In the single chamber cartridge, when you received (or exceeded) the original weight - in this case 42 gm. There will be nothing to worry. It's perfectly repleted like new and you can use it.

For this cartridge, there is still a little possibility for mishaps.

1) Lower ink didn't get used.

Like mentioned before, you may achieve 42 gm by both methods but if there is some faults e.g. you've unknowingly made a hole in the plastic membrane, you forgot to cap the filing port tight, you put a hot glue in the duct or create a leakage or if you didn't seal off the filling top hole (for passive refill). Then this problem will certainly happen.

You can increase your safety by trying to draw the ink straight from the exit. If you can get pass 6 ml without seeing any bubbles (pull slowly). This cartridge now is perfect but then you are gonna have to put that 6 ml of ink back.

I didn't do that, I am very positive with my skills and since I use only negative pressure refill. There are not many factors to worry about that. I just go ahead and use that cartridge but.... I will be very cautious when the level read about half. If the cartridge doesn't suck up the lower chamber ink, there will be some signs of air clogging and I wouldn't hesitate to put the new (or another refilled) and discard the faulty one (after I extract all the ink). In the negative refill, if the cartridge has already been used successfully once (the chip read down to the ground), it should be OK for the next cycles. A very very remote mishap may occur if you applied too much negative pressure to the cartridge. I don't have the number how strong the membrane can withstand the pressure (negative).

2) Air trap. This is just a warning for the passive refillers. For the negative refiller, you may ignore this. Although you may get 42 gm but the ineffectiveness of this refill may left some air in E. This air, optimistically, should not move toward the exit or if it does, it still would be OK as long as it doesn't go below the lower hole of the circular disc valve. How to solve this. Well, from the start. If you opt to be a passive refiller - you should not use the cartridge until the level reaches the ground. You should stop at about 10% level and that point, the E should be full of ink - no air. Then, when you refill, you just need to fill only B,C and D.

3) Air-Vent reservoir.

We have discussed this before. You can see that both passive (a good one) and negative filling will fill that little vertical air vent and once the air-vent opened, this amount of ink will go into the reservoir on top of whatever's been there before. So, you can assume that this amount will be more and more along with number of refills.

I do not worry about this problem much. But after million cycles of refill and you notice the level of the ink in reservoir has elevated. You may try this -Suck the ink out from the reservoir. Click on the picture to see the details of this maneuver. You do not need to do this every time you refill.

-If you are a passive refiller. You can just hold the cartridge with the tympanum on top and push the small navel and let the gravity do the job. It's not as effective as the syringe.

-How bad is this problem still remains unknown. This may be the last weapon that Epson used. The truth is it will take a while before that lower reservoir become full. When it become full, there is another pocket (with 3 levels + air/ink membrane) in the front. So, may be Epson didn't mean this to be an impediment for refills. My gut's feeling is ...don't get panic. I never plan to refill the same cartridge forever anyway. When it's old enough, I wouldn't hesitate to toss it away (after I suck out the left over ink!)

4) Chemical reaction of the plugs.

For a passive refiller, the material you use to plug the hole which definitely make contact with the ink. The reaction or incompatibility may takes time before it shows any deleterious effects. We hope this is not a major problem or the reaction takes too long that you used up the lower chamber before bad thing happened.

If you can find a little rubber plug, it would be nice. I don't worry much about the leaking of the lower hole as long as you can get the tight seal. This is because the cartridge is sitting on top of the plug and it hold only 2 cmH2O pressure (if you ignore that 1 mm thin layer).

5) Colors

My color with 7600 ultrachrome inks (which is supposed to be the same with 2200's) is still good as of the 3rd cycle of each ink. I haven't notice the color changes yet, but I expect a possible subtle differences between 7600's ink and 2200's. The reason I mention this because I noticed the color changes when switching from 2000P's ink to 5500's. If you're using the third party ultrachrome, you may prepare to look for the color management solution. Your taste and pickiness will determine how expensive your toy is gonna be. I have tried many (at least 3) different CMS (Color Management Solution) and finally I found the EZcolor Monaco 2.2 can handle the job fine for me even though it's not perfect. (can't go any further - the next step would be eyeone system !).

6) Cartridge's age

Everything is getting aged. (including you and me) So throw it away when you think it's old enough. a particles/sludge will accumulate, the material e.g. sponge, plastic, rubber will degrade or the spring may get rust (hope not, should be rust-proof but who knows ?). This is one benefit of refilling over CIS, you can throw one particular cartridge away easily when it's aged.

If you can do a filling port for a negative pressure filling, then you can do your own CIS. This will save you a lot of money because the commercial CIS is unreasonably expensive ($299). It's ridiculous to see these commercial (kitchen made quality) CIS that sold over $200 while you can do it yourself.

So instead of making a short filling tube, you just have to make the long tubing for each cartridges and get rid of the air in the tubing by negative pressure filling and put the other end in the reservoir bottles. Arrange the tubing in an organized way (I tied them together with a small thread, when I was making CIS for 1280). You'll find it's spacious for the tubing's arrangement for 2200 because there is no cartridge clamps.

Little concerns about making CIS includes :

1) The 2 black options. There is simply not enough space (around the cartridge's housing) that will allow you to have the interchangeable PB and MB cartridges connected to the CIS without messing around with the tubing. You may have to pick one and stay with only one black or you're willing to separate the tubing of this PB or MB out of the others and place it along with the bottles. My plan for this is to make CIS for only 6 colors (LB, C, PC, M, PM, Y) and refills for MB or PB.

2) The tube connection !. Since the 2200's cartridge is multi chamber and the air-vent is connected to the lower chamber. The ideal CIS should connect the ink feed tube to the same location of the air-vent connection which is the lower chamber. It's not practical to direct the tube (which must be big enough) to the lower chamber without interference with insertion of cartridge. One possible way is shown in the picture but it's will not be easily doable. Perhaps, you're gonna have to use only the upper chamber (circulate volume of 5-6 ml). If you start from the empty cartridge, then you have to plug the duct and refill only the upper chamber and the tubing. If you start from the full cartridge, then the lower chamber ink (which account for 7-8 ml) will stay there forever. You also have to break the air-vent mechanism to let the cartridge connect to the reservoir bottle only. If you plan to occlude the duct, there is no need to break this air-vent mechanism.

The ideal tubing position for CIS. There is no need to seal at junction A but making a hole in this is not easy.

3) The chips. Ideally, we don't want to remove the cartridge in/out ever again. The best resetting method for CIS includes the software reset or the F16 resetters or the custom chip that read full at all time. To date (Jan 03), none of those are available. So if you made CIS, then you have to do individual reset with the resetter manually every now and then.

There are a lot of minor details about construction of CIS which I would like not to mention here. If you have any particular questions, you can e-mail me. I still think that refill is superior unless you're printing a whole lot.