Refilled cartridges / replacement inks

My Canon inkjet cartridges cost around £12-£14 each, even from www sorces so I've had a look around at the refilling market. I can get my carts refilled for just £3 which is a serious saving when my printer is running seven cartridges.

But I have made a significant investment in calibrating my monitors and printer with Colormunki so the prospect of upsetting this hard work with less than good inks is a concern. My potential supplier of either refilled cartridges or inks tells me their ink supplier is OCP (http://www.ocp-online.de/) and the inks are manufactured to the same specification as OEM inks.

I'm wodering whether fellow Wetpixelers have also looked at this option and what problems or issues were encounted when moving from OEM inks to third party inks. I'd appreciate your kind advice.

I use refillable cartridges for my Canon i9900. I buy bulk inks and refill 2 spare sets of carts. Since you have a Colormunki then you can create your own printer profiles and not have to worry about canned profiles not matching. I use my HP Z3100 to profile my Canon

S.

I use refillable cartridges for my Canon i9900. I buy bulk inks and refill 2 spare sets of carts.

Same here. No problems. Big savings. I have created printer profiles with the new inks and the various papers.

Tim

I don't know what printer you are using but I would guest that a 7 ink Canon is likely to be something like the i9950 that I use.

Have you looked at 7dayshop? Canon catridges (genuine) are £7.50-£8 each.

I must say that I always use Canon inks as they are plenty of stories of blocked nozzles/print heads from using sub-standard ink.

Daniel

Hi Daniel, thanks for the heads up about 7dayshop. Much better prices!! It was those stories which prompted me to post. BTW. £3.00 OCP ink refills are available from http://www.promaximaging.com. Its tempting to give a set a try...

PS. Just spoke to Promaximaging and their charges are £2.50 for cleaning and refilling Canon CLI-8 cartridges with OCP inks. I asked some searching questions about printer head blockages and they advised that it is important not to completely exhaust the ink reservoir as an air bubble can migrate to the printer head. I'm going to trial a set. First, I need to build a small stock of empty cartridges to send for refilling.

I use refillable cartridges for my Canon i9900. I buy bulk inks and refill 2 spare sets of carts. Since you have a Colormunki then you can create your own printer profiles and not have to worry about canned profiles not matching. I use my HP Z3100 to profile my Canon

 

S.

Same here. No problems. Big savings. I have created printer profiles with the new inks and the various papers.

Guys, do you find that you have to recalibrate your printers to accomodate any differences between ink batches? Or, once rcalibrated for the replacement inks, does the printer's output remain consistent?

Hey Daniel, if you use Canon CLI-8 cartridges here's one for you.

Impressed as I am at the prices from 7 Day Shop, Asda are offering a Canon 'CLI-8 Chromalife Pack' comprising one each of C, M & Y and 50 sheets of 10 x 15 cm photo paper at a few pence shy of £13.00. I bought the lot! Then I found 50 sheet packs of Asda brand 6 x 4" photo paper at 2 pence each. Yes, you read that right. Two pence! I bought the lot of those too...

Guys, do you find that you have to recalibrate your printers to accomodate any differences between ink batches? Or, once rcalibrated for the replacement inks, does the printer's output remain consistent?

I try to stick with 1 bulk ink dealer and it seems to work, though I did buy a fairly large batch of ink recently so consistency hasn't been an issue. Wouldn't be so sure though with individual cartridges.

S.

Hey Daniel, if you use Canon CLI-8 cartridges here's one for you.

 

Impressed as I am at the prices from 7 Day Shop, Asda are offering a Canon 'CLI-8 Chromalife Pack' comprising one each of C, M & Y and 50 sheets of 10 x 15 cm photo paper at a few pence shy of £13.00. I bought the lot! Then I found 50 sheet packs of Asda brand 6 x 4" photo paper at 2 pence each. Yes, you read that right. Two pence! I bought the lot of those too...

Thanks Tim

Looks like I'll have to go and try to find an Asda.

Daniel

I have recently received my first batch Promax refilled (OCP inks) Canon CLI-8 and PGI-5 refilled cartridges. My Canon printer is calibrated with a Colormunki and there is no discernable difference between the OEM and OCP inks. The £3.00 refill gets my vote...

Hey guys

Just a little snippet from the wilds of North Sulawesi.

As new cartridges here cost about a week's average salary for an Indonesian, folks install a piggy-back system of replacement ink reservoirs. The ink cartridges are replaced with a system of imitation cartridges which are linked, by tubes, to reservoirs which hold about 10 cartridges worth of ink. These are held onto the printer with a mix of duct tape, sellotape and the Will of God. These are then re-fiiled very cheaply from bulk ink supplies.

The reservoir sets costs about $50. I'm tempted to buy a load and sell them in Europe. Its a wicked system. I doubt they would work too well on a top end printer - but on my desktop Epson T11 they are amazing! Kiss your warranty good bye though: a small amount of chiseling and cutting of the plastic casing and top are required to get it all to fit. My new printer now looks like someone took a Frankenstein toolkit to it. But, hey it works: and its cheap to use!

Tim

These are readily available everywhere, do a search on CIS (Continuous Ink Systems) on Ebay. Many of the online retailers carry them. There can be some issues such as bubbles in the lines etc.

S.

I'd be a bit careful of the "cheapest" deal...I did have some ink cause dry patches on my printhead that eventually led to it's replacement. I think if you use the a lot you're fine.

Jack

Tim

 

These are readily available everywhere, do a search on CIS (Continuous Ink Systems) on Ebay. Many of the online retailers carry them. There can be some issues such as bubbles in the lines etc.

 

S.

Wow, thanks Stu! I must have been cosseted too long. First time I'd ever seen them.

I wasn't aware of this system either. I imagine the big advantage is larger ink reservoirs so ink batches remain the same for longer and printer recalibration becomes less frequent. If I ever upgraded to an A3 printer this would be an ink system to seriously consider. Right now I have invested in more than 50 cartridges for my A4 machine and I'm more than happy with Promax's refilling at £3.00 each and the 'first flush' of bulk printing has passed...

Hi Folks,

My name is Chris Brooks and I am the owner of Promax Imaging. I would firstly like to thank you all for the good things you have said about us.

I came upon this blog by accident while searching for something else, but I was very interested in what had been said. I would like to clarify a couple of points and give some advice.

With refilled cartridges it is partially true that there can be an air bubble that migrates to the head, but that does depend upon the technique used to refill the cartridge. I am afraid that most refilled cartridges fall into this category. That is because most methods employed to refill the cartridge saturate the top of the sponge (no dry patch on top like the OEM). This can cause ink migration away from the head when the tank part of the cartridge becomes empty allowing air to enter the head.

Also, most refillers do not properly clean the cartridge before refilling, this can cause compatibility problems between the two inks leading to irregular ink flow through the cartridge delivery medium, or worse still, a printhead blockage. It is impossible to get the correct amount of ink into the cartridge unless it has been properly cleaned, or for the ink to disperse correctly in the sponge.

We will shortly have a detailed technical infomation sheet available on our website for these Canon cartridges explaining all these and other issues. Visit our website on www.promaximaging.com.

CISS systems can work very well. If you intend to get one, ensure you obtain one that has see through cartridges. This is very important as you can actually see the ink levels in the cartridge. If they get too low you can bleed out the air easily.

Whilst incorrect initial charging of the ciss system does lead to excess air in the cartridge, you will always see occasional air bubbles in the lines, no matter what ink you are using.

This is caused by disolved gases in the ink coming out of solution, exactly the same way as cola fizzes. It happens with all inks, including OEM ink. This is caused by the weather (atmospheric pressure varience), equally, they can also disappear by disolving back into the ink. That is why there is a bubble breaker screen in the delivery nozzle of the cartridge, or on top of the printhead. It is a very fine stainless steel mesh. It is often mistaken as being a filter. While it does perform that task, it's primary function is to allow fluid to pass, but not allow minute air bubbles to pass.

I hope this sheds a bit of light on the subject. Incidentally, we do not sell CISS systems at present.

Hello Chris,

Thanks for finding WP and for contributing. Its very welcome to get the refillers perspective. All I can add is that Promax gets my vote on price, service and quality and you can be assured of my small but regular orders.

Cheers, Tim