Tutorials on how to refill ink on the Canon Pro-100/CLI-42?

[Centradragon]

Long story short, my Canon Pro-9000 Mark II didn't survive my recent move (I'm having some diagnostics done to it to see if I can repair it, but just because it's broken doesn't mean my need for prints goes away), and at the recommendation of a Canon representative I bought a Canon Pro-100 from Amazon. I used to buy off-brand carts for around $5/apiece which worked great quite a significant savings over the $20 or so OEM carts. It seems the Pro-100 is too new to have that sort of godsend.

I've been lurking on the forums, and although I've found a few threads on the subject I still am not entirely sure how to do these things:


turn off the ink monitoring system. On my Mac it just has a bar graph representation of each cart, but I didn't see a way to disable it. Perhaps I'm missing something, or it's only possible with the official Canon software.

some sort of step-by-step/tutorial/comprehensive paragraph on how to refill and maintain the Pro-100 carts safely. I've read enough to know they're basically the same thing as the CLI-8 carts, except with a different chip. Would a tutorial on how to refill those carts be sufficient? There isn't a chip resetter for the CLI-42, so how exactly is it possible to buy ink and refill it without it being one big waste of money? (it was mentioned in another thread that having two sets of OEM to rotate out is the way to go, but... that doesn't give me quite all the information I would like!)


I apologize if this was already answered deeper back in the forums. Any help on this (including bopping me on the head and pointing me to the right thread) would be greatly appreciated.

 

[The Hat]

I am sorry to hear of the demise of your Pro 9000 but if you have now gotten a Pro 100 you probably wont mind in the slightest.

So how to turn off the ink monitoring on a PC or Mac is the exactly same,
its the print driver that controls the ink monitoring and not your O/S.

When a cartridge gets low on ink you will get an on screen notice of that event
and a yellow triangle will appear beside that colour showing low ink.

The next time you will get a notice to say you are out of ink and if you wish to continue to print
youll have to press the resume button (Orange flashing) and hold it on for at least 5 seconds to resume.

Youll have to do that with each subsequent cartridge till all of them have given the same warning notice,
from then on you wont have to do it again.

However the best practice is to refill a cartridge once you get the first low ink warning,
that way you wont lose total ink monitoring for quite some time
plus youre in no danger of running your cartridge completely dry either.

I have included links to several ways showing you how to refill your CLI-42 cartridges,
as the CLI-8s are exactly the same so too is the refilling methods.

Ink refilling maybe new to you so yes it is an extremely effect way to keep your ink cost down to a minimum
but we only recommend the refilling of OEM cartridges and not compatibles.

There is a good new source of compatible quality ink available for the Pro 100 at http://www.precisioncolors.com/PC42.html

The idea of having two sets of OEM carts is that when one of your cartridges is showing low ink in the printer,
that you change it for a new one and at the same time if any of the other cartridges are getting low on ink to change them also,
i.e. changing several of them at the same time saves ink.

You can then refill or top up these removed cartridges later when it is more convenient for you.
We will however avoid the head bopping until you personally request it at a later date if thats OK..

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=40766#p40766
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=26249#p26249
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=45963#p45963
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=34175#p34175

 

[PeterBJ]

Here is an instruction for the German method refilling of the CLI-8 cartridges that are identical to the CLI-42 cartridges, except for the chip: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2465

 

[mikling]

http://www.precisioncolors.com/PC42reset.html

 

[Centradragon]

Got word back from the repair shop, and apparently some component had come loose... they managed to fix it and it'll be good as new.


Thanks so much The Hat, PeterBJ, and mikling for the helpful tutorials and wonderful information! Just for one last bit of clarification:


Do I need to completely drain the carts (one tutorial shows the ink draining method with paper towel wicking), or is it fine refilling the carts at the "low ink" level, when the sponge still has some color? It was mentioned later in the post that I could just top off any removed carts, which would lead me to believe I don't need to empty them. Something tells me weighing is mostly for opaque carts.

I might have misread, but should I change all carts at the same time (regardless of ink usage), or just the ones running low on ink? It makes sense to nab all the ones on the more empty side, but just making sure!

It was recommended the fill hole not be resealed with tape. Is this because it usually comes loose, or is the adhesive dangerous to the ink? I was probably going to look for some sort of putty, as it's form-fitting and can be easily removed when I want to refill... or, I'll end up using the plugs that come with the little kit!


Again, I'm excited to try refilling these carts and I really appreciate the helpful information. I'll purchase a little kit from Precision Colors and do some experimenting and see how the whole thing works!

 

[The Hat]

Thats great news about your pro 9000, so now maybe youll start to refill that one two.

Draining the carts is not necessary you can refill safely on top of the OEM ink
and a scale is not needed for the CLI-42 carts either.

Only change the carts that look to be getting low and dont bother about the others, theyll be fine.

If youre going to use the German refill method then there is no need to seal up the refill hole at all
but if youre the belt and braces type then a bit of Aluminium tape would be about the best.

On the other hand if you decide to use the top fill method then you can get ready made plugs to seal up the refill hole
which incidentally needs to be 100% air tight, they can also be got here:- http://www.precisioncolors.com/PC42caccess.html

 

[PeterBJ]

Hi Centradragon

If you intend to refill the CLI-8 cartridges from your Canon pro 9000, then a PGI-5/CLI-8 resetter is a very useful tool. A link to a such resetter here: http://www.precisioncolors.com/c8breset.html . If you buy a resetter then you will not need to disable ink level monitoring. The resat cartridge will behave like a new OEM cartridge.
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