Pilot Refillable Whiteboard Marker

Just to humour the guy, I went with him to Jalan Ipoh looking at some stationery. This guy, was from one of our friend's company and since he is their new technical guy, he was told to report to our office for a few week's hands-on training. The thing was, although he has been in this field two years earlier than me, he left for another line of work before coming back to the Communication industry. Naturally, he's rusty and its our job to polish him up so that he can (be our rival, ahem) help out our friend.

Anyway, because I told him about my missing Pentel Flexfit 0.5 pencil, he showed me some shops in Jalan Ipoh which sells a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately, after going through about four shops, the Pentel pen proved to be quite elusive. Nevertheless, I now know where to get pens and what-nots at a very reasonable price.

And that's when I saw this unique whiteboard marker. I recent months, I have noticed that some manufacturers have started to produce whiteboard markers that have refillable cartridges. Although ink refills have been around for more than two decades, the cartridge idea is very new (to them?). So, you can just buy one pen, and keep on buying the refills until the pen's tip is worn. But alas, these cartridges are mean only for one particular model and you cannot use them on another pen of different brand unlike the simple refillable inks. And so, I decided to get one, which costs me RM2.55, knowing that it would cost more on normal bookshops.

And so, this is the Pilot's version of the refillable
Whiteboard Marker. In the normal whiteboard
pens, they are all refillable and all you have to
do is to unscrew the tip, carefully pour the ink
into the barrel, tip it upside down for a few
minutes and away you go.

This is the refillable part of the pen, and gosh, it
looks very nice! It has a clear cover over the ink
cartridge which, is also clear! "Do not remove
except when replacing ink". Oh, OK but I can
still unscrew it for a looksee, right? Here I go....

Shazbot! Due to my stupid curiousity, I unlock
the cartridge and all the ink flowed out! Damn!
At first I though the cartridge was just a simple
sponge system but no, its full of runny, watery
ink. I should have paid more attention when
the ink was sloshing about inside the tank.

So, with half the tank empty, I have no choice but
to clean everything up and also then pen. Initially
I wanted to use it in the office but knowing the
guys there, it would be scratched and thrown all
over the place. So, I decided to clean the pen up of
its ink. This is what it looked like, (L-R), the ink
cartridge itself, the cartridge cover to protect the
cartridge from being disconnected and finally, the
pen/holder itself. Compared to the Artline pen, which
uses sponge-like material to store the ink, this one
is more dangerous and is prone to spilling when
curious morons like me use them.

Back home, I soaked the whole pen i mild detergent
overnight so as to get rid of all the ink that was still
in there. Of course, I removed the felt tip too.

In the morning, everything is cleaned and I used a set
of pliers to remove the final pen assembly, which is the
part snapping the cartridge to the pen. (L-R), some
kind of round diaphram which holds the ink in place
until it is snapped into the pen, which then removes
the disc (birth control?), again, the now empty ink
cartridge, the puncher and ink distributor module,
the ink cartridge cover, the pen and lastly, the cover.

This is how, I think, the puncher works. When you push
the ink cartridge (left) into it, the puncher would remove
the round disc which then allows the ink to flow into the
pen. So, do this with the pen tip facing upwards, folks.
After then, you need to push the catridge further in so
that it will snap into place before you screw in the cover.

And now, what am I going to do with an empty pen which only worked for a few seconds?

Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha ha! Ahhhhh Ha HA AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!