Transferring Ink??

[Splattgraphics]

I have a few cartridges that still have a good amount of ink sloshing around in them, but show up as empty on the ink status. Has anybody ever heard of transferring them into a running cartridge to use it up? I know the paranoid answer to that already, but I'd still like to hear from anyone who has tried it, especially if it was successful.

 

[Solventinkjet]

I have heard of people doing it successfully but as a tech I have to give the paranoid answer. The major concern is that you might put too much pressure into the new cartridge. This will put more pressure on the whole ink system. One outcome of that could be that you leave for the day, a small amount of ink gets pushed through the head due to the extra pressure, creates a siphon and empties all of your cartridges. Not only can this cause a huge mess, it can damage your machine. If that happens, you just lost all of the extra savings. If you think you are going to save a enough money to make up for any losses that you might incur, do it.

Side note: Having ink left in the cartridges is generally a sign that your maintenance station is failing. These ink systems are extremely dumb and do not actually know how much ink is being consumed during printing or maintenance cycles. They just guess. When the maintenance station fails, it pulls less or no ink at all but the printer keeps on thinking that ink is actually being used. This causes the smart card to think it's empty before it really is.

 

[printhog]

I do that regularly.. key is to not transfer air and to measure the cartridges.. I weigh the cartridges.. full and empty. I chart them. when the new one gets low enough I draw out the remaining ink from the old one using a blunt 16 gauge leurlock tip on a 50cc syringe. Do not use a sharp tip, it will destroy the seal.. I pump ink into the cartridge only when it has enough room to accommodate the difference by weight.. After filling I draw out any air by inverting the cartridge.. with the port vertical. Sometimes takes multiple passes to fill and once air is evacuated you've got a functional cartridge.

I've seen Roland 440 ml cartridges have as much as 100ml of additional ink in them despite showing empty.. Seiko color printer routinely has 95 ml of additional ink when empty.

I bought that ink! I wanna use it..

Btw 1 ml is 1 cc..

I've never had an issue with color, quality or operation by refilling cartridges with the same ink brand, or by topping them off this way in 8 years, and I use a thorough digital quality control process for my color management.

But if your machine reads chips, then you have a more complex issue that goes beyond mere plumbing and juice.


Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

[printhog]

I have heard of people doing it successfully but as a tech I have to give the paranoid answer. The major concern is that you might put too much pressure into the new cartridge. This will put more pressure on the whole ink system. One outcome of that could be that you leave for the day, a small amount of ink gets pushed through the head due to the extra pressure, creates a siphon and empties all of your cartridges. Not only can this cause a huge mess, it can damage your machine. If that happens, you just lost all of the extra savings. If you think you are going to save a enough money to make up for any losses that you might incur, do it.

Side note: Having ink left in the cartridges is generally a sign that your maintenance station is failing. These ink systems are extremely dumb and do not actually know how much ink is being consumed during printing or maintenance cycles. They just guess. When the maintenance station fails, it pulls less or no ink at all but the printer keeps on thinking that ink is actually being used. This causes the smart card to think it's empty before it really is.

Most ink systems I've seen use either a shot count model or a physical switch to derive ink volume. Both of these have failure potentials. The physical model is usually a pressure foot on the ink bag, and prone the cartridge position variations and atmospheric pressure, the shot counter is based on electrical impulses to the nozzles and has no way to know is the ink actually flowed or of accommodation for physical flushing by the operator. We use hard independent measurements with a simple kitchen gram scale to determine full and empty readings.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

[Solventinkjet]

Most ink systems I've seen use either a shot count model or a physical switch to derive ink volume. Both of these have failure potentials. The physical model is usually a pressure foot on the ink bag, and prone the cartridge position variations and atmospheric pressure, the shot counter is based on electrical impulses to the nozzles and has no way to know is the ink actually flowed or of accommodation for physical flushing by the operator. We use hard independent measurements with a simple kitchen gram scale to determine full and empty readings.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

Smart way of doing it. If OP is going to do it, this is all good advice.

 

[ikarasu]

I do that regularly.. key is to not transfer air and to measure the cartridges.. I weigh the cartridges.. full and empty. I chart them. when the new one gets low enough I draw out the remaining ink from the old one using a blunt 16 gauge leurlock tip on a 50cc syringe. Do not use a sharp tip, it will destroy the seal.. I pump ink into the cartridge only when it has enough room to accommodate the difference by weight.. After filling I draw out any air by inverting the cartridge.. with the port vertical. Sometimes takes multiple passes to fill and once air is evacuated you've got a functional cartridge.

I've seen Roland 440 ml cartridges have as much as 100ml of additional ink in them despite showing empty.. Seiko color printer routinely has 95 ml of additional ink when empty.

I bought that ink! I wanna use it..

Btw 1 ml is 1 cc..

I've never had an issue with color, quality or operation by refilling cartridges with the same ink brand, or by topping them off this way in 8 years, and I use a thorough digital quality control process for my color management.

But if your machine reads chips, then you have a more complex issue that goes beyond mere plumbing and juice.


Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

95 ML is about $30 Canadian. I guess per ink cart thats a lot... if you do a lot of printing. I just had to replace a head on our Color painter, cost $4000 though. I wouldn't risk messing with the ink/mixing old and new to save $30. I guess to some it's worth it, but there are risks in it. I'd feel safer going to a cheap, OEM brand ink, than re-filling carts that way.

You may want to check your seiko, btw. our h2-74s pretty much will suck the ink until its nearly bone dry. I never measured how much ink is left in it afterwards, but it feels close to air tight, and I cant feel any ink in it. Next empty bag, I'm going to cut up just for fun and see.


[Edit] I also wouldnt recommend this with UV ink. At least with our flatbed (Uses 4 liter bags) By the time one is reporting at 0, the ink is like a sludge. I wouldn't mix it with the new stuff... Theres always quite a bit left too. We just write it off as cost of doing business.