Refill UV Printer Ink Cartridges Like It’s The Late 90s
The Eufymake E1 is a recently-released prosumer UV printer that can print high-resolution color images onto pretty much anything. It also uses proprietary ink cartridges (which integrate a magnetic stirrer, nice) which are far more expensive than UV ink in bulk. So [charliex] set out to figure out how to refill the ink cartridges, including the cleaning cartridge.
UV printing in general is a bit of a maintenance hog, which has helped keep it from hobbyist use. UV ink doesn’t really like sitting idle in a machine, but the E1 automates cleaning and flushing of the print head as well as having swappable cartridges for each ink. This makes it a lot more user-friendly than UV printing has historically been.
The cartridge hardware can have a longer serviceable life than the ink inside, so it makes sense to try to refill them. There are more reasons to do this than just limiting costs. What if one wishes to print and the parent company is sold out of cartridges? What if they shut down? Refilling cartridges, and emptying waste from the cleaning cartridge, would become imperatives — lest an expensive prosumer UV printer turn into a paperweight. Thankfully software DRM control of the cartridges seems limited, at least so far.
Refilling cartridges can be carefully done with syringes combined with manual bypass of spring-loaded valve mechanisms. Emptying the cleaning cartridge can similarly be done by syringe, and it even has a hidden refill port under some plastic at its top.
[charliex] approaches all of this from a reverse-engineering perspective, indeed, he has a whole separate blog post about the software for the printer. So his solution is much more informed and elegant than, for example, just melting a new refill hole in the side of the things. It’s an interesting read, so check it out.
Our own Tom Nardi took a close, hands-on look at the E1 printer last year and came away pretty impressed with its capabilities. The cartridges are a big part of the user-friendliness of the system, but we hope there remains a viable option for manual refill for those of us who want to control costs or don’t wish to be locked in, and don’t mind violating a warranty or two in the process.