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In one of my classes today the subject of replacing your own ink came up. Several people had done it before and their experiences ranged from it destroying their printer to they do it every time. I had never heard of such a thing before today, but if it works well it would save a lot of money. Has anybody ever done this? What were your experiences? Are there any tips that make it less risky?
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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All it involved for me was removing the spent cartridges and replacing them with the new ones. Easy as pie and works like a charm (which is surprising because I have the tendancy to blow things up).
Edit to add: My printer is an ink jet, I don't know if you are meaning laser printers. I have no experience there.
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I didn't even know there we're people that would change it for you. I do it every time my printer needs ink!
Posts: 871 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I'm sorry, my explanation was poor. They were saying that instead of buying new cartridges, they just bought ink kits and inserted the new ink into their old cartridge. They said the ink kits are about a third the price of a new cartridge.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I've seen them but I've never tried it. I think my teachers at school did though, not caring if the printer was ruined.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I've never tried it myself, but my mom bought one of those injector kits and (I believe) used it successfully on her old printer. Or she may have just bought the kit and left it sitting unused on the shelf because she didn't know how to use it, I'm not sure. But either way, I heard nothing from her about a ruined printer.
Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Oh, nevermind I was boggled for a second. I have honestly never done that, but have heard it works. Do a couple of google searches and see if you can find anyone who has done it with your specific printer.
Posts: 871 | Registered: Jul 2006
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When you get a kit, they give you a bunch of bottles of ink and a syringe (or sometimes a few so you don't mix colors). You take the ink cartridge out of the printer, fill the syringe with ink, and stick the needle into the cartridge through little holes at the top that are usually covered by a label. If you push the needle in too far, you can puncture out the other side and destroy the cartridge, which is what happened to me. If you put in too much ink, you can end up bleeding all over the inside of the printer and trash the entire printer.
Some of the office supply stores now offer ink refill services. I might possibly consider having them do it - if I had an inkjet printer anymore, that is.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I've never done it with an inkjet, but be careful. Some cartridges have microchips on them that tell the printer when they are out of ink, and refilling the ink doesn't reset the microchip. So the printer will still tell you that it is out of ink and refuse to print.
I used to have a really old laser printer that I'd gotten for free and that I babied along for a few years. I used a toner refill kit that I got online and it was very easy. However, apparently that's a nono and you probably shouldn't do it with an expensive laser printer that actually works all the time. Or so I've been told.
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I did it with my epson before I got my new lexmark. It worked like a charm for me assuming that I followed the directions properly. I ran out of ink in my kit though and a friend tells me she couldn't make it work in her lexmark so I may not try it again.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Thank you guys for all of your advice! It sounds like it is a bit risky and I don't want to risk damaging my fancy printer/copier/scanner, so I guess that's out. Tomorrow I'll call the office supply stores around here and ask if they do refills. That sounds like a less risky/ still cheap way to go. Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Is step 7. selling the hammer and smashed ink cartridge to a stoned frat boy, because that's what I did, and the "profit" wasn't what I'd hoped for. Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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There's a boom market (at least around where I live) in ink cartridge refill service stores. You can still save some money by using them, and they may offer some guarantees about not destroying your printer.
In addition, my understanding is that a lot of the "kits" glop the same ink into the boxes and say they'll work with a wide variety of printers, even though they aren't very good matches. You can easily end up with the wrong viscosity, inexact color, and so on.
I'd go with the services. I do.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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I've replaced the ink in the original cartridges using one of these do-it-yourself kits, and I've used third-party ink cartridges. Neither yielded satisfactory results in my Lexmark printer. I've learned my lesson; I stick with the manufacturer's cartridges now.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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