Finally, refilling cartridges is a thing of the past!

Since I printed a lot of 100% ink covered labels for my software I got a HP business inkjet printer with cartridges that do about 2000 color prints each, but since I didn't use anywhere near the 10,000 page/month duty cycle I decided to offer a color printing service and am getting 500-3000 page orders since I can beat anyone's price while offering better print quality, but the ink cartridges had to be refilled often, so I bought medical grade tube and connected them to each cartridge, out the gap between the printer and scanner and to ink bottles (the photo shows 2 and 4oz bottles, but I have 16 and 32 oz bottles on their way).

https://forums.windrivers.com/

https://forums.windrivers.com/

https://forums.windrivers.com/

For $98 I got enough ink for 30 000 color prints or 60 000 black and white prints, toner for as many pages for a laser printer would cost around $5 000-10 000, that's the main reason why I prefer inkjets.

My printing service is working so well I'm considering getting the business inkjet 3000 with a 30-50 000 page/month duty cycle and/or the business inket 2800 large format 13x19 printer since a few are requesting large format prints.

I had seen ink kits like this with tubes connected to the cartridges but they are being sold for $340 US, it cost me $4 to build it myself, and the $98 of ink is many many times more than came with the kit. I can finally forget about refilling which I hated doing, rather than refill cartridges every 2000 prints, I will now replace ink bottles which is much easier and only every 30-60k prints.

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Originally Posted by ClickHere2Surf.com

..I had seen ink kits like this with tubes connected to the cartridges but they are being sold for $340 US, it cost me $4 to build it myself..

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That is a considerable saving ! so all you've done is tape in some tubes & then shove them in some ink bottles ?

Generally you come up with some 'whacky notions' .. but I actually like this one ! :)

(& I can't say I've seen anybody do this before either, as anybody using 'lots of ink' is generally using commercial grade printers which are much much more ecconimical than some 'crumby inkjet')

What "pushes", or "pulls" the ink through the tubes to the cartridges?

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Originally Posted by MobilePCPhysician

What "pushes", or "pulls" the ink through the tubes to the cartridges?

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that's what I wondered too.

I've worked on a lot of plotters that use tubing for the ink delivery system, so I'm wondering what you did to get around the vaccum seal and how you get the ink to pump uphill like that??

I can tell you from experience that what might be going on here is that the ink in the cartridges is what you are printing from, and you will find once it runs out, that nothing is actually being "pulled" from the bottles.

When a pump goes bad on a plotter, or a vaccum leak occurs, you don't notice right away as the printheads hold some ink, so until you deplete whats in them, you don't realize there is a problem.

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That is a considerable saving ! so all you've done is tape in some tubes & then shove them in some ink bottles ?

Generally you come up with some 'whacky notions' .. but I actually like this one !

(& I can't say I've seen anybody do this before either, as anybody using 'lots of ink' is generally using commercial grade printers which are much much more ecconimical than some 'crumby inkjet')

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The cartridges for these printers are basically just a box with an ink bag inside and a spring loaded pump under the cartridge, inside the printer a sort of piston comes and presses the pump under the cartridge in and out to pump ink to the printheads, what I did was open the refill hole inside the cartridge and inserted a tube in each of the 4 cartridges and sealed them with hot glue, after being careful of getting all the air out, I connected the other ends to ink bottles in which I have made a very tiny hole (much smaller than a pinhole) to let air in the bottles as the printer pumps out the ink. This also answer how it gets the ink uphill, these HP business printers have inkpumps so it won't have any problem pumping the ink.

This is a business/commercial inkjet printer, I've looked at other lasers but the toner cost doesn't make them an option for me when I can get better quality for much much cheaper with commercial inkjets.

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I can tell you from experience that what might be going on here is that the ink in the cartridges is what you are printing from, and you will find once it runs out, that nothing is actually being "pulled" from the bottles.

When a pump goes bad on a plotter, or a vaccum leak occurs, you don't notice right away as the printheads hold some ink, so until you deplete whats in them, you don't realize there is a problem.

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These HP business models use ink pumps so it's be able to pump the ink uphill, the only thing is that the way it normally detects when it's out of ink is when the piston on the cartridge doesn't spring back out (meaning there's no more ink left to let it fill up), so I'll have to make sure I don't let the ink bottles run low or it'll start pumping in air which could damage my printheads if enough air gets in.

This lets me print color pages at $0.004 (0.4 cents) a page, I don't know of any other printer type with costs anywhere near this low, but of course if I was buying cartridges the cost would be more, but still half the cost of laser. I will still have to replace the printheads but they are rated for 24,000 prints and the seller I buy my ink from is getting a lot more than this.

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Originally Posted by ClickHere2Surf.com

I've looked at other lasers but the toner cost doesn't make them an option for me when I can get better quality for much much cheaper with commercial inkjets.

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*sigh*

We've had the inkjet/laserjet quality discussion so many times its not even worth bringing up any more.

I gotta admit that I'm impressed. I'm even moving this thread to the Printers Forum.

Of course, I can see the potential of the average joe making a complete mess and possibly ruining his printer and everything around it. But I hope it works out well for you over an extended period of time. Keep us informed.

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Originally Posted by DonJ

I gotta admit that I'm impressed. I'm even moving this thread to the Printers Forum.

Of course, I can see the potential of the average joe making a complete mess and possibly ruining his printer and everything around it. But I hope it works out well for you over an extended period of time. Keep us informed.

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I'm impressed as well.

I was confus-ed on the whole pump thing, but it makes sense now he mentioned the pump. I forgot that series has the separate tanks and printheads, so there would definitely be a pump involved somewhere!

Just be careful, working with plotters for a while I ruined more than one set of clothes messing with those damn bulk inks!

Well I'm around page 300 of a 3000 page print job and the ink levels in the bottles are going down, I put a mark on the black ink bottle where it was before starting and it's 2-3 mm lower now, so it's working, I hopw I get my 2.5 liters of ink in soon because I'm running very low on black, I'm not sure there's enough left for the 3000 page job, it should have been here days ago but it got stuck at customs due to issing information but it's been sorted out.

I got a "Black ink cartridge out of ink" error during the print job, I looked at it and everything was fine, so I pressed Enter on the printer to continue and it continued normally, maybe there was a bend or something in the hose preventing the ink from going to the cartirdge fast enough but it only did it once and I heard the ink pump running every 5-10 pages, don't know why it said that, maybe since the ink is going uphill and took more time to get pulled up, after all the black ink bottle is nearly empty so it has to pull it up from even lower, but it did make at least another few hundred pages after with no problem.

Wouldn't the bottles be better placed 'uphill' of the printer ? easier to pump downhill I'd have thought, & pressumably gravity might provide a little pressure thus reducing the need to pump quite as hard quite as often ?

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

Wouldn't the bottles be better placed 'uphill' of the printer ? easier to pump downhill I'd have thought, & pressumably gravity might provide a little pressure thus reducing the need to pump quite as hard quite as often ?

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Exactly what I was getting ready to suggest.

Build a small shelf above the printer, take some of the load off of the pump.

I was afraid that if I put them higher if ever a leak formed it would syphon all the ink into the printer, anyway with my bigger 16 and 32oz bottles the ink level will be much higher than these tiny 2 and 4oz bottles, and it only gave the out of ink message once while it was nearly empty, I'll wait until I get the bigger bottles and see.

I wonder why all printers don't use this technology? Clickhere,.. I wonder if you can patent this idea before HP does? I mean,.. I bet they thought of doing this already, but they know that they are making a killing on selling ink so they don't bother making printers do this. Tis a grand idea.

Webby,

They already do use this technology on their plotters, and actually, that is what they are using in the printer he has, just the tanks are a bit smaller. There is another set of tubes running from the small tanks in the printer to the printheads.

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Originally Posted by ClickHere2Surf.com

I was afraid that if I put them higher if ever a leak formed it would syphon all the ink into the printer...

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& now we start & see why your version costs $4 & commercial versions are 'lots' .. so taken am I with what seems a very simple idea, I've been looking at commercial kits for this, & they all seem to have various (powered, I'm assuming) valves on them to stop this happening.

I can't think of a simple notion to do what they are doing though .. hang on - sudden thought, use some tape over these iddy biddy holes when not in use ?

The $340 US kit I saw had no valves or anything, it was the exact same thing I built but with hospital IV bags at the end instead of bottles, I wanted something that could stand up which is why I chose the bags, I realize with bottles it won't detect when it's out of ink as no vacuum will form (it knows it's out of ink when the pump is unable to suck anything out) with my bottles if I don't monitor the ink levels it will just start pumping air rather than detecting it's out of ink.

I just got another idea, I could reseal the tiny hole I made which would activate the out of ink sensor but not when it's out of ink, when the vacuum is getting too strong in the bottles, this would require me to loosen and tighten the bottles every now and then but I have no idea how often, maybe I'll try this on one of the bottles.

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Originally Posted by ClickHere2Surf.com

The $340 US kit I saw had no valves or anything, it was the exact same thing I built but with hospital IV bags at the end instead of bottles, I wanted something that could stand up which is why I chose the bags..

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Note to self: don't look at continous ink feed systems that are for commercial class printers, when other folks mean 'workgroup level' type printers :rolleyes: (the ones I'd looked at, had 1/2 gallon capacities ! :knife: ) .. but having said that, now I'm looking at the right kind of things, you can find these as cheap as £75 depending on what model you want them for & I've realised this ain't a unique idea at all as there's loads of folks sell them ..

So now you are debating something like this ?
http://www.inkbags.com/t_images/hp11.jpg

Huh? I'm not sure I understand your question, when u say half gallon capacity is that in the original cartridges or in a continuous ink system? Because the bottles I got are half and quarter gallons. I know this isn't a unique idea at all, it's just that I did it myself for $4 plus $98 of ink instead of $340 which would have came with a quarter the ink I got for a total of $102.

My question wasn't about capacities at all :rolleyes:, & being a xenophobic american, you'll have course forgotten that what I mean by a gallon isn't what you mean anyway ! :p

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..I know this isn't a unique idea at all..

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& Mmmm, I'm not just 'talking to you' .. I'm also talking to 'everybody else' & I think the general impression & comments like 'why don't you patent this idea', would indicate to most folks, that this was 'a new one on us' - I'd only ever seen this done for enterprise class printers (so those with monthly duty cycles in excess of 500,000 sheets, as you seem to think a 'business class' printer is an entirely different beast to what I call one, you keep calling 'workgroup level' ones that).

Sorry, but HP calls these "business" models which is why they are called "business inkjet XXXX" except mine which is actually an officejet, but it's the only officejet that is a business [accroding to HP] model, all other officejets are for home users or small businesses. Also, each time I called HP for support they said "what model officejet do you have... oh that's a business model, this is the home product department, I'll transfer you to the business printer department...".

Ah ok then , HP don't know what one is then either then :devil: , its all subjective measurement anyway .. so I guess I may have an unusual slant on matters, as I deal with several large printing firms who'd absolutely fall about laughing, if they were expected to run their businesses with one of these 'business class' printers you are on about, they'd need about 1000 of 'em to do one days stuff !

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

being a xenophobic american

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Hey! I resent that; he's not one of ours!!!

Clickhere is from Canada I believe, so that should explain everything. :devil: :thumbs2:

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Originally Posted by 3fingersalute

Hey! I resent that;

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Whilst fully accepting your explanation, I'd like to suggest 'resemble' would be better :p - as the world stops at the USA's borders doesn't it ? Everywhere after that is just somewhere that NEEDS invading ??? :eek2: ('cept us as we are just another state, least it feels that way much of the time!) .. but 'really' only because you made me think about Celine Dion again ! :thumbs2:

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

Whilst fully accepting your explanation, I'd like to suggest 'resemble' would be better :p - as the world stops at the USA's borders doesn't it ? Everywhere after that is just somewhere that NEEDS invading ??? :eek2: ('cept us as we are just another state, least it feels that way much of the time!) .. but 'really' only because you made me think about Celine Dion again ! :thumbs2:

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You teetering on turning this thread political, but I'll just ignore whatever your babbling on about, cause since you're not from the US, what you say is not important anyhow.



Oh yeah, here's the "its-a-joke" smiley:
:D