Interesting that there are 3 sponges and not 2.  I guess it's easier to manufacture that way.

I was concerned that dry ink could get into the recovered ink.  From that point of view I would try recover as much as is reasonable in one attempt, rather that the strung out procedures I have used so far.  In fact I will probably throw the gray ink I have recovered from the current test cart.  After the first attempt at recovery I left the ink in the syringe overnight, with a normal needle inserted with the scabbard on.  The next day it was apparent that ink had leaked into both the scabbard and the hub between needle and syringe.  The syringe is a slip hub type, not the better luer lock hub type.  When I cleaned up the leaks and injected the remaining ink into a small bottle it felt like a clog had formed in the needle.  Which means it is very likely there is a small clump of ink in the collected ink.  So not worth the risk of reusing the ink.  I think the lesson is to recover and re-inject all in one session.
I think I may buy a better syringe though.

Bruce

That sounds interesting.  When I was researching the Purge units used in printers I found cases where home 3D printers had been used to make these types of pumps.

Further on my attempts to extract ink from an empty cart:
I tried gluing the shortened needle  to the plastic clip using the Bondic.  It uses UV light to cure the glue in about 4 seconds.  It did not work on this type of plastic, so I tried a hot glue gun and that did work.

After the previous test the cart weighed 15.12g without the sticky tape.
I removed the sticky tape covering the vent on the sponge side of the cart and pulled the syringe quickly to full length.  Nothing much happened, so I slowly closed the syringe and opened it quickly.  A small drop came out.  I repeated a further 4 times and weighed the cart.  It now weighed 14.77g without any sticky tape.

I then made a small homemade centrifuge by glueing a 1/4in bolt to a metal lid of a biscuit tin (about 8.5 inch or 21.5cm  diameter).  I taped the cart to the inner rim of the lid with the exit port facing out, put the bolt in a cordless drill and spun the cart for about 20s.  (No tape on sponge side vent).

I connected the cart back up with the extraction needle and repeated the previous method, but did it about 12 times.  The cart now weighs 14.6g, so ink extracted today is 15.12g – 14.6g = 0.55g.  I have to say it looks very small in the syringe.  I don’t know that the centrifuge achieved much.

The total ink now extracted is 17.84g – 14.6g = 3.24g.  Which represents an increase of usable ink by 29.3%.  Ink left in the sponge is 14.6g – 13.58g – 1.02g.

My thoughts at this point are that a small pump would do a better (quicker) job, because it’s taken several goes to get this far.

I have extracted a purge unit from an old printer and may play around with it on some 3rd party carts.

Bruce

Good question.  I meant to explain that earlier.  When I first took the cart out of the printer I taped the vent closed based on advise that if I ever intended using the cart in future for refilling, this stops the sponge drying out and rendering the cart unusable in future.  Although I think you can use rejuvenation fluid to bring it back to life, using the tape is the easiest option.

When I decided to try extracting ink, I decided to see what happens if I did it with the tape still in place.  If it did not work I could remove the tape and try again.
Seeing as it did work I never bothered trying it without the tape. When I tried drawing ink from the 3rd party cart there was no tape over the vent.  In that case there was a lot of air bubbles in the syringe.  In the taped off OEM case the bubbles tended not to form.

I will try to remove more ink out of the OEM cart with the tape off, but first want to glue the shortened syringe needle into the plastic clip.  Waiting for tomorrow, when ALDI have a special on Bondic Liquid Plastic Welder.

Bruce

My 120 Hour Purge was due 2 days ago, but I delayed it until today.  I have uploaded the latest spreadsheet.

I think it worth pointing out that the average total ink used for a 120hour purge is now 1.83g.  Down from about 2.0g.  I think that is because the last few purges were for both groups at the same time.  I think I said it previously but keeping the 2 group purges synchronised tends to be more economical.

If you have not already seen it, I started a new thread discussing the ink left in a cart reported as empty by the print driver.  You may want to check that out.

In a previous post I said I did not think the Pro-100 would draw much power in standby mode.  I looked up the specs and it uses 2.1W in standby.  If your power company charged 4 cents per Kwh it would cost about 75 cents a year to leave the printer on permanently in standby.

Bruce

When I cleaned the plastic clip after yesterdays effort I noticed it had started to come apart, since I had not used any glue like Jose had.
So I figured it was worth trying again, starting at the same place I left off yesterday.
Because of the vacuum formed in the cart, if you let go of the syringe handle it tried to go back-in part of the way.  So I tried a short pumping type action, by letting the syringe return a bit before I resumed.  It seemed to help.
So after the first attempt the cart weighed 15.04g.
I tried a jerking type action on the cart to force ink towards the exit port.  Not quite the slinging action suggested by Mike but should have a similar effect.
I connected the syringe again and used the same pumping action as before and weighed the cart to get a final result of 14.91g.

The total amount of ink recovered now is 2.96g, which represents a 31.1% increase in ink available.  Leaving 1.33g in the cart.
It's a cumbersome way to get the last few dregs, but it does indicate that there is potential if a better technique can be devised.
I was considering taking a purge unit out of an old printer and using it instead of a syringe.  Not sure how much pressure they can exert compared to a syringe.  Not everyone would have access to an old printer though.
I tend to keep them.  They may come in handy one day.
If the purge unit does work better than a syringe it may then be worth working on a solution based on commercially available parts.
Bruce 

The 20% may at first seem disappointing, but a more logical way to look at this is that the 2.72g is better than 28% of the ink that is currently usable.
ie.  Only 9.49g of a cart is currently usable.

Bruce

I bit the bullet and started extracting ink from my “Empty” Gray OEM cart today.

The short description is that I extracted 2.72g of ink.

I used the same equipment as the last time, but repeated it several times to see how much I could get  just using a simple syringe.  I recorded most of what I did on video.  It’s quite boring, so I have not uploaded any of the recordings.

I deliberately took my time.  Here is a summary of what I did:

1.   When I started, the cart weighed 17.87g.  I left some cello-tape on the cart, covering the vent at the top of the sponge side.   That is why it weighs 0.03g more than when I took it out of the printer.
2.   I took my time on the first draw back of the syringe (about 2.5 min)
3.    Weighed the cart – (16.29g) and returned the syringe towards closed position
4.   Second drawback (about 2min)
5.   Weighed again (15.74g) and returned the syringe towards closed position
6.   Third drawback (about 1m 25s)
7.   Weighed again (15.5g) and returned syringe toward closed position
8.   Fourth drawback (about 45s) slowly returned syringe to closed while cart still connected.
9.   Fifth drawback (15s)
10.   Weighed (15.41g) and returned the syringe towards closed position
11.   Sixth through to Tenth drawback (30s, 10s, 10s, 5s, 5s) with cart still attached to syringe.
12   Final weight 15.15g

Ink recover = 17.87g – 15.15g = 2.72g (almost 20% of a full cart)

So theoretically there is still 15.15g – 0.03g – 13.58g = 1.54g left in the cart.

I am quite sure I can speed up the process a lot. I am not so sure I can get much more ink out of the cart.

I think it’s too risky to keep printing, even if the printer lets you.  Printheads are very expensive and the extra effort of transferring to another cartridge is not that big a deal once you got the few extra tools needed.  I certainly would not want to be weighing in-between every couple of prints because you only have 60s total accumulated time to have the cart out of the printer before a purge will result and ruin everything.  Measing the weight of 8 carts several times makes for a lot more work than transferring the ink.  You would also need to keep careful notes about each cart.


The cart I was drawing ink from was a 3rd party cart with a single sponge.  The OEM carts have 2 sponges, presumable with different densities.  So until we try the same method on an OEM cart it is difficult to know an answer to your question.  I note in Jose’s video he said there was about 5ml of water in the sponge and he also had the vent on top of the liquid chamber open.  I did not have the vent open.  Jose seemed to be getting just droplets.

Related to the fact that it was not an OEM cart that I tested, and I was having all sorts of problems with my Pro9000, which is where the carts came from, it is very likely the sponge has more ink than it should.  With the OEMs the ink tends to be mainly in the bottom sponge.  With these 3rd party carts the ink is well up the sponge.  It is very possible that I mistakenly thought I had a printhead issue when in fact it was a cartridge issue and in my attempt to fix a good printhead I burnt out the printhead as well.  I bought a replacement printhead but decided to buy the Pro100 before it arrived.

I am beginning to think I should just test the single "Empty" OEM cart I have and somehow store the ink until it is needed, just so I know this technique is worth pursuing. I will think on it.


That could work.  You may be interested in the gadget Jose discussed at the last Techie talk:
https://youtu.be/Ahstv2v64I0?t=1h12m35s



There is an air hole on the sponge side.  It is in a L shape and I believe it is sealed when the cart is packaged.  Removing the packaging unseals that vent.  I assumed that is where the air came from.  The other possibility is that I did not use glue on my modified plastic clip, so maybe there is a pressure leak there.


There are a lot of combinations of potential workflows.  The 2 simplest would appear to be to either remove the cart when the “Low Ink Warning” starts. ( ie.  38% left), or when the “Empty Warning” appears.  (ie. 31% left).  With the “Empty” option you could probably use 3 empty carts to get somewhere in the mid to high 80% area.  With the “Low” option, 2 carts are probably going to give somewhere in the low 70% area and 3 carts will result in more than you need, which means you have to hold on to that small amount of extra ink for a potentially long time.

Bruce

This thread is relevant to the Canon  CLI-42 OEM cartridges, but may have some relevance to other Canon catridges and in particular the CLI-8s.

For those of you who have been reading my thread on Purge cycles for the Pro-100S, you will know  my testing suggested there was about 3.5g (approx  3.5ml) of wasted ink left in the sponge when the printer reports the cart as empty.  The cart is usually thrown out at this point, unless you intend refilling with 3rd party ink.  The 3.5 figure is based on the assumption that the cart starts with 13ml of ink when full.

I came up with the crazy idea, for OEM users, of harvesting this wasted ink from 3 carts and refilling a 4th empty cart.  Since then I have determined that there must be even more ink in the sponge of the cart reported as empty.   In fact the figure is more like 4.26g.  I say this because I remembered Jose (Jtoolman) measured an empty cart he had been preparing to refill and he got it down to 13.58g.

So the simple maths:
Weight of new full cart = 27.33g
Weight of Virgin cart = 13.58g
Hence Total ink in a full cart is 27.33g – 13.58g = 13.75g   (Not 13g as had been assumed)

My Gray cart was reported empty at 17.84g.  Hence 17.84g – 13.58g = 4.26g left in sponge .

So percentage of ink left in sponge and typically thrown away is 30.98%.

I decided to do a simple test of how much ink can be extracted from an empty cart.  I did not want to start with an OEM cart so I used a 3rd party CLI-8 cart that was almost at the low ink level.  My guess is there was about 0.5g of ink in the compartment side of the cart.
I should have taken it down to the low level before starting, to be more accurate, but I figured the sponges are different to the OEM so accuracy was never going to be possible.  I just wanted to prove the concept.

The method of removing the ink was to use a plastic base clip which is intended to cover the exit hole and modify by inserting a shortened needle into the silicone washer seal.  The best way for you to see this is to look at the one made by Jtoolman on this video link: https://youtu.be/ACc0Bw5nicY

The same video mentions the virgin cart weight.  I did not even have to glue my clip like Jose did, because the needle was a tight fit through the silicon washer.  The syringe I used is quite big with a 22ml capacity.

The extraction went very well, taking only about 30s.  I slowly drew the syringe all the way out, which  brought a lot of air as well of course.  I then just waited a minute or so for the bubbles to disperse.  The 0.5g of ink that was in the tank remained until after I had pulled the syringe to it’s full extent, it then slowly moved into the sponge.  So a second attempt would probably have harvested some of that as well.

The amount harvested in just one single draw on the syringe was 3.97g.  Bear in mind that this cart was not reported as empty.  From testing my Pro-100 I know the low ink level is reported when there is about 5.22g left, which equates to 38% of the ink left.  So I think the ink yield is a satisfying result for just one quick draw on the syringe.

I also queried Jose about refilling a cart to 90%.  He agreed that that is at about the upper limit and that 80% was generally considered a good practice.

So here is a potential workflow:
1.   Stop using a cart when it gets down to 40% left (Not quite ink low level)
2.   When you have 2 stored empty carts, extract the ink from one (Donor)  and inject into the other (Recipient).  The Recipient cart needs to be reset and modified to allow refilling.
3.    When the next cart reaches 40%, remove it and replace with the Recipient cart.

One problem with this workflow is that it assumes 40% from both carts.  The donor cart will not yield 40%.  So the recipient cart  may only end up with say 75% instead of 80%.  However, I don’t think it’s an issue.  I believe what will happen is that when you first install the Recipient cart the printer driver will report 100%, due to the reset.  As ink is used it will drop gradually, but I assume at some point the prism in the cart will pick up that it has less ink than estimated by the usage and the ink level warnings will suddenly drop drastically.  It would be interesting to get some feedback on this assumption from seasoned re-fillers.

If it is an issue the options are to either not let the carts get as low as 40% or to use 2 donor carts instead of one.

The workflow is constructed, for the Canon Pro-100S in a way to avoid unnecessary purges of ink.  If you have the recipient cart ready when you take the current cart out to replace, and do the swap in less than 60s, there should be no purge.  The same applies to any cart swap, as long as the accumulated time a cart is out of the printer, since the last purge, does not exceed 60s, there should be no purge.

I currently have only one used OEM CLI-42 cart that has been removed from the printer.  In this case it was identified as empty by the printer driver.  Hence, it only contains about 31% of the original ink.  I will have to modify the workflow slightly for the first attempt.  eg.  I could take the next cart out at 50% full.


Bruce

An improvement to the above idea:

When your cart gets to a figure of say 70% full, reset it and fill it with the 3.1ml from the previous empty.
That way the ink is not going to hang around for as long, with heaps of empties to store.
The exact refill point needs some experimentation if relying on the print driver advice about ink level.  Weighing will give a good indication.

Bruce

I have a crazy idea, which could potentially save OEM ink users a some cost in ink:
What if we save our empty carts until we have 4 empty carts for any specific colour.  That means we have 4 x 3.5ml of stored OEM ink.
We then extract the ink from 3 of those carts, using a modified plastic clip like Jose uses to clean OEM carts for refilling.  This extracted ink is then injected into the 4th empty cart.   Assuming we can get as much as 3.1ml out of the 3 carts we get:
- (3 x 3.1) + 3.5 = 12.8ml.   In the long term it works out less than 4 carts because the refilled cart also yields 3.5ml to be refilled again.

I think I will run this past Jose.   One issue may be that the Canon instructions recommend using a cart within 6 months.
Sure it's a bit of messing about but it looks to me like a viable option to encourage those who want to use OEM to continue doing so.
The only additional cost would be the chip resetter and the plastic clips and syringes.

Bruce

Based on the fact that only 9.5g of the 13g is used (ie.  3.5g is thrown away), your 9 months drops back to just 6 months for the 120 hour purge timer.
Similarly the 480 hour timer would give you 12 months.

Bruce

Sorry dannac, I just realised you probably wanted an answer to your post.
I don't think the powering on and off makes a lot of difference to the ink used.  Without looking at the power consumption specs, I doubt the printer uses that much power in standby.
If I were you I would probably spread the printing out so that the printer does not go longer than say 2 weeks without a purge.  In fact I would probably build up to that by starting at 8 or 10 days and send a nozzle check or purge sheet to initiate the purge and confirm no clogged nozzles.

I was not expecting to be reporting this so soon, but my Gray cart reported empty today.
So I measured the weight of the full gray cart and the empty gray cart giving a figure of 9.49g.  I was expecting more like 13g from what I had heard around the traps.  I am guessing it is because the cart still has some usable ink and the printer driver will probably continuously pester me to change the cart every time I try to print, but may still let me print.

After replacing the empty cart with a full cart, I sent a Form Feed to the printer.  There was no purge, which is interesting, because the Pro-100 User Manual says there will be a purge.  However, as already mentioned in this thread, the Pro9000 Service Manual indicates the purge will only happen if a cart is removed for more than 60s.  I probably only took 10s.

So now we know there is no variation to the purge procedure if the printer (driver?) has determined there is an Empty Cart.
I have updated and uploaded the spreadsheet, which also contains the recent purge of both group 1 and group 2, which I synchronised by delaying printing until both groups 120 hour timers expired.

Bruce

Yes Mike, your interpretation is correct.
The only thing I can add is that Red River have done extensive analysis of the ink cost of many printers, including the Pro-100.
Here is the one for the Pro-100:  http://www.redrivercatalog.com/cost-of-inkjet-printing-canon-pro-100.html

Red River admit their costs do not include purge costs.
However, the Red River analysis does provide an indication of ink usage on various size prints.  Based on the Red River figures an 8x10 uses 0.668ml per 8x10. Versus your 0.56ml per 8x10.
So I guess the Pro-100 uses more ink than the average printer.
Here is the maths I used:  Red River determined the Pro-100 uses 0.000643 cartridges per square inch.  Multitply by 80 (squ inch per 8x10) gives 0.05144 cartridges per 8x10.  Multiply by 13ml per cart gives the above 0.668ml.
Red River also mention they assumed a 95% coverage.

A graph, or table combining the Red River costs per print plus purge costs, mapped against usage, would probably gives users an idea of their true costs per print.
Bruce

Just to be clear, re; "adjusted the monitor".  I mean have you profiled the monitor, using a device which reads the colours and light intensity of the monitor output?
This procedure adjusts the monitor output by creating a file which tells the Windows or MAC drivers how to use the monitor for your environment.  It's a procedure that typically needs to be repeated every month or so, because the monitor output changes slightly over time.  It's usually a good idea to have the lighting around the monitor well managed as well.  You don't want have bright sunlight one time and dull incandescent light another.

The monitor should be your starting point, but I suspect you have both monitor and paper profile issues.

Bruce