Very first refill of OEM cartridge IP4500

[avolanche]

Yep, I actually use the top-fill and I get a couple of drops at most, also. If you're getting more than that you are leaking air and it's usually on the reservoir side of the cart.

I suppose an aftermarket cart with it's inferior foam could bleed too much air from the foam side of the cart.

I agree on the aftermarket cartridges for refills.It's just not worth it for me.The OEM cartridges are so consistently good!The foam and design is superior to any aftermarket I have tried.

 

[msmart]

Welcome me to the club!! My PGI5 cartridge needed to be refilled and gave it a go. It worked just fine using the instructions that came with my Precision Colors IS inks. I couldn't have done it without all the good people here posting their experiences. Thank You.

 

[stevec]

It gives you that nice warm glow of satisfaction that you haven't had to pay out for a new Canon cartridge.

 

[leo8088]

Mine never have dripped unless I squeeze the sides (using German method on OEM cartridges).I've refilled the current set of cartridges 12-15 times with Hobbicolors ink and have had no clogging at all(that's without a 2nd purge).

It depends on how full you refilled the cartridge. It will drip only when it is overfilled. It will drip more drops when it is more overfilled. It is not a reliable way of telling if the cartridge needs a flush by counting the number of drops of ink after it is refilled. The refill instruction from Hobbicolors says to fully fill up the cartridge to overfill it deliberately. Then you milk the sponged tank to get some number of drops of ink out of the sponge. This leaves the ink cartridge almost full but not overfilled. This refill instruction works extremely reliably for me for years. I have never needed to flush my OEM ink BCI-6 and PGI-5 ink cartridges using Hobbicolors ink. It is the most dependable ink I have used. I could start a print job of 50 pages of colored text and walk away. A few minutes later I would come back and flip the stack of printed paper into the tray and print the other side. That's 100 pages continuously with confidence. This is based from many years of using Hobbicolors ink on several Canon printers.

OEM ink cartridges are supposed to work perfectly from the sponge being slightly below completely full to completely empty or near empty. Somewhere in between almost full and almost empty (my observation is about 1/3 full) the print head begins to use ink drawing out of the reservoir tank. Before the ink in the reservoir tank is completely used up the ink level in the sponge will remain constant (at about 1/3 level). When the reservoir tank becomes empty then the printer's low ink sensor will kick in and warn that the ink cartridge needs to be replaced. I don't use a chip resetter so a few time I ran ink down to completely bone dry on my ip4300. I just had to quickly refill and do a cleaning cycle then the printer will be back to normal again. I have never really found the need of flushing my BCI-6 and PGI-5 ink cartridges. If you find you need to flush after a dozen refills You either have a bad cartridge or you have bad ink. I did flush my cartridges for some time. Then I got lazy and stopped doing it. Still I have never run into ink flow problems.

I use my printer everyday. I believe this is a significant variable that makes my printers work more reliably. I believe keep printing is a different way of keeping the ink cartridges and print head flushed. Ink is so cheap these days so it is really a good idea to use the printer daily.

 

[qwertydude]

As someone who also prints a lot sometimes and doing daily prints I've shelved my canon OEM carts since I couldn't print 50 photos at a time unattended previously since after about 10-15 refills on the oem's they'd start having flow problems and would need a flushing. Now with refilled G&G carts I've not experienced flow problems after as many refills and can now print continuous photos without worrying if I'll have flow problems and no longer find it necessary to flush my carts.

 

[leo8088]

G&G compatible cartridges were reportedly leaky. You may have gotten a batch that works. If they works that's great for you. Use whatever works. That's my strategy too.

 

[msmart]

OK, I'm running on all refilled tanks now. I refilled the CMYK tanks last night. Only Cyan was showing low, but I went ahead and refilled/reset the others just to get them done. I had a problem getting the refill ball out of the yellow tank and ended up pushing it into the tank, not on purpose though. I searched the forum and found that it shouldn't cause me a problem.

Now that the first refill is out of the way for each tank, I'm looking forward to the subsequent refills going much quicker.

How do you keep track of how many times a tank has been refilled? I thought of putting a hash mark on the side of the tank with a Sharpie.

 

[yupkime]

I have found Canon OEM to be the best but after every 7 refills I replace it.
Never had a problem and don't have to worry about flushing them out.

 

[inkpirate]

Does the ip4500 work with all ink cart chips reset? Or, is it like the ip4300 where you need to have at least one canon oem cart in there to keep it happy?

 

[msmart]

Does the ip4500 work with all ink cart chips reset?

Yes, I refilled each of the (OEM) carts once now, reset them and the printer is very happy.