#1: Bags as Reservoirs Author: Martin, Location: South Yorkshire, UKPosted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 12:55 am — I think I probably mentioned something about this in the past but my ink supplier came up with this idea for my Canon CIS kits with a view to making things easier to maintain, reduce the height of the ink level and overall make things less messy when it came to refilling.
Well, he finally sent me some bags to play with and I've incorporated them into a CIS for a Canon iP4300 (although in fairness I could use the kit on an iP4200, 5200, etc...).
The bags are designed using many of the same valves and fittings as you'd find in a hospital ward although the bags themselves are made from the same material as wine bags IIRC.
There are a number of luer fittings in this:
- the bonded luer fitting helps couple the valve to the bag.
- the valve is self closing/opening depending on whether you have the tube fitting screwed in or not
- the tube fitting is exactly what it says it is
- the clip is something I got from my ink republic days and have since sourced independently
In a nutshell this setup allows you to use a luer syringe to fill the bag with ink then disconnect and it'll sit happily without spilling or leaking. As a result you could swap in and out new bags without needing a box of rubber gloves to deal with the mess.
The other benefit of this setup is that it allows you to lay the bags flat which in turn keeps the ink level way below the printhead, thus avoiding the over-pressure issue. Of course you need to be careful not to overfill the bags or you'll flood the printhead but that's a no-brainer.
The tube clips are necessary because whilst the bag will auto-seal itself the tubing running to the cartridges will not, so before you do anything to connect/disconnect the reservoir bag you must clip/pinch the tubing first.
This setup is not without its disadvantages however.
1. You have to ensure the bag lies completely flat or the ink flow may be pinched shut starving the printhead
2. The fitting needs to lie flat with the bag for the exact same reason as 1.
3. You need to ensure the bags are protected from anyone putting something heavy on them (this would force ink into the printhead or worse burst them).
All these issues aside it's a rather elegant solution to the problem and I've ordered in a bunch more to replace my bottle collections although I've opted to reduce the capacity and the length of the bag so they'll fit in the boxes I already have set aside for the purpose.
... shows the setup I have for the iP4300... The only reason there's 3 bags on the right side of the printer and not underneath is that I misjudged the required tubing length by about 4 inches. Future kits will have sufficient tubing to allow the bags to sit protected underneath the printer in a flat box.
Of course such a setup would make it harder to check the ink levels casually unlike with bottles where they sit next to a printer. Either way I plan to check the bag levels on a regular basis but if someone forgot they'd end up burning out the printhead if it ran out.
