to:Gerald Olson In a message dated 00-01-14 20:39:52 EST, posted <<Tomcat: Ok, I'll try refilling ONE more time, if you will tell me step by step Precisely how to refill a black 1200 Cartridge. I'll tell you exactly what I did, and you tell me what I did wrong. I followed media street's directions exactly. What went wrong, because I got disastrous results. Here's what I did. Filled my syringe with beta black Generations inks. Got out a virgin Media street cartridge. Removed the vacuum seal first, so the vent hole was exposed. I placed the needle to the bottom front of the cartridge like instructed, and then SLOWLY filled the cartridge through the fill hole. Waited until a tiny bit of ink came up through the fill hole, AND the vent ho,,, >> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Gerry you were doomed from the start! You see the ink sellers guys are like all the others they never really stopped to think of all the problems they will cause you, the print owners, with those brain dead "just inject the ink" refill instructions. You see if you try pushing 20 feet of rope into a box through a really tight hole it can take hours but if you pull the same rope through from the other side it will take just seconds. Well this is very similar to how the folks are trying to tell you how to refill! They are telling you to push the ink in with a syringe when you should be pulling the ink in with a vacuum! First the mechanics of what you are doing. The only way you can get the air out of the sponge ( and you really need to do this or esle you get endless junk prints , as you have found out) is to make a place that is more attractive for the air in the sponge to go ( a lower pressure zone) By the way it takes just a fraction of a CC of air to kill a refill and once you get air in the cartridge you never really get it out with injection method so after like 3 to 4 refills the cartridge is air locked and they tell you to buy a new one. I have refilled the same cartridges at least 75 times with perfect prints and I have never replaced those heat sealed rubber ink seals at the feed ports! Sooooo if you create a low pressure zone with a syringe then guess what will happen to the air pockets in the sponge ???/ The air pockets will go straight to the low pressure zone. and it does not take a whole lot of pressure change to get the air in the sponge to move! Now if you have the cartridges properly hooked up to a ink supply as the air is drawn out of the sponge cells at one end the refill ink is sucked right into fill those million of cell holes at the other end! There is just no way you can inject ink and get good prints!. You will compress those air pockets and they will expand as soon as you stop injecting ink! This is the last thing you want you have to make them smaller or better yet flush out the air as I do! Ok you might get like a page or 2 of printing, but then you will hit a few air pockets and spend the next few hours getting them out just to hit them again! Hey I tried for months kidding myself that injection ( like all the ink sellers told me will work) Trust me there is no way this is the method you want to use! You see these guys just do not want to admit to you that they do not have a clue how to refill they just want to sell you either bulk ink or better the cartridges they fill for you. Hey I do not hate these guys I just wish they would tell you the truth that refilling with the cheap injection kits ( a syringe is like $0.50) is at best a very messy way to get poor prints. Now the plastic cartridges cost about $ 1 to $3 each direct from China, And the ink really cost about $0.50 or less but they sell it to you for like $15 to $30 so you can see why they are happy either way they make a killing. I can buy a S020089 ( tri color for the 600 1520 and so on) Epson non OEM cartridge direct from China with USA ink for just $3.25. These sell at discounted ink jet supply brokers for about $15 and they run very good I used them. But I like the American Ink Jet Corp. Bulk ink better You have to use a cartridge that has been modified so the refill ink inlet and outlet at the right locations to cause the correct amount of cross flow so you sweep out the bubbles. It takes me 5 to 10 seconds to connect the cartridges and about 40 to 60 seconds to flow 100 to 200 cc of ink completly through the cartridges. The 1520's are thirsty machines and I keep them well inked. Many times I go through 3 to 4 cartridge sets per printer a day! Now I am sorry but as you may know I an attempting to market my refill kit soooo I really can not tell you how it done not yet! But with the money I am making from my Epson prints I should be able to do it in a few more months. At this point I gave up contacting the inks guys and other supppliers they just do not care to make refill a easy and clean operation not the messy hell of a job it is now! Hey when I finally do get my kits made are all those guys are going to be sorry they all missed out on a sure thing! But I saved all my letters and faxes so I can say they had their chance! All I can say if you are not using some form of a vacuum refill kit you are doomed to failure. The WeInk can be made to work I am sure Ben will post words to that effect but for the guys who are new to refilling the current state of the art is really bad!l But from what I have posted here perhaps the feed systems will be the way to go! TomCat - Turn off HTML mail features. Keep quoted material short. Use accurate subject lines. http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions.