|
If you are having trouble getting your cartridge to work after you refilled
it you can use these tips to help breathe new life into it. Some times it may not be possible
to get the cartridge to print again and there are a few factors which contribute to this.
Some reasons to toss the cartridge.
- Cartridge dried out
- Damaged printhead
- Cross chamber contamination
- Drilled cartridge in wrong place
- leaking or cracked casing
- Filled chamber with wrong color
- Burned out printhead
Dried out nozzles
Soaking & Flushing
Steam Cleaning
Printout is Terrible
Removable Print Heads
Air in the Cartridge
Using Centrifugal Force to Eliminate Air
Pockets
Using Pressure to Prime Print Heads
Using Suction to Prime Print Heads
Repairing Cracked Maze Hole on HP 51629A
Cartridges
Clearing Blocked Maze Holes
Dried out Internal Sponge
Burned Out Cartridges
Contaminated Colors
Tips for Refilling Color
Cartridges
Toothpick Test
Color Cartridge Prints Green Instead of
Black
The biggest problem with refilling some HP, Canon and Lexmark printers is a
dried out cartridge. If an HP cartridge is left empty for more then 30 minutes,
the ink will dry and clog the small holes in the printhead. When refilled, the
results will be streaked or banded output.
If you don't plan to refill your cartridge right away, put it in a zip lock
bag with a damp cloth until you can get to it.
If the nozzles are blocked or dried out you will need to dissolve the dried
ink. An inkjet nozzle has a diameter of about 45 microns which is about 1/2 the
width of a human hair.
Flushing with hot cleaning solution through the printhead is usually the best
way to clear stubborn blockages. There is equipment available to do this with price tags
ranging from $250 up to $15,000 or more. For most people, soaking the printhead
in a distilled water/alcohol or ammonia solution or one of the proprietary
solutions (Cartridge
Flush) specifically designed to clear print heads. Soak the print head for
about 10 minutes to overnight depending on the degree of blockage. It has also
been reported that you can clean the print head with an electronic toothbrush
and cleaning solution for about 20 seconds with excellent results.
Steam vaporizers are available from drug stores or pharmacies. They are
perfect for cleaning print head nozzles since steam is released from a small
vent about the same size as the print head. Steam for about 30 seconds to five
minutes.
If you can see ink at the print head when you dab it with a tissue but still
it presents a terrible printout there may be a few reasons.
- The resistors that comprise the print head are burned out. Discard the
cartridge. You will not be able to refill it
- If the cartridge uses internal pressure, it might be over or under
pressurizes. Remove or add pressure accordingly with the air
pressure bottle. You may have to let the cartridge sit for a few hours
until the internal pressure stabilizes on its own.
If your printer has a removable print head such as the BC-21e simply fill the
chamber over the print head with boiling distilled water and sit it on a clean
cloth to drain. Prime the print head by running the cleaning routine a few
times.
If you have done everything and still the cartridge won't print, there is a
chance that air is trapped over the print head. If you have filled the cartridge
too fast it may be full of foam. Foam is air. Let the cartridge sit overnight
and the problem may clear up on its own.
Some sponge filled cartridges will develop air pockets at the bottom of the
cartridge which can block the ink flow.
HP and Epson color cartridges are notorious for this problem.
Here is one solution. Wrap the cartridge in a towel or cloth and then put it
in a plastic bag to prevent a mess. Hold it in your hand with the print head
(HP) or exit port (Epson) facing down. Extend your arm and swing the cartridge
down towards the floor rapidly, like you were going to throw it. Snapping your
wrist seems to help. Do this a few times. Remove the cloth and you should see a
spot of ink from each of the chambers. If not, repeat the procedure.
Many cartridges such as the Canon BC-20 may need to be primed before they
start working. To prime the cartridge obtain a small piece of fish tank tubing.
Put the tubing in the top central vent hole and blow through until ink comes out
of the print head. This procedure can be used on other cartridges with equal
success.
Some cartridges that do not respond to any other method will start working
after this procedure. Obtain a grommet from a BJI-642
cartridge. Attach the grommet to a syringe with a hot glue gun. The grommet fits
nicely over most tri-color cartridge print heads.
These cartridges tend to leak from the bottom maze plate on the bottom of the
cartridge. The maze plate is extremely brittle and can develop cracks. Use a
thin smear of waterproof silicon gel like the sealer used to fix aquariums. Be
careful not to seal over the maze hole.
You must remove all the ink from the cartridge before doing this. Fill the
cartridge with very hot solvent. Distilled water and alcohol for the 51626A, Cartridge
Flush for the 51629A. Sit the cartridge in a dish of solvent overnight.
Inject 15 ml of pure ethanol into the cartridge. Then withdraw as much as
possible. The ethanol will evaporate very quickly so you might not get much back
out. Re-ink the cartridge normally.
Many cartridges with internal print heads use electrical resistors to control
the current to each nozzle. If the cartridge is allowed to "dry fire"
too many times the tiny resistors will burn out resulting in low quality output,
color distortion or weak printing.
The ink actually acts as a cooling agent to keep the resistors from burning
up. If the cartridge goes empty and printing continues, overheating occurs. If
left too long this can burn out the cartridge. Each time this overheating occurs
the life of the cartridge is shortened.
The solution, of course, is to buy a new cartridge.
If there is air in any of the nozzles, ink from one of the other nozzles
can, by capillary action, be drawn across to the empty nozzle and contaminate
the chamber. Also overfilling certain cartridges can cause cross chamber
contamination. If the contamination is severe the cartridge may no be able to be
repaired. In the case of slight contamination you can try letting the cartridge
sit on a damp cloth overnight. The contaminated ink will be drawn out of the
print head by capillary action. Run some cleaning routines to prime the
cartridge.
For serious contamination you'll have to remove the internal sponges and wash
them in alcohol followed by hot distilled water, then allow to dry thoroughly
before replacing them. Wash out the cartridge cavity with boiling hot distilled
water. Fill the cartridge with boiling water and sit it print head down in a
small container to allow the old ink to seep out through the print head.
Always inject the ink very SLOWLY so that it doesn't froth up or cause air
locks in the cartridge. Air locks are trouble in any cartridge but particularly
so in tri-color cartridges since they can cause ink to migrate from one nozzle
into another. If the cartridge is full of froth let it sit overnight.
Before refilling any tri color cartridge it's a good idea to use three
toothpicks and insert one into each fill hole to check the color of ink in the
chamber.
Some printers that hold only one cartridge use the color cartridge to print
black. Examples are Lexmark 1000, HP 400/600 and Canon 210/240/260. When the
three colors are combined they should produce black. This is called composite
black. Many times the black will have a greenish tint to it. Make sure that you
use the MATCHED color set for refilling these cartridges. Ink manufacturers like
Repeat-O-Type have specially formulated the three colors to produce black when
combined. You can also try adding about 10% water to the yellow ink. This will
produce a blacker black but a trade-off could be a slight color shift when
printing photos.
Portions of this FAQ were paraphrased from the book THE INKJET MANUAL
by Sandy Kouvaras.
|
