Novel Positive Displacement Filling System

[raging.dragon]

This gets me thinking, as ink capacity increases to the point where the pen is essentially a eyedropper with a nifty filling mechanism, will they run into the same problems as eye droppers, such as burping and inconsistent flow? I know feeds have been advanced upon, but there is still so much ink a feed can handle, and sometimes its more than just the feed's fault for eyedroppers' shortcomings. At the moment, I'm trying to run a Ranga model #2 eyedropper dry, and the only problem I ever get is that the ink sometimes gets choked off, from what I am assuming a bubble trying to exchange itself. I've never had this pen burp ink on me, and I'm really interested to see if it does because the feed is so primitive.

 

So in the end, my point is, with such large capacity, don't pens like this run the risk of having the same problems as eyedroppers? And if they do, wouldn't it just be simpler to use an eyedropper?

 

PS if anyone is looking for a simple way to fill eye droppers, just put your ink into an old contact solution bottle. Instant filling!

 

Somewhere in this thread or another Fountainbel mentioned sizing the ink resevoirs used in his designs to avoid burping ink.

 

If the ink resevoir is too big for the feed you'll get ink burping when the pen runs low on ink. A modern feed probably wouldn't have the various other problems of the prmitive feeds found on your Ranga and vintage eyedroppers.

[Namo]

This gets me thinking, as ink capacity increases to the point where the pen is essentially a eyedropper with a nifty filling mechanism, will they run into the same problems as eye droppers, such as burping and inconsistent flow?

So in the end, my point is, with such large capacity, don't pens like this run the risk of having the same problems as eyedroppers? And if they do, wouldn't it just be simpler to use an eyedropper?

 

ED fillers don't burp. Modern feeds prevent that. I am using a Edison as ED and dispite hudge temperature differences, no leakings, no burps. My Dolce Vita OS is excellent to this regard too. And of course, the Densho does have a valve, but no burps ever as writing, even if the ink level is very, very low. I don't think you'll have anything to worry about with this pen. My concern wouzld be weight, as I am not so found of heavy pens. But I really like this system.

[Chrissy]

Francis, That is a fantastic design and you are one clever person. :clap1:

I had to read through it a couple of times with the excellent step by step pictures and now I understand it.

Amazing.

[rhr2010]

The idea of this method (which I have not seen) is... that it keeps the movement simple. Twist one way to push the piston towards the nib, twist the other to move the piston in the opposite direction (and hopefully suck ink).

 

The corkscrew does not move up or down the pen at any point, it simply twists on its own axis, the wedge (piston head/whatever) moves up and down the barrel.

 

Hi Pierce, you will have to find a way to prevent the piston from rotating as the corkscrew is rotated, so that the linear motion is ensured. or you will need sufficient friction between the piston seal and pen barrel wall to prevent rotation, in the latter case the motion of the piston will most probably be spiral.

 

Read more about retractable safety pens. the same idea is in use there to propel-repel the nib carrier with the anti rotation guide.

 

Best

hari

 

You could build an anti-rotation guide by having either a little groove or raising along the inside of the barrel, running paraller to the corksrew, but now you would need a non-circular piston seal, lots of friction, lots of places to leak.

 

You could also have a static anti-rotation rod guide off-centered and running parallel to the corkscrew and piercieng the piston head. Again a lot of friction and places to leak. Of course, all the leaking is inside the barrel, and as long as you have a good seal at the end of the barrel you wouldn't care, as long as the pen is not a demonstrator and you do not suffer OCD. However, I would think seal would not live a long life and pen should be easy to disassemble to change the seal or the entire piston head when worn out.

[sirksael]

Over a year ago, Francis was kind enough to invite me to his home and shared a beer with me. At that point, he showed me his bulk filler prototypes (asking me not to reveal the details ).

I was simply amazed by this system. The simplicity and elegance were clear to me.

Francis kindly offered me to lend me a pen for testing, and as I am basically a tester by profession, I jumped at the opportunity (ok, also because I though the pen was amazing and I really wanted to have one).

I've been using it for over a year now, and even though I understand my pen was not a final prototype, it has been my faithful workhorse for all this time.

It has been tested with all kinds of ink (Lamy, mont blanc, pelikan, private reserve, waterman, parker, herbin, and Caran d'ache). I've used it at home (in Belgium, about 90m above sea level), at work, I've taken it on airplanes (in my luggage, and in my pocket), and I've used it in the mountains during my recent skiing holiday. It hasn't failed me. The system is really simple, well constructed and imo bulletproof.

On skiing holiday, I forgot it in the car one night, about half full. The tamperature was around -28 celcius, needless to say the ink was frozen solid in the morning. I just left it in the hotel room, and in the evening it wrote as if nothing had happened.

The one thing is, even with a demonstrator, you take so long between two fillings that you tend to be very happy when it finally runs dry, as you finally get to try a new ink

[Sagar_C]

These are the moments when I become materialistic and begin to believe that money is everything...

[fountainbel]

Over a year ago, Francis was kind enough to invite me to his home and shared a beer with me. At that point, he showed me his bulk filler prototypes (asking me not to reveal the details ).

I was simply amazed by this system. The simplicity and elegance were clear to me.

Francis kindly offered me to lend me a pen for testing, and as I am basically a tester by profession, I jumped at the opportunity (ok, also because I though the pen was amazing and I really wanted to have one).

I've been using it for over a year now, and even though I understand my pen was not a final prototype, it has been my faithful workhorse for all this time.

It has been tested with all kinds of ink (Lamy, mont blanc, pelikan, private reserve, waterman, parker, herbin, and Caran d'ache). I've used it at home (in Belgium, about 90m above sea level), at work, I've taken it on airplanes (in my luggage, and in my pocket), and I've used it in the mountains during my recent skiing holiday. It hasn't failed me. The system is really simple, well constructed and imo bulletproof.

On skiing holiday, I forgot it in the car one night, about half full. The tamperature was around -28 celcius, needless to say the ink was frozen solid in the morning. I just left it in the hotel room, and in the evening it wrote as if nothing had happened.

The one thing is, even with a demonstrator, you take so long between two fillings that you tend to be very happy when it finally runs dry, as you finally get to try a new ink

 

 

 

Thanks a lot for shearing your experiences with my bulkfiller Chris, much appriciated !.

What a story, the ink in your pen frozen at -28C in your car....

Was the pen full with ink at that moment??

 

Thermal volume expansion of water when frozen is approximately 9%!

Bursting water pipes in winter time show there is a potential risk

Volume expansion of ink will surely be lower, but given the major part of ink is water, this surely is considerable when the pen is fully loaded

 

Francis

 

 

 

g

y

[sirksael]

 

Thanks a lot for shearing your experiences with my bulkfiller Chris, much appriciated !.

What a story, the ink in your pen frozen at -28C in your car....

Was the pen full with ink at that moment??

 

Thermal volume expansion of water when frozen is approximately 9%!

Bursting water pipes in winter time show there is a potential risk

Volume expansion of ink will surely be lower, but given the major part of ink is water, this surely is considerable when the pen is fully loaded

 

Francis

 

 

 

g

y

 

 

No, it was about half full with pelikan edelstein topaz. It seems no harm was done, it was a few weeks ago and I'm still using the same ink today.

[fountainbel]

Hi all,

Just wanted to brief you all on the production status of the "First Production Run" demonstrator bulk fillers.

As it looks now, the pens will become available as from mid April.

Conid decided making a series of 60 pens instead of 50

Up to now 22 pens are reserved from the 60 pieces series.

All demonstrator pens will have titanium clip, filling knob and cap enclosure plug.

On the filling knob top will be engraved "FPR 1/60" to "FSR 60/60"

Arround the filling knob circumference will be eengraved "CONID-BELGIUM"

Arround the titanium cap enclosure plug will be engraved " Fountainbel bulk filler"

I hope to post pictures of the pen with the titanium features within a week.

Please contact Werner werner@conid.be if you want to reserve one of the "FPR" pens !

Thanks & regards, Francis

Edited March 13, 2012 by fountainbel

[Vincent1278]

Wow! been waiting about a year for these to come available. Gorgeous demonstrators. I love it! E-mailed Werner just now! Can't wait.

[Vincent1278]

will all the demonstrators have orange ends??

[fountainbel]

will all the demonstrators have orange ends??

 

Hi Vincent,

No, this was one of my home made evaluation prototypes.

Since the orange HR clearly shows serious color variations "between bars" and even "within a bar" we have not selected this material

Both ends, the clip and the capring will be made from titanium.

 

Francis

 

Edit for typo's, sorry

Edited March 14, 2012 by fountainbel

[raging.dragon]

will all the demonstrators have orange ends??

 

Hi Vincent,

No, this was one of my home made evaluation prototypes.

Since the orange HR clearly shows serious color variations "between bars" and even "within a bar" we have not selection this material

Both ends, the clip and the capring will be made from titanium.

I

Francis

 

I hated the bright orange bits in the prototype. Using titanium instead makes these pens much more appealing to me.

Edited March 14, 2012 by raging.dragon

[liverman]

Fascinating pen, Francis!

 

What are the dimensions (capped length, uncapped length, body length, posted length, diameter at the section, max body diameter) and weights (total, without cap), please? These will allow me to determine if it fits my hand. Same sort of dimensions that Richard Binder provides on his site: http://www.richardspens.com/pens/compare.htm

 

Metric is fine.

 

These are probably posted somewhere, but I could not find them. If posted somewhere, please just shoot me the link.

 

Thanks!!

 

Greg

Edited April 10, 2012 by liverman

[fountainbel]

Fascinating pen, Francis!

 

What are the dimensions (capped length, uncapped length, body length, posted length, diameter at the section, max body diameter) and weights (total, without cap), please? These will allow me to determine if it fits my hand. Same sort of dimensions that Richard Binder provides on his site: http://www.richardsp...ens/compare.htm

 

Metric is fine.

 

These are probably posted somewhere, but I could not find them. If posted somewhere, please just shoot me the link.

 

Thanks!!

 

Greg

 

Hi Greg,

Thanks for your comments !

The complete pen weight is 30 grams ,pen can hold 2.5 ml of ink.

Uncapped weight is 20 grams

Capped length is 133 mm, posted length is 160mm, un-posted length is 127mm

 

The cap diameter is 15mm, barrel diameter is 13mm, minimum section grip diameter is 10.4mm

 

There are still around 30 pens available from the FPR numbered series of 60 pieces

 

Available as from early May

 

Best regards, Francis

 

PS: The pictures of the final "first production run" demonstrator series of 60 pens can be seen here :

http://www.fountainp...n-run-pictures/

Edited April 10, 2012 by fountainbel

[RMN]

Hi Francis

 

So glad you are finally able to publish the details and reap the well deserved praise.

I have been in awe since you revealed the pen to me last september at the Tilburg Penshow (will be held again last saturday of sept 2012)

 

I am eagerly waiting the production of your non-demonstrator versions. I was in love with several of your trial versions published last year...

And then with a nice italic... yum. (that italic you did for me on my Cartier is still one of my best nibs now.)

 

D.ick

[SamCapote]

This is stunning. Such an amazing accomplishment. Huge congratulations !!!!!

[fountainbel]

Thanks all for the nice comments !

All parts will be finished by Thursday, I'l eager starting assembling my babies !

Francis

[fabrimedeiros]

This gets me thinking, as ink capacity increases to the point where the pen is essentially a eyedropper with a nifty filling mechanism, will they run into the same problems as eye droppers, such as burping and inconsistent flow? I know feeds have been advanced upon, but there is still so much ink a feed can handle, and sometimes its more than just the feed's fault for eyedroppers' shortcomings. At the moment, I'm trying to run a Ranga model #2 eyedropper dry, and the only problem I ever get is that the ink sometimes gets choked off, from what I am assuming a bubble trying to exchange itself. I've never had this pen burp ink on me, and I'm really interested to see if it does because the feed is so primitive.

 

So in the end, my point is, with such large capacity, don't pens like this run the risk of having the same problems as eyedroppers? And if they do, wouldn't it just be simpler to use an eyedropper?

 

PS if anyone is looking for a simple way to fill eye droppers, just put your ink into an old contact solution bottle. Instant filling!

No, if have 2 reservoirs in contact with shut off valve. The small one will reduce the pression of ink column. If the small reservoir is close to a cartridge, the pen will behave like it was a cartridge filling. This is the principle of the Visconti Double Reservoir Power Filler.

[fountainbel]

This gets me thinking, as ink capacity increases to the point where the pen is essentially a eyedropper with a nifty filling mechanism, will they run into the same problems as eye droppers, such as burping and inconsistent flow? I know feeds have been advanced upon, but there is still so much ink a feed can handle, and sometimes its more than just the feed's fault for eyedroppers' shortcomings. At the moment, I'm trying to run a Ranga model #2 eyedropper dry, and the only problem I ever get is that the ink sometimes gets choked off, from what I am assuming a bubble trying to exchange itself. I've never had this pen burp ink on me, and I'm really interested to see if it does because the feed is so primitive.

 

So in the end, my point is, with such large capacity, don't pens like this run the risk of having the same problems as eyedroppers? And if they do, wouldn't it just be simpler to use an eyedropper?

 

PS if anyone is looking for a simple way to fill eye droppers, just put your ink into an old contact solution bottle. Instant filling!

No, if have 2 reservoirs in contact with shut off valve. The small one will reduce the pression of ink column. If the small reservoir is close to a cartridge, the pen will behave like it was a cartridge filling. This is the principle of the Visconti Double Reservoir Power Filler.

 

 

Hi fabrimedeiros,

Note the shut off valve system was developped and used long time ago !.

Remember f.e. the vintage "large capacity" Japanese eyedropers and the Onoto plunger fillers.

Francis