Run 4-Color CISS Ink Tank on a 5-Color Printer - Fix Canon Printer CIS Color Mixing Problem

In one of our previous videos, we made a CISS, or continuous ink system for Canon—and that Canon was a four-color printer. It used two black tanks, but we wanted to get a four-color tank, so I left the photo black empty because I’m not planning to print many pictures. I hooked it up with a big black cartridge, so the smaller black one is empty, and I printed about 10,000 pages.

We’re only using four lines that go to five cartridges. Everything looks good with these prints, but I got some stripes in a few random places. I know it’s not clogging because you can see the pigment black (PGBK) is perfect. The cyan, magenta, and yellow appear to be perfect. However, if you look at the gray bars on the left side and they’re mixing, you get a bit of bar underneath, which was my problem.

So I thought that because I let the photo black run dry, I sucked in the vacuum, creating a band that results from mixing colors, since I’d been running dye ink in the pigment cartridges. I can just split the dye ink into both photo black and pigment black, so let’s break the black line into two and see if we can solve the problem. I tried this, and after 10,000 pages, the system looks excellent. All the printed lines are solid and clean.

Removing the Cartridge

First, I take the cartridge out. Every cartridge except the magenta looks full. Later, I found a leak on top of the air hole that I didn’t see at first. Even so, the magenta printed 10,000 pages without issue—I’m impressed. Also, you’ll notice that the line to the magenta tank is full. That means the line is still supplying ink to the magenta.

Those cartridges will leak as soon as you take them out, so for your sanity, please place them on the storage clip as soon as possible. If you need clips, you can purchase them at BCH Technologies. Today, we’ll use one small and one large clip. Reseal the air hole for the magenta, fill it up, and put it back into the CISS.  If you need more Canon cartridges, you can get them here: Canon PGI-280 and CLI-281 cartridges

Splitting the Line

Now we’re ready to split the black line into two lines. To do this, we will use an elbow sleeve manifold and washer, which you can find here. We will be using the mini manifold for this process, so we will select the two-way (from 1 to 2) option. We’ll also need some tubing.

At first, we tried to split it this way, and it didn’t work. We got Canon’s classic support error—the 5100. This just means there’s something wrong, but Canon won’t tell you what it is, so you’ll just have to guess. We opened it up and saw that our splitter got caught. This thing is super, super tight, and this is why we need a place on top to arrange the tubes. Let me show you what we should do.

We need to split the lines further down the line so that we can insert a new black tube for the photo black, the little black, and the other line for the bigger black. Now we cut the original black line and connect the manifold. This manifold is tiny and fragile, so be careful when pushing the tubes. Don’t squeeze the manifold.

Also, it helps if you warm up the tube a little bit. I suggest microwaving some water for 30 to 45 seconds and dipping the tip of the line into the water. That will make it easier to insert into the manifold.

Wrapping Up

Click “ok” to go to the menu and select maintenance. Perform a deep cleaning a couple of times. Now, look at the resulting BK strips and compare the before and after prints. You will notice that before, at the bottom of the Y strip, you had a mixing problem, but now it should be a clear, black strip. You will see the same thing with the other colors if everything worked out correctly. If the color bars come out looking good, then you don’t have a mixing problem anymore. That’s great! We fixed the problem, and the operation was a success.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Cheers!