Although I've heard of doing this for years I had never tried it myself until recently. The cost of printer cartridges is ridiculous! $30 for ONE cartridge on a printer that cost $35- really? It'd be cheaper for me to just buy another printer that comes with TWO cartridges already in it! Of course the only catch with that is the two they give you are only sample sizes and contain a lot less ink than a normal one. I was able to find this refill kit on Ebay for about $8 so I figured it's worth a try.
The kit came with 3 colors of ink, and a thumb drill. Let me just say now- the thumb drill was useless! Unless you want to spend a hour tediously turning it into the cartridge, consider other options. Since I was experimenting anyway I tried something that I knew would be much quicker.
The refill kit will come with instructions on how to find where you should drill the holes. For mine there were 2 at the side closest to me and 1 at the side that goes towards the printer (all on the top of the cartridge).
I took one of my large quilting needles, held it under a lighter until the tip turned red from the heat, then stuck that sucker right into the cartridge where I was supposed to drill a hole. It was MUCH faster, easier on my fingers, and the hole was the perfect size. I had to reheat the needle a couple of times to make sure the hole was how I wanted it, but that was no big deal!
Ok, so once I had my holes made, I dipped the needle into the hole the wiped it on paper so I could know which color to put in which hole.
Then carefully remove the stopper from one of the inks, insert it's syringe into the hole. This is where you want to take your time- slowly and gently push down onto the ink container. It's better to push down in small taps allowing an air bubble to come up after each tap. You may see the ink come out of the top of the hole a little then go down. As it takes longer for it to go down it's probably time to stop refilling.
For mine this refilling took about 1/4- 1/3 of the ink container's worth of ink. (so that means it's like 3-4 cartridges worth of refills! $8 vs $90-120, I think I'll keep using the refills!)
Once you have all 3 colors refilled, cover the top of the cartridge with tape. That's it!
The only cons I have noticed with this process are the following:
- Ink on my hands for a couple of days
- My printer had a hiccup at first getting the colors settled into it- but after some realigning and cleaning of the printer heads- then printing a couple of full color pages it's just dandy! (I wasn't too worried about wasting ink)
- My software on the computer that tells me how much ink is in the cartridge didn't reset- so I ended up resetting the printer and stopping that function from working.
Over all- these minor cons are worth the roughly $100 in savings!
I hope I wouldn't offend your post, but in my opinion, the use of refilled cartridges have higher risks of causing serious trouble with the printer. Say, once ink leaks inside the machine, even cleaning it won't do especially if the other components inside were affected. Clogged print heads is a common trouble to those who tried refilling their own cartridges. Yes you may have saved a few bucks by sparing yourself from buying high-priced cartridges, but buying refill kits then getting an obsolete printer is a lot more expense. I suggest you opt for compatibles instead, third party remanufacturers are replacing the chips, as well as thoroughly cleaning each ink tanks to ensure quality and performance. Plus they offer warranties and money back guarantees for faulty items, hence you have someone to blame once your machine got wasted. here's a worthy retailer which I may suggest Colortonerexpert
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input :)
ReplyDeleteWhen my printer cost me $40, and each new cartridge is $35 (the printer needs one for black and one for color)
The refills were about $8 and seem to last the same as 3-4 cartridges.
Even if it does leak and ruin my printer, it has still saved me money thus far and worse case I'll have to buy a new printer for $40. Meanwhile if/when that ever happens I'm saving a ton of money so I don't mind the risk.
I was skeptical for years and had heard mixed reviews which is why I finally tried it for myself. So far so good! I'll keep doing it as long as it's saving me money (which it's saving me a LOT right now)