-8 or CLI-42?

Thanks!
Fred

 

[mikling]

Let's put it this way. If you do not need a second set of cartridges for many weeks between changes, then one should not really even entertain the thought at all. First, with that small a useage, the printer waste ink pad can last a long time without any best practices. ( Even with the best of care and practices, printers will eventually develop some kind of fault) Even following the reset top off routine en masse with one set of carts will allow all benefits of having a second set except speed. One need not worry about having the carriage return to the right because once you reclose the lid and reopen it, it will return to the middle like a trained puppy.

The other thing to consider is that if you store the cartridges away for 4 months, that will inherently mean you will have used the in situ set for at least that and then install the stored set. So by the time the second set of cartridges have been used up, it would have been refilled for 8 months. Not good. Canon recommends using up a new set when installed within six months. You would have been much better of refilling one set in this case. Ink in the sealed bottle has no atmospheric effects, thermal and virtually no drying. Not so when it sits in the cartridge....why do you think Canon puts in the serpentine vents. Because drying in situ in the printer is an issue over a long period of time.

If you've bought used printers that have been sitting for a while, you will notice that the ink levels never match the chip count. And YES that is one reason again why the optical prism is used to recalibrate the set point to empty. The printer can count the use of the nozzles and number of head cleans but it is totally helpless to estimating the drying of the ink inside the cartridge...the prism helps here.

Storing in a refrigerator...when you remove it, you magnify the thermal effect when it is removed and then it needs to stabilize to room temp.

Simple sponge? The cartridges that are typically supplied with built in printheads on the cartridge. The cheaper models and the ones targetted for users with minimal printing requirements.