ink refill kit for printer cartridge

[bee_pipes]

Anybody got any experience with these?

I did an Epson inkjet cartridge once, about 10-15 years ago. Other than the mess (ink - keep it off of you and other stuff) are there any problems with these kits? Do they work as advertised, or is this a case of too good to be true?

A refill kit for $11 that lets me refill the cartridge 8 times is preferable to spending $15 eight times for new cartridges.

Just kills me to spend $15, for the computer equivalent of a bic lighter, that will just wind up in a land fill somewhere. The cartridges seem to be getting cheaper, but print less pages.

If I was motivated by profits, I suppose I would want to enslave consumers to my supply system too.

Regards,
Pat

[CarolAnn]

Bee Pipes -
I've used several of them already and had no problems.
I am very careful to put down newspapers before I start, and I have an old shallow cake pan that I use to keep the bottles and syringe in, just in case of drips. I find that the more prepared I am for a mess, the less mess occurs! (Paper towels and damp sponge at hand - I don't have a single drip!)

Since you usually only get one syringe with a kit, you'll do best to start with the lightest color and work up to the darker colors, even rinsing the thing out well between colors -- because it's almost impossible to get every trace of color out.

I do be careful to buy the better kits that also include a container of solvent so that I can thoroughly clean off the business end of the cartridges. If my printer has gone a long time between uses, I also pop out each cartridge and clean it before I start, even though that includes re-aligning the print heads. It's worth the extra effort.

My second printer is an Epson RX620, though - it has six colors rather than three and black. Can't find a refill kit for it yet, and I don't know if I dare use the standard inks with this one in the yellow, magenta and cyan cartridges. (It also has light yellow and light cyan.) The color is so good that I hate to take a chance of damaging it!

There's also a new business that I've found locally that you might look for in your area, called Cartridge World. They say they refull them for less than half of the cost of a new one.

[AlchemyAcres]

I've refilled them for years....Canon, Lexmark. Epson, HP....the HP cartridges I've refilled have been the some of the easiest....

If you'll be refilling in quantity...you don't need a kit....refill instructions for specific cartridges are all over the net....90% isopropyl alcohol works fine for a solvent....ink is available in bulk....

My current printer is a HP 3910, $25.00 new...I do a lota archival printing, I've put thousands of pages through it (never any solvent), mostly black ink, but some color.....
costs 23 cents to refill a $15.00 cartridge.


~Martin :)

[JakeLeg]

we refill at work. several 8.5x11 inkjet printers, a 42" inkjet rollfeed plotter, and refill toner in laserprinters. the refills have about 90% the quality compared to factory. we do a lot of higher quality color and it is noticeable when the color is off. otherwise for draft stuff, the refills are fine.

only thing i know of (from talking w/ the 'puter nerd at work) that could be a problem in the future, is that HP has started putting a chip in their cartridges (for newer printers), and the cartridges electronically expire after a certain time and will not work after expiring.

[bee_pipes]

Can't believe all the money I've wasted over the years on replacement cartridges. The operation was simplicity itself.

I seem to recall some lawsuit with Lexmark - taking a mfg of aftermarket replacement cartridges to court over copyright infringement. They had some coding present on the cartridge to validate it, the AM mfg reverse engineered it, and ran afoul of the millennium copyright act (sp?) covering intellectual property. These suits have reared their ugly heads in unlikely applications, such as garage door openers. Software is creeping into every aspect of our lives. All you have to do is look around and see where PICs and other small processors are showing up in appliances and tools.

The possibility that HP or other mfg's would try to put a timer chip into the cartridges would surprise me not in the least.

Well, at least for today, I can get away with refilling.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. Any people/companies you prefer doing business with, buying inks?

Regards,
Pat

[DV8]

Refilling is a Great thing, but doesn't work so well with photo quality printing. but for most printing jobs it's the way to go !!

[swedishfish]

I also have started a policy of refilling at work ( IT Shop so we get a lot of printers). I keep track of the savings and present it with my other cost cutting procedures annually. The ink really adds up and makes us look good to the beancounters.