How to refill Canon PRO-10 cartridges (PGI-72)

The Squeezy system is three parts: the cap, the needle and the red scabbard (needle cover).

1. Slip a red scabbard over the tip of the needle so it seals the needle. On the first install, fit it on and off a few times to break it in so it slides on and seals the tip.
2. With the scabbard on, place the needle over the cone on the cap and turn it clockwise until it is secure. Check that it is firmly attached.

2 oz bottles: remove the silver seal from the bottle, then screw the cap on securely. Peel the seal off, or cut a small X in the middle and peel outwards.

4 oz and larger bottles: these need the sealing O-ring. Place the O-ring on the mouth of the bottle and screw the cap on tight. Remove the cap and check that the O-ring has been pushed up into it. Then pierce the seal and put the cap back on.

1. With the scabbard on, squeeze the bottle gently. No air should escape.
2. Take the scabbard off, keep the bottle upright and squeeze gently. You should feel air leaving the needle tip. Do not squeeze so hard that ink comes out.

When you finish a refill session, put the red scabbard back on to seal the bottle. There is no need to wash the caps. Store the bottles upright.

You refill the original Canon PGI-72 cartridges that are already in your printer. There is nothing to drill or modify. Pick one of two ways to start:

• Use up the original ink first. For the first round, refill each cartridge on its own, only when the printer reports it empty. ICC profiles are more accurate once the original ink is used up.
• Remove the original ink now. If you want to use ICC profiles right away, empty each cartridge of its original ink before the first fill. See Service a cartridge under When needed.

After the first round, refill and reset every low cartridge in the same session.

Reset every chip before you fill, while the cartridges are still clean and dry. Ink dripping into the resetter causes short circuits and makes it malfunction.

1. Push the round plug fully into the hole on the side of the resetter.
2. Plug the USB end into a powered USB port: a computer, a powered USB adapter or a powered hub.
3. Make sure the middle alignment ramp is installed. It centers the cartridge on the resetter.

1. Place the cartridge so its chip touches the four contacts, and keep it flat against the resetter so the switch is pressed.
2. The light on top of the cartridge flashes for an instant. This only means the resetter has found the chip.
3. Keep holding. When the light comes on solid, the chip is reset.

A cartridge that the printer reports as empty takes 15 to 16 ml of ink. One refilled earlier takes less.

• With a syringe: draw up 16 ml of ink.
• With a scale: weigh the cartridge first. Empty, it weighs 16.7 to 16.9 g. Full, it weighs about 32.5 g.

These cartridges fill through the ink outlet pad. The cartridge draws the ink back inside through the pad.

1. Hold the cartridge with the outlet pad facing up, tilted to one side.
2. Slowly dribble ink onto the pad.
3. If ink starts to pool on top of the pad, slow down and let it soak in.

Do this when you are down to the last 1 ml in the syringe, or when the pad starts to look really wet.

1. Lay the cartridge down horizontally.
2. Slowly drip ink onto the pad.
3. Gently squeeze the sides of the cartridge and release to clear any pockets of air inside.
4. Keep adding ink until the cartridge stops absorbing it and the pad is flooded, or until the scale reads about 32.5 g.

If you filled by weight and stopped at about 32.5 g, the fill is complete. Skip the next step.

1. Hold the cartridge and gently squeeze its sides, with the same force you would use to handle it.
2. While squeezing, suck the ink off the flooded pad with the syringe.
3. Put the excess ink back in its bottle.
4. Wash the syringe and needle.

The pad should look wet, but not overly so.

• If you have a scale, a full cartridge weighs between 32.2 and 33.0 g.
• Turn the cartridge over. If the pad is too wet, it leaks a little when inverted. Remove a bit more ink from the pad.

Install the refilled cartridges and close the cover.

After your first round of refills, refill and reset every cartridge that is noticeably low in the same session, not only the empty one. The printer draws the same amount of ink through the printhead whether you change one cartridge or all of them, and that ink ends up in the waste ink pad. Fewer openings of the cover means a longer-lasting printer, and you start again with every cartridge full.

Normally you can refill these cartridges many times with no servicing. Servicing removes all the ink from a cartridge. Do it when:

• You filled a cartridge with the wrong color.
• A cartridge will not take in ink, or will not take the full volume. Either the spring mechanism inside is stuck or air has entered the bladder.
• You want to remove the original Canon ink before the first refill.

The video shows the method. Afterwards, refill the cartridge through the pad as usual. Filling this way also tests that the cartridge is working.