ANOTHER New approach to Refilling

["Murray & Irina Zaharia" <zaharia@direct.ca>]

After reading of someone's attempt to boil a cartridge to loosen the glue
that holds the top of the cartridge on as well as someone cutting the top
off with an exacto knife, I had an idea to try a little Milwaukie Tools Hot
Air gun - like a paint stripper.  I use it for melting embossing powder. It
is 350 watts and gets very hot.  I carefully heated up the joint of an oem
cartridge (Epson EX) and a few minutes later was able to easily pry off the
top of the cartridge.  You have to be careful to keep moving the cartridge
or it can easily melt or warp the plastic.  My next course of events will be
to remove the foam and clean it with distilled water, keeping each peice
separate so that it can go in the same chamber later.
 Then I plan on using some kitchen and bathroom silicon caulking and laying
a bead on the ridges of each of the chambers of the cartridge and allowing
it to dry. I will refill the chambers and put the foam back in (a smaller
piece) and then tape the lid back on with packing tape which should give a
very tight seal between the lid, silicon and cartridge.  The lid will remain
removeable by just removing the packing tape. This should prevent any
inter-chamber contamination.
 For the matter of the exit holes.  I sealed them with some blue tape that I
purchased from MIS.  This tape is the same tape that HP and Canon and I
believe Epson uses to seal the ports or the printhead on the HP cartridge. I
left the original punctured seal on the cartridge. I cleaned all the ink off
the exit ports and put the tape directly on top of the old tape. I filled
the cartridge with water and it mixed with the remaining ink. I was able to
give it a few shakes and the prechambers filled with ink and did not leak
past the new tape.  This tape being the same as the Epson tape can easily
and safely be punctured by the spikes when inserted in the printer. The good
thing is the tape can easily be pulled off the old tape when it comes time
to refill again.

 Now, a couple of questions.
 How much of the original foam should I put back in the cartridge - if any?
What position should the foam go in? The front of the cartridge, rear, top.
I was thinking of putting maybe a third of the foam back near the rear. This
would keep the exit port totally uncovered and away from the sponge. It
would be easy to refill by just taking off the top again or by injecting
through one of the original Epson holes. (probable the middle one under the
white tape) I found that putting an extra hole in the middle of my MIS
virgin cartridges helped to make them easier to refill and I left the rear
fill hole uncovered. This immediately got rid of a bad nozzle check and I
have not had a problem since with the Archiva.
 What would be the maximum amount of ink that should go back in each
chamber?
It seems like it should work.
You might only need to do one or two cartridges in this manner. It can get a
little messy, but some cheap rubber gloves such as what food service
personal use would prevent ink on the hands.

 Any thoughts on the above? Anyone else want to give it a shot?


Regards,
Murray Zaharia
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Anything in Latin sounds profound.


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