Lamy Aion - doubts about the feed and the barrel closure

[Azulado]

It failed again. The ink was very caked despite the spring. Now it stopped writing. I put back the previous converter. It was working reasonably well. I washed it with soapy water (car wash soap) and did not rinse it with water. Now it is writing very wet, but it may be because of the soap. 
If a feed channel was clogged, I doubt it would write like that. 
The feed is apparently the same, but I'm not sure, there may be a slight difference in curvature at the top. 
Something that no one has noticed is that the converter has a rubber gasket at the mouth that is not fixed. It has a little movement and comes to protrude from the plastic rim. 

 

 

[jchch1950]

It can be the converter and also together with ink. Maybe you can try a different converter with one ink that you know is "well behaved".

[Azulado]

I have now figured out how to insert the cartridge into the body without friction on the thread on the last turn. In a Reddit post it was necessary to put the body with the thread facing up and then insert the cartridge. I tried again, but using a block of wood so that the body was straight. 

Care must be taken to centre the cartridge in relation to the body axis. What causes the excessive friction is that the cartridge is a little crooked and this affects the threading. I noticed this when I screwed the body in with force on one side. Then the friction was noticeable. 
Lamy recommends on their website that you insert the cartridges by placing them in the barrel first and then screwing the nib section upwards. This is less important on other models, but the Aion's adjustments are extremely precise. 

 

[Azulado]

9 minutes ago, jchch1950 said:

It can be the converter and also together with ink. Maybe you can try a different converter with one ink that you know is "well behaved".

Yes, I think so too. I have already consulted the Inez Fritz list to identify inks with lower surface tension. As for the converters, I have noticed differences between them. I use the one that works best. 
I have now noticed on a Safari with very little ink left, that the ink is sticking to the inner edge of the mouth and the ink is not reaching the nipple. 

[Azulado]

On 11/16/2024 at 9:15 PM, Dillo said:

As far as the Schneider Ceod goes, you have to get the Ceod Classic and not the Ceod Basic. The Ceod Classic has a tipped nib which is quite excellent. I have two of them, and they are one of the best values for the money. The Ceod Basic has a folded over nib which I don't really like and doesn't write as nicely.

I just received the Schneider Ceod Shiny. The nib is excellent out of box. This is an absolutely recommendable pen at a very good price.
The nib of my other Ceod was defective. One nib was rotated, the groove did not pass through the centre of the breathing hole and the nib went to one side, no matter how you centred it, it returned to its position. However, I managed to adjust it and now it writes very well, even if it is tilted to one side.

This defect is highly atypical for Schneider. For this reason, I would advise caution when criticising a brand harshly for a single fountain pen, without having tried another.
I did notice that the tips are different, the one on the new Ceod is bigger than the one on the old one. This one looked more like an EF.

[Dillo]

On 11/20/2024 at 9:35 AM, Azulado said:

I have now figured out how to insert the cartridge into the body without friction on the thread on the last turn. In a Reddit post it was necessary to put the body with the thread facing up and then insert the cartridge. I tried again, but using a block of wood so that the body was straight. 

Care must be taken to centre the cartridge in relation to the body axis. What causes the excessive friction is that the cartridge is a little crooked and this affects the threading. I noticed this when I screwed the body in with force on one side. Then the friction was noticeable. 
Lamy recommends on their website that you insert the cartridges by placing them in the barrel first and then screwing the nib section upwards. This is less important on other models, but the Aion's adjustments are extremely precise. 

 

Yes, this is the way cartridges should always be installed in Lamy pens. It helps with a lot of things including alignment

 

Also, just because of you, I bought some Lamy Aion parts. I can confirm that my regular Z50 nibs, all the ones from recent production and are adjusted properly fit on the Lamy Aion feed in the Lamy Aion grip section I have. Unlike in your pen, there is no gap and no light can pass between the nib and the feed. When I inspected, the feed is the exact same model as the one used in the Safari. I pulled nibs from my recent Safari, Nexx, and ABC to fit, and they all fit exactly with no gaps. I also tried the Han nib (black nib with Han written on it and funny shaped tines) and the gold Z55 nibs and I got the same result. I had some defective nibs on hand that did not have the proper curvature, and they did not fit properly on my recent Safari, Nexx, and ABC. They all had a gap between the nib and feed tip. I put it on the Aion and there was a gap as well.

 

The Lamy Aion uses the same feed as the Safari, ABC, and Nexx. A properly adjusted Z50 and Z55 nib will work on the feed without any problems.

 

I do strongly encourage you to get your feed replaced on your Aion or see if there is a way you can get it serviced. If it is not working properly with a cartridge, this is probably the cause. Cartridges do not have the surface wetting problems that converters have.

 

As far as the converters go, there are oils on the walls of the converter to allow the piston to travel down more smoothly. When the converter is brand new, it may be difficult for ink to wet. It is the same situation on the Schmidt K5 converters which are made from the same materials and share the same piston and also come with the oils on the walls. As you use it, some of the excess oil will wash away and the sides of the converter will wet better. With a brand new converter, it may take at least 10 fills before you reach optimal wetting of the walls depending on the amount of surfactants in the ink. You can try to wash them out after disassembly to remove some of the excess oil, but it's tricky to get a balance where the piston can slide down well while still having a wettable surface. Most of my converters are pretty well broken in. I only see the problems with surface wetting on brand new converters.

 

Laundry detergents tend to have a lot of surfactants in them, so you can sometimes use that to clean the converter out as well. Do not leave the soap or excess surfactant in the pen. It can encourage mold and fungus growth

 

With this, I will stop commenting further on this thread.

[Azulado]

I thank you very much for taking the trouble to verify the compatibility of the Z50 nibs and and the Aion feeds. In light of your findings, I conclude that the feed of my Aion has a different curvature. Now, the Z53 nibs fit this feed perfectly, without light space. They also fit my Safaris without any problems. I have also noticed that some Z50s are better suited to my Aion feed than others. But I have yet to find one that doesn't leave light space. in any case, this is not a problem, as i bought the Aion for the Z53 nib and i am quite satisfied with its performance, it is an extraordinary nib. in no case would i put a nib other than the Z53 nib on the Aion. By the way, I have read that Lamy does not produce the Z53 in their factory. It is only a rumor, I cannot confirm it.
The most surprising thing is that for the last two or three weeks the pen is writing as expected from the Aion, with a good flow and no glitches. With the Waterman Serenity blue the performance improved, but the Pelikan Edelstein Aventurine optimized it, I think it is now running perfect. Note that this ink has a lower surface tension, which minimizes its problems with converters. 
I am convinced that the problems have their origin in the converters. Despite being the same model, I have noticed that the plastic varies from one unit to another. Sometimes they work perfectly from the first time -The one on my new Lamy St 45 works perfectly, without even washing them, and other times they give problems. 

Searching on the Internet, there are registered complaints from converters. It is an old problem that even has its own thread on FPN. The converter I'm using on the Aion is one of those that worked fine, but after washing it with water and car wash shampoo, the behavior improved. I didn't rinse it with water the first time, but for use with the Edelstein, I did. As a result, now there is no surfactant residue. 

In my experience, Lamy feeds are very reliable. I have never used a malfunctioning one. If Lamy would optimize the converter, it would be almost impossible for a Lamy to fail. And I say this keeping in mind that I ignore the failure rate. Maybe it is very low. 

I was also able to fit the cartridge with almost no thread friction. You have to be very precise in the threading of the section to prevent the cartridge from slipping off the central axis. I note that the cartridges are not centered with respect to the axis of the section. This does not affect the operation, only the threading; friction occurs in the last turn of the thread. I had read a post is Reddit where someone noted the importance of the cartridge being centered when threading the section.