Changing the ink color in a refillable cartridge

InkjetMall Customer Support ConeColor Inks & Printing
1

I would like to change the ink in my refillable cartridges to different grayscale colors. Is there a procedure to flush the old ink out of a cartridge or do I have to purchase a whole new set?

2

According to documentation, you need to get a new set. There are simply too many nooks and crannies in these carts, which will hold the old ink and cause color issues. I realize the cost of the 38xx carts is significant…this is partially the reason I bought a R2880.

Now. I haven’t tried this, and IJM probably won’t condone it, but if you don’t care too much about color tinting, you could try several “rinses” of the carts with the color you intend to use. That is, suck all the old ink out, put in a few mL of the new ink, swirl it around, suck it out and discard, and repeat several times. Again, no idea if this will work.

3

I would be inclined to do this with a little piezoflush first, then repeat several times with distilled water. While it’s true that the documentation says that it can’t be done, and this is often repeated on the forum, when pressed Dana and Jon occasionally suggest that you could try this approach. I’ve done it once or twice with desktop carts and it’s tedious - I have no idea how much more difficult the larger carts would be.

4

Comparing the innards of 38xx and 2880 carts, the large ones have a lot less going on inside them surprisingly enough, so it might actually be easier to clean. I like your suggestion about the PF and distilled water Brian. It would probably be better than trying the new ink alone.

5

Hi windeking~

Based on your order history, it looks like you’re using Piezography Selenium ink in your 3880 carts that you purchased in the beginning of 2013, is this correct?
If so, switching to a different Piezography ink tone isn’t difficult- just drain the carts as much as possible, and refill with new K7 ink- keeping the shade placement the same (shade 2 always goes in the C position, shade 3 in the LC position, 4 in Magenta, etc…). You will have a few drops of Selenium ink remaining in the carts, but this shouldn’t be a problem if you re-prime the carts, and draw about 5ml ink out of the exit chamber to get the new ink flowing thru the cart. After reinstalling the carts with new ink installed, do one initial fill cycle to get ink from carts to the print head, or 3 power clean cycles is the equivalent.

I would NEVER recommend reusing carts with Piezography inks that were previously used with color inks, because the color staining can never be fully removed, and will effect your Piezography inks.

I hope this helps.
Best regards and happy printing~ Dana

6

It depends on how long the carts had been in use. I recently cleaned out some colour desktop carts than hadn’t been in use very long and so the pigment hadn’t really had a chance to settle. I got them pretty clean using the approach I suggested. Lk & LLK are also less of a risk IMHO. But I doubt that this would have worked with carts that had been in use for a long time and so where a lot of pigment had settled, and in any case there probably isn’t much point with older carts, since they should be replaced at some stage.

But I hadn’t considered using these cleaned carts for piezo - that is taking a bigger risk.