aab1 wrote:

I'd be curious to know what happens with HP chips on the cartridges. Please let me know if you try it.

Will do...

Quote:

About about the K550 drivers, well the K550 is HP's biggest mistake ever, I wonder if there's a single one out there that actually works. I returned 4 in 4 days with the same problem before giving up. All user reviews also mention the same problem. The K550 is a broken product out of the box in every case it seems.

I meant printers before the horrible K550 that ruined HP's reputation. At least this L7780 is still working great after about 8000 prints, but the driver issue is really annoying.

Funny you should say that, I've got three K550's in schools and they've been nothing but trouble since day one... That said I had one sat at home setup and working fine for months.. move it to school and the damned thing starts going screwy.

In truth I'm finding the L7680 at home similar thanks to the same lousy printhead build quality and fast approaching the point of offloading all my HP's on ebay and investing in Canons across the board. The MP830 is a hell of a lot better quality, perhaps not the paper capacity but in terms of just usability, I prefer it.. If only they put printservers in the darned thing

Anyways, we're getting off topic..


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

Well, I'm no closer to understanding what is going on here but I've just seen a second brand new printhead start smearing the yellow with black which would seem to indicate that there's a problem with black ink being pushed through too fast or seeping out into the pad that the printhead rests on. Whatever the reason it's left me with no choice but to abandon the modified cartridge approach and return to using the 3rd party cartridges again.

The whole episode has left me scratching my head rather a lot and given that the Canons are now pretty much working as required I think my decision to concentrate my efforts in that direction has to be a positive one. There's really only so much time available to play with these things and come to that, money too!

For anyone else who opts to try this approach just a few last notes to clue you into the setup... Any insights will always be welcome btw.

Setup:
- reservoirs = dip bottle arrangement
- black ink level set so that top of ink less than an inch above the top of the cartridge
- HP OEM cartridge converted to use a 2mm ID barbed fitting with right angle elbow to attach a 2mm ID tubing (tyon silicon)



And just as a sort of concluding episode, I've just reprimed the original cartridge by drawing a very strong vaccum on it and then allowed it to refill with ink. Got that setup, run a few sheets of paper through using a 4 colour and yellow only purge pattern and now the printhead seems to be working again. Not sure if that'll last long term but we'll see... In addition the reservoir has been put back up so the ink level sits at 7 inches from the base of the printer.

Think I'm ready to conclude defeat on this one folks..


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

Yesterday during a 1000 page print job with lots of cyan, the cyan eventually stopped comming out completely. Luckily I had a spare working C/M head from the peice of junk K550 I unfortunately bought.

The printhead died after just 11,000 prints, 20% of it's expected life (rated for over 50,000 prints). I'm starting to think this is due to the imbeciles that disabled the ink pump on my CIS system. What do you think?

Also, why go through so much trouble to get tubes in the HP cartridges? When I do it, I simply insert the tube in the cartridge refilling hole (with the black rubber sealing ball) and then hot glue it in place. That takes 2-5 minutes per cartridge and does a very reliable seal and connection (I've done 100,000 prints problem free on my 9110 with a CIS I made this way). I don't understand why you go through the extra work of curring the bag and trying to fit the tube, is it just to avoid the bag disintegrating with age? If so, my method is so simple I wouldn't mind re doing it every 3 years each time the cartridges expired, in fact, on my 9110, the printer broke before I ever had a chance to redo the CIS setup.

aab1 wrote:

Yesterday during a 1000 page print job with lots of cyan, the cyan eventually stopped comming out completely. Luckily I had a spare working C/M head from the peice of junk K550 I unfortunately bought.

The printhead died after just 11,000 prints, 20% of it's expected life (rated for over 50,000 prints). I'm starting to think this is due to the imbeciles that disabled the ink pump on my CIS system. What do you think?

I wouldn't like to bet against it... I've not had a printhead last the declared age yet but we're using similar systems.

Quote:

Also, why go through so much trouble to get tubes in the HP cartridges? When I do it, I simply insert the tube in the cartridge refilling hole (with the black rubber sealing ball) and then hot glue it in place. That takes 2-5 minutes per cartridge and does a very reliable seal and connection (I've done 100,000 prints problem free on my 9110 with a CIS I made this way). I don't understand why you go through the extra work of curring the bag and trying to fit the tube, is it just to avoid the bag disintegrating with age? If so, my method is so simple I wouldn't mind re doing it every 3 years each time the cartridges expired, in fact, on my 9110, the printer broke before I ever had a chance to redo the CIS setup.

Initially I was ready to write a very long reply then I realised it boiled down to me being a complete muppet who likes to make things difficult for himself.

A recent discussion I had with the guy who builds these kits himself indicated that they too use a fitting there and I'd originally ignored it as I thought my fittings won't go in the fill hole properly without blocking the chip holder part. Having looked at it properly again after a little cutting work it seems you're right...

I think the words I'm looking for at this point is "dumbass".. Ah well... sometimes I have to be so blasted "clever"


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

I'll try to make my own CIS out of the original HP cartridges to get the ink pump going again. With my Officejet 9110, nearly all my printheads EXCEEDED their claimed life, and that was livign their entire life fed by the CIS system.

I expect my printer to be back to normal once I re enable it's ink pump. I guess it could only be a doctor who'd disable a printer's ink pump as if was useless, just like they needlessly (in most cases) remove human organs for profit, thinking they have no use in the human body (whi do you think nature put them there, or in the case of the printer, why do you think they put an ink pump? probably because they determined it was necessary for the proper functionning of the machine).

I did actually write a follow on post as I successfully modified an OEM cartridge by putting a little double barbed elbow (with a sleeve of tubing to seal it tight) into the filling port and then running the tube out to the reservoir.

Works a treat and so long as the reservoir is elevated (I've put mine on top of my K550 - test machine) it seems to do the trick perfectly... Although having said that I notice immediately that the air in the printhead is still very much a problem... Once it's in there it really will not come out again!


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

Oh, you're using a K550!? I would recommend NOT testing anything on a K550, the black/yellow printhead problems are a "built in" problem on this printer model, they ALL have this issue, CIS or not, read the reviews, not one user didn't report this problem. The black/yellow issues you are having are NOT from the CIS system. There is not one K550 that works, all reviews confirm this and I've had 4 in a row with the same black/yellow printhead issue (without CIS, still on the original HP cartridges).

aab1 wrote:

Oh, you're using a K550!? I would recommend NOT testing anything on a K550, the black/yellow printhead problems are a "built in" problem on this printer model, they ALL have this issue, CIS or not, read the reviews, not one user didn't report this problem. The black/yellow issues you are having are NOT from the CIS system. There is not one K550 that works, all reviews confirm this and I've had 4 in a row with the same black/yellow printhead issue (without CIS, still on the original HP cartridges).

Ah, I've heard about this and had to get a couple of new printheads sent as replacements from HP as a result.. but that only affects the OEM printheads sent with the K550's, not any retail ones purchased later which is what I have now.

As it goes I now have a working K550dtn sitting on the floor with a bottle of ink sitting on top of the printer and running into an OEM cartridge via the fill port on the cartridge so the cart bag is intact and full. It's working an absolute treat and I'll be doing the same with the other cartridges (CYM) when I have some time over this half term holiday.

Granted the K550 is a bit of a bollixed up system, and the expanded paper tray is one key example of this with it failing to work a good 50% of the time... in terms of printhead and consumables though it's exactly the same as the L7X80 and K5400's so whilst I'm not a great fan of the printer the printhead issue is incumbent in all HP88 printheads.

Either way, as I said, it's working and working well so I feel a little happier all told


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

printheads have a warranty.hp told me they last until the date written on the printhead. therefore they will replace the printheads regardless from what you print =)

Hi to all...i am new here...but with an old problem...i want to ask the expert (Martin ) if he foud a permanent fix for it.
My problem is with the hp88 and hp10 CISS...when i print after the first page that comes out i get the error that the cartiges are emty...after i open and close the printer lid it continues to print as usual..this happens every time i print something. Already tested on a k5400,k550 and 2800.
this is very very furtrating...i dont know if is a chip problem or its the pump ....pls help!