-=> JEAN PARROT wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-


 JP>      Good morning, Wayne.

 WC> I've a very old BJ-200 Canon that I bought a refill kit for
 WC> 6 years ago, I may soon need to buy another refill kit.
 WC> The cartridges have an absorbent foam pad inside and you
 WC> need to push the nozzle of the refill into that pad and
 WC> not overfill to the point of loose ink in the cartridge.

 JP>   My Canon 4100 also has that foam fill. So you inject the ink into the
 JP>   foam ?

Oh my yes. I rendered a similar cartridge a useless mess by just
filling it expecting the foam to soak up the ink.
Having two spares I just threw that one out.
Now I press the spout into the pad while upright turning
upside down to fill checking every so often to make
sure I don't overfill. There are printed lines on the
refill bottle that mark out a complete fill and I underfill
just a tad instead of overfill with the unpleasant and messy
consequences. I now refill cartridges with no mess at all
except a bit of ink on my fingers from handling the plastic
breather plug I remove and replace with the refill kit's
included tool.
I keep two cartridges filled now having saved the 
snap on caps that protect the print head and I place a
small plastic sheet under that cap cut from a sandwich
bag just like the plastic tab they come with to keep
the head from drying out.

 JP>   My 4100 died on me last year. Being dead and not much to loose, I
 JP> operated.
 JP>   I found that an axle ( plastic ) to one of the 90ø entraining gears
 JP> had
 JP>   sheared. A 6"nail was exactly the same size in diameter and is still
 JP> there,
 JP>   after cutting it to proper length.

I'd operate on mine because the sheet feed mechanism is busted 
but I don't have the rubber belt that dislodged itself with the
next page I printed after it stopped self feeding.
I'd have much prefered an eccentric cam driven by a gear
to the rubber belt they used to feed sheets of paper.
My Sharp VCR is all nylon gears with a light litium grease
coating and it's performed flawlessly for almost 4 years
now with me cleaning the heads about every 60 hours.
Come to think of it it's about due but it pays as my tapes
stay in like new shape playing just as they did new.
 
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