To Fit or not to Fit a Waste ink Tank on a Canon Printer ?

[The Hat]

I never gave a waste tank a second taught at any time because you can always pull the cover from the printer and wash out or replace the waste pads when that time came on any A4 Canon printer.

But all of these Pro printers are getting bigger and bigger and are not as easy to take apart because of their sheer size bulk and weight, and of course bigger means more wasted ink building up inside.

But since fitting the waste tank to my Pro 1 printer which was a bit of a disaster at the time (My fault entirely) this external ink tank has become far more than just a waste tank, its become a little gem.

This little thing (The Potty) just works so simple that I am surprised I didn't think of it before now because I suppose like most other guys I taught they were only suitable for use in Epson printers. (My ignorance)

I was reluctant to take the 9500 apart at first especially so soon after my disaster with the Pro 1 but as it was all ready dead I decided to see how easy it was to remove the top covers and fit the external waste ink tank, there were no hidden traps inside thankfully.

The waste ink tube coming from the purge unit is fairly accessible and not too difficult to reroute and drilling a very small hole in the in the front of the printer is fairly easy also,
the added bonus here is that the front panel covers up your handy work and the tubing is hidden behind it.

The Pro 10, Pro 100, Pro 9000 are all very similar if not exact to the Pro 9500 so they too can benefit from an external waste ink tank without having to do anything more that just removing the top cover..

The benefits of having an external waste ink tank fitter are:-

I am now in a position to know exactly when the printer does a head clean cycle or a good purge of the nozzles by simply monitoring this little external clear waste ink tank.

It has become another ink monitor so to speak and I can tell at a glance how much of my precious inks are been flushed down the drain to the nearest gm and more to the point how to reduce it.

I have now fitted two potty to my A3 printers and intend to fit a couple more in the coming months, high on my priority list is my iX4000 the waste is mounting up inside that and it will need some attention soon.

 

[jtoolman]

So when can I come over with the 9000 /9500 / PRO-100 and have take a look at these? Good excuse to visit Ireland huh!
But seriously..... It's great that you've figured out how to safely do it and not found any more internal boobytraps.

So now there is no more ink being spewed into the waste pads, except a little overspray if you do a lot of bordelsess.
So how does one reset the waste ink counters on these babies?

By the way, just last night I sold one of my 9000MKIIs and the spare 9500MKII to a local guy.
I was able to get more than what I originally paid so now I don't feel so bad about buying those two PRO-100s

Joe

 

[ghwellsjr]

When I tried an external waste ink tank on my MP780 , it turned out the ink in the extension tubes exposed to air would dry out and clog. I also found that the pump generated very little pressure which limited the length of the extension tube. Maybe your printers are different but I'm wondering how you keep the ink from drying out in the tube.

 

[websnail]

I've said as much to Hat about this but my recommendation for anything like this is to use a closed tank system like the ink bag, rather than a box kit as it avoids the ink drying routine. I'm still open to being proven wrong but I am looking at bag type kits instead of the rigid box type, to avoid this issue, assuming there's more than a passing interest in waste kits for Canon printers.

That said, can't argue with the idea... I suspect it's just a bit of a convoluted process for most Canon owners, particularly given the reset procedure, which is not exactly simple but for technically minded folk, could do worse.

 

[jtoolman]

Thinkin out of the box here. I have a bunch of 110ml and larger fully empty carts for the EPSON 4800 / 4880 out of which I sucked out all the ink to refill the R2400 and R2880 printers. If one removes the ink bag out of the cart body, you end up with the ink backa nd the exit valve assembly neatly in one piece. Some of these carts aparently are pressurized and DO have a TWO Way valve. A fitting can be inserted into the exit port and then the tubing can be attached to the fitting.

BUT I have to wonder if enough pressure is generated by the pup to actually fill the bag. Those bags are very sturdy and not too thin. I could imagine it would take a mederate amount of pressure to for ink into it.
If it does, then you would have the perfect closed waste ink system. You could even re use the bag when near full or discard it accordingly.

Where else could find a type bag? Have you see the little Bags of Baby and Toddler food ( and apparently also for adult on the go )?
Martin, don't you have a little one in the house? Have you seen these?
You could drill the cap and attach a fitting for the waste tube. Cnnect that via the same double ended barbed adapter to the Printer's tube.
Then when almost full you remove the cap and dump the ink.

When you have time on your hands you sometimes do come up with a "Brilliant" plan of attack!
Well.... maybe not.

Joe

 

[PeterBJ]

ghwellsjr wrote:

When I tried an external waste ink tank on my MP780 , it turned out the ink in the extension tubes exposed to air would dry out and clog. I also found that the pump generated very little pressure which limited the length of the extension tube. Maybe your printers are different but I'm wondering how you keep the ink from drying out in the tube.

I wonder if adding a few ml of water to the box or bag type waste ink collector before putting it to use would saturate the air inside the collector with water vapour and so prevent the drying of ink inside the tubing?

 

[mikling]

I have a patent pending for this. Use a series of loops or one or more coils before the external tank. This will create a liquid column plug and will prevent drying of the ink in the tube. Foam will break down and migrate to the valley and stay as liquid. This idea can be used only for self made external tank units and cannot be applied to commercially sold units.

All purge pumps are peristaltic pumps with high pressure capabilities but limited volume capabilities. Extractions are always followed with air purges which then creates foam. Foam in small diameter tubing can act as a solid column and create pistonic effects which can cause siphoning as well as well as act as a plug as well depending on the relative physical sizes of the tube and foam characteristics which can vary depending on the composition of the liquid. If you've ever had backups in laundry rooms due to excessive foam, you'd be surprised to see the action of foam within pipes.

Peristaltic pumps in printers will easily inflate the bladders in wide format tanks. If it can produce sufficient pressure to draw ink out of a printhead, you can bet it has enough pressure to pump. However, on Canon printers it might not have sufficient purge volume to excavate a long tube. The duration of the purge by the printer is normally sufficient to excavate the short tubes built into the printer and thus ink does not clog up normally in the short tubes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump

 

[websnail]

ghwellsjr wrote:

When I tried an external waste ink tank on my MP780 , it turned out the ink in the extension tubes exposed to air would dry out and clog. I also found that the pump generated very little pressure which limited the length of the extension tube. Maybe your printers are different but I'm wondering how you keep the ink from drying out in the tube.

I wonder if adding a few ml of water to the box or bag type waste ink collector before putting it to use would saturate the air inside the collector with water vapour and so prevent the drying of ink inside the tubing?

The air in the tubes would be pretty minimal, non-moving and if attached to an evacuated bag would not have any opportunity to refresh with "fresh" or drier air. You could add a couple of ml fluid but such an approach wouldn't work so well with a box as the vent hole (small though it would be) would still allow moisture to escape as evaporate (assuming of course the environment was warm enough for that to happen).

What we're talking about here is a drying action that would take a considerable amount of time to take place and also quite a bit of non use.

Use of toilet style fluid trap following the principles of a U-bend, is a clever idea but by keeping the fluid in the tube, especially pigment ink, there's a question of whether you'd get pigment particulate build up in that trap, like you do with limescale in a U-bend. Of course the quality/smoothness and diameter of the tubing is a consideration to reduce this but all in all I'm not sure it'd be necessary. Either way it'll be interesting to see if it would work out, and doubtless someone non-commercial(?) will happily play with it.

All purge pumps are peristaltic pumps with high pressure capabilities but limited volume capabilities. Extractions are always followed with air purges which then creates foam. Foam in small diameter tubing can act as a solid column and create pistonic effects which can cause siphoning as well as well as act as a plug as well depending on the relative physical sizes of the tube and foam characteristics which can vary depending on the composition of the liquid. If you've ever had backups in laundry rooms due to excessive foam, you'd be surprised to see the action of foam within pipes.

Peristaltic pumps in printers will easily inflate the bladders in wide format tanks.

Unless you're using a longer, wide diameter tube/pipe in tandem, the issue of foam acting as a solid column is redundant as most waste kit tubing use small diameter tubing. At such small diameters the inks surface tension doesn't allow air to pass it to break any syphon so it acts as a solid column anyway. The key would be one of ensuring the tank is not located low (relative to the printer) nor at the end of a long tube as that would allow such a column to build up.

The point about air being pumped out is definitely a potential issue in that any sealed unit (such as a bag tank) would obviously suffer from air bloat over time but having direct experience of this in Epson printers (which purge considerably more ink and air than Canons) it's manageable within any waste ink system provided the end-user doesn't place the bag somewhere that obvious ballooning to capacity is hidden. The issue of this air as a drying agent would most likely not appear as it would be heavily moisture laden given the ink pumped in with it.



At the moment though its worth noting that Canon printers are still very much "technical folks only need apply" due to the high level of complexity involved in accessing the waste pump tubing in the first place and indeed the reset process. As a result there's a dearth of data beyond ghwellsjr's MP860 and an iP4000 and iP4200 I pre-fitted with two kits some years back. It'll be interesting to see any new experimentation pans out both with pigment only inks in the Pro 9500 but also in mixed ink scenarios like the iP4000 or later. Certainly the fact that pigment and dye inks are pumped separately from the printhead (at least when I last looked) there's some questions as to how the two interact.



But one point... This talk of patents pending, and "not allowed for commercial use" leaves me uncomfortable with further discussion of this and numerous other topics. I was not aware that discussion was suddenly being treated as property or indeed that such restriction was necessary. Why is this suddenly coming up or indeed, why is it necessary?

 

[mikling]

As long as the ideas are used for personal use, anyone is free to use and experiment as they wish. I have no qualms telling others of what can be done for their own benefit as long as someone does not commercially use my idea for their gain. That's all. I think that's fair. The same thing applies in electronic forums where circuit designs are shared, exposed for others to copy and if anyone wants to make a commercial offering of it, then the creator needs to be asked for permission.

 

[The Hat]

My experience with the external waste ink tanks are only in relation to the use of pigment inks and so far its working perfectly which I am very pleased with, despite it being pigment ink it still flows fairly easy.

The waste ink tube on the Pro 1 was about 40cm long and travels some distance to an enclosed internal waste ink cartridge, but now I have it redirected out through the bottom of the printer and cut to about 12cm long.

To that I have attached a plastic straight through joiner and a length of clear tubing of about 30cm that then goes into the clear waste ink tank at desktop level. (All supplied in the kit)

Now I didnt know the first thing about external waste tanks before this or if they would actually work properly on this type of printer, but I was aware of some of the problems that ghwellsjr had written about in an earlier post when he had tried using one on his MP780.

I got good advice and warnings from Martin as to which type would be best to use to prevent any of the known problems associated with Canon waste ink outlets (Blockage, back flow or dried inks etc), but because this was one of these unknowns I went with the box type.

If there are any hidden dangers in using this kit, well its early days but I havent found any yet and I can now measure all the waste ink coming out of the printer which can only be an extra bonus.

Because the tubing exits right next to the on/off switch I can regularly monitor the progress of waste ink flow when turning on and using the printer, no more wondering about the strange whirring noises and what the printer is doing while making them, it has now become another very welcomed ink monitor.

I have now installed exactly the same type of kit box in my pro 9500 and wait to see how well it will work on that printer or whether Ill need to use a bag instead of the box, more unknowns so work still in progress.

Now I have heard the question asked in the past before whether or not the waste ink could be collected and reused again for black ink and I can say very loudly definitely not, well regards pigment ink anyway..

Some of my ideas have also been used in the past for commercial gain but
as so long as they dont claim the credit for them then they are all welcome too..