Poll: How do you refill your printer ink/toner?

I live in Marietta,Ga i take mine to walgreens drug store and get them refilled ten dollars for black and fifthteen for color cartridges

I have an Epsom R210 inkjet printer for which I was using genuine ink cartriges until money became a problem and so swapped to non-genuine cartriges. Although the colour was not as good the printer operated ok until I was confronted with the problem of waste ink pads needing replacement. Epsom told me that this problem occured when using non-genuine cartriges because the print heads needed to be cleaned more regularly and suggested that a new printer would be cheaper than repair. Being unable to afford either option I set off for an alternate course of action which led me to a program that allows the printer settings to be reset and that overcame the need for a new printer. I do not know if using genuine ink at all times would have resulted in the same problem.

I have 2 Epson printers, different types using different ink. I've been refilling them myself with bulk ink from AtlanticInkjet.com for a couple of years now and have no problems and have saved a bundle. The quality of printed documents is excellent and photos is pretty good. For special photos I just use local providers for 19 cents a pic.... what a deal. OEM ink is just a big scam........ they gouge consumers cause consumers let them. If everyone boycotted them for a few months I bet their prices would come down dramatically. :-}

I have a Samsung ML-2010 B&W laser printer. Since a new cartridge cost as much as a new printer, I have been refilling the cartridge with toner from Recycled Image. Easy to do and takes about 10 to 15 minutes. The toner seems to last about as long as the orginal.

I have been buying ink in bulk and refilling cartridges for my canon, HP, and Epson ink jet printers since day one (over 10 years). I find the Canon cartridges the easiest to fill. I see no different in print quality on color photos though I am careful to buy ink from reputable bulk ink suppliers. I used to buy my refill ink at Costco because it was more convenient than from the mail order bulk ink suppliers but Costco stopped carrying the bulk ink replacement kits about 6 months ago. The Canon 3e cartridges are designed to be refilled though they don't tell you. The secret is retaining the covers that come with the cartridges and reattach them to the cartridges when you remove them and put a piece of tape around them to the sides of the cartridge to hold the cover. Do not let the cartridges dry out. On the top of the liquid ink reservoir of the cartridge is a plastic ball under the cover tape. Take a small phillips screw driver and pop that ball down into the reservoir. It will pop nicely if you rest the the bottom on a smooth surface. Once you have popped the ball you can now fill the resevoir slowly at first as you tilt it so that the absorbant material in the opposite chamber can absorb the ink, then continue to fill the ink reservoir about two thrids full. Remove the refill ink noozle and wipe the top of the hole so it is dry and place a piece of adhesive tape over the hole and onto the sides. Make sure you do this so that hole is sealed and you can then replace the filled cartridge in the printer. i generally go into Print maintenance and do if ink maintenance cycle so as to purge any air bubbles or I set it in the printer when I am going to leave it for the night. I find that leaving it overnight settles any air bubbles that may have gotten into the system. This sure beats the high prices of manufacturer filled cartridges. it is also good to have a two sets of cartridges so that you can alternate them as you replace and refill them.

I won't say that all off-brand cartridges work well, but I have used ones for Epson from InkResq and from Shop4Tech with good results. Cost varies but runs around $5 per cartridge, compared to $30 from Staples, etc.

Note that you will likely get the best color match by using the manufacturer's ink. You may also find that some cartridges run out a bit sooner, some may run longer. I have found this to be inconsistent.

Some of the replacements have been made in China; some in Germany

There is a franchise , Cartridge World , in Australia , that refills just about any inkjet cartidge. I have used them for about 5 years to refill for my Canon printers and have found the results to be very good and much more economical than replacing with real ones.
I have tried generic , cheap replacements and found that they are generally not up to speed.

I have learned to fill my own cartridges over the years,simply out of necessity.I found that the older models from Canon,like BJC4400 and BJC5100 are the easiest and they are identical.They use tanks,which can be refilled with and eyedropper instead of syringe.I buy ink in bulk and it probably costs me around 50 bucks a year and i do a fair amount of picture printing.I have tried Epson the Stylus42UX where i had to buy an electronic Gizmo with pins to match the cartridge.That would tell the PC,that now,this cartridge is full.

Over the past three years I have had three inkjet printers All have been Canon who are arguably judged to be the best in this category. With the first one (Pixma-IP2000) , after a while, I used a local replacement company (Ink On The Run) to refill my 6 cartridges.

Black PCI - B
Yellow PCI - Y
Magenta PCI - M
Photo Magenta PCI - PM
Cyanide PCI - C
Photo Cyanide PCI - PC

On printing, the colors ran together, even on top quality printing paper and the result was disaterous. I decided to continue use of the cartridges and just print day-to-day mundane things. Within a week, the printer's inkjets became totally blocked up and too it to a Canon repair business. As the printer was a week out of warranty, I was told the cost of repairs was greater than the price of a new printer. I was also warned about using inferior products and that by using them, would invalidate any warranty as well.

I gave the owner of "Ink On The Run" a real spray and he said there was nothing at all wrong with his product, but just an old machine. Right!

I then purchased a new Canon Pixma-IP4000D printer. The cartridges ran out after about 8 weeks and had to replace most of them. I wondered about using compatible replacement cartridges again and went to another business well advertised on television, Cartridgeworld. On my first print, the colors once again ran together like you wouldnt believe. I then decided to experiment and continued use to see if the inkjets wouls again clog up. Within 3 weeks of use, the inkjets were again blocked up on a new machine only 11 weeks old. This as all but one of my original cartridges still had some ink left in them, I then put them back in, purchased a new Black cartridge, inserted it and went back to another authorized repair dealer. I produced my warranty and the printer was replaced free of charge as the amount of damage done in such a short time was considerable. When they phoned me, they were out of that model and I was given a brand new Pixma IP6000D printer. This printer has serviced me wonderfully for the past 18 months.

I would NEVER consider buying cheaper, half-price replacement cartridges ever again. I know that new company manufactured cartridges are much more expensive, but at least they give a more than satisfactory result. Also, should there be a maintenance problem, then it will be covered under the warranty conditions (providing you don't use incompatible cartidges).

I am an IT professional and I know what I am talking about. Hopefully, all of you wonderful readers out there will heed my advice. If you don't, then proceed and prepare yourself for the consequences.

Regards

Swervyn Mervyn

I have CIS (Continuous Ink Supply) systems installed on both of my Epson Photo Stylus printers. A CIS uses large external tanks for the ink and has a feeder tube that runs into your printer and feeds a set of special cartridges with resetting chips installed. When the printer thinks the ink has run out, the cartridges automatically reset.

The ink is bought in bulk and I roughly estimate that it now costs me about a penny for an 8X10 photo print (vs 67 cents using regular ink cartridges from Epson bought at a discount).

I'm a school teacher and I print out my student's PowerPoint projects for display and also have personal projects that result in hundreds of pages of color prints per month. I won't argue that the CIS inks are as good as the name brand cartridges, but I really can't tell the difference. Will the prints fade over the years? Maybe, but I haven't noticed any deterioration in pictures printed over the past two years with generic inks.

CIS systems seem to be quite a "secret" and I'm really surprised that more people don't have them. It is such a pleasure to be able to print anything I want without worrying about how much ink I have left in a cartridge! Installation is easy and refilling the tanks effortless.

Highly Recommended!

I've had a Canon S520 for over 3 years now that still impresses me. I buy ink carts in 10-packs for $20 on eBay, and have even refilled those with cheap discount store ink. The darn printer just keeps churning away! Sometimes I don't print for 6-9 months and it takes right off after a good cleaning.

I refuse to be raped on printing costs, especially after losing so much money to Lexmark.

I use Cartridge Mart to refill my Cannon Inkjet Cartridges. I have had very good luck with them and the cost is much less than Cannon , or buying third party elsewhere.
Melbourne, Fl.

I have been using this site to purchase cartridges for my Epson 740 Color Styles for years now and have not had one bad one yet. I get about 6 cartridges for the same price as one locally. I really like this site and its prices are a little lower than others. Thier URL is:

http://inkjetsrus.net/

Island Inkjet has kiosks at our local malls here on the west coast of Canada. They have served me well through several printers over the years. The only inconvenience is the Canon chip which does not get reset. The refilled cartridge works fine, but there is no warning when the ink gets low. One just has to plug in the spare when the output starts to fade!

I have some Canon printers, older models like BJC 5100, BJC 6000, and have refurbished some other models. I used to use a BJC 600.

Some of these use the tiny cartridges where the color is 3 in one and separate black, and the ink is held in a felt block. For those, I've refilled by simply turning upside down and slowly dripping ink in. Works OK, but you must be very careful never to overfill. If ink starts dripping out the top while filling, toss the cartridge because the ink is now cross-contaminated. I got good at judging how full by how the ink absorption slowed as the felt sponges got saturated.

For the Canons with separate tanks, they use an ink compartment linked to a sponge. For my BJC 600, I bought 3rd party cartridges. The only problem I ran into was on one particular really cheap brand that didn't make a good seal and leaked. The printer was not harmed and I went back to the slightly less cheap brand.

For my BJC 6000, I bought only Canon OEM cartridges for quite a long time. It cost me $400 for the printer, and the huge tanks didn't cost that much for the amount of ink. I wasn't brave enough to risk the printer when it was my only photo printer (I have a digital photography business). Later I started finding the BJC 6000 in thrift stores, so I bought a bunch for backups. I also found lots of them with full tanks, probably the nozzles blocked up so people put new ink in and when that didn't work, gave them to a thrift store.

I started picking up Canon BJC 5100 printers (because they can print 11x17) and Canon Fax/Printers that use the 3 in 1 color cartridges.

I found that I was able to successfully clean about 90% of them to work 100%. I've now used 3rd party cartridges, really old OEM cartridges, and refilled with miscellaneous dye inks and all have worked fine.

A really cool feature of Canon printers that use separate cartridges for each color is that they actually measure the ink, unlike Epsons and HPs and Lexmarks etc. There is a little prism in the back of the tank, a light shines up inside and if the ink is low, some light begins to be reflected back.

There are also edible inks available, so you can print on special sugar paper or rice paper to be laid onto a cake or frosted cookies to make your own photo cake or photo cookies.

The caveats to Canon printers:
1. The rubber seal in the print head that seals to the cartridge wears out. This causes ink leakage and persistent "clogs" that may actually be air bubbles sucked in. Fortunately there are companies that sell replacement seals that are better that original.

2. The 3 in 1 color cartridge heads have an occasional fatal failure of the seal between the colors. This often shows as the yellow printing green (try a nozzle check) due to cyan leaking across.

3. Don't give up right away if you see cross contamination. I found more often it is caused by a build-up of gunk in the park pad, this causes ink to wick across the nozzles.

Thanks! I thought I was one of the wacky minority to refill. As I said, I use the original cartridges and refill them. The Canon i80 has single ink tanks and will take off like a shot after refilling and cleaning. The tanks and printheads are separate. The hp1310 series printer has separate tanks, but the printheads are incorporated into the unit. Once the ink has dried out, it is very difficult to get the cartridge going. However, HP warns you against this.
Then again, if you've put work into something you want a fair return. No beef there, but if you can get it at a better price with fairly good results, why not?

The esoteric exclusivity of the computer has also worn off very fast and well in the last few years. Electronic equipment, today, is not much more than a domestic commodity. You can use it much like a car - of which many motorists know not much anyway. Why should it be so expensive? The history of the computer is littered with companies going belly up for being too exclusive. If young Bill isn't careful he may well go the way of Big Blue. He actually took the computer out of that hegemony of expensive toys - no matter how expensive his software was. But that's another story.

I don't know if this is still availble. I bought online from:

1581 Sulphur Spring Road
Suite 113
Baltimore, MD 21227
Ship To

Voice: 443-568-0141
Fax: 443-568-0147


10.00IN1148 CANON S-200/S-300 BLACK INKJET 1.69 16.90
3.00IN1149 CANON S-200/S-300 COLOR INK 1.89 5.67

For my Canon Printer.They seem to use up more ink, but for the price of $1.69 and $1.89 couldn't go wrong.

Off brands didn't last long. Their cheaper inks dried up too quickly and often left streaky messes. Refills are only worth the bother if you have a non-HP printer and have problems finding cartridges. It just isn't worth the headaches to use anything less than the manufacturer's ink cartridges.

I do a lot of photo work and that takes a lot of ink! I have had experience with several printers over the last 15 years, but I have been refilling my own now for about half that time. I have both a Lexmark and a cheap little HP Deskjet. After a little hit or miss trial period, I found that I could pull a black cartridge from the HP and refill it in 10 minutes or less.

I pick-up refill inks at Walgreens and at Big Lots. 2 different brands and both pretty cheap. I can refill 5 or 6 times with the IPRINT brand wether color or black cartridge inks. The regular price is around $12 for the color. It figures out to be about $2.75 a cartridge for the color cartridge. The Walgreens inks cost more about $15 for the color and do less. Shop around. Be prepared to make a little mess the first few times you try this. But now I get by with a paper towel. And no mess. Be sure instructions are included for Your Printer Brand or Model.

I have found places on the Net where you can buy ink by the quart! Refill for pennies. I really don't need that much and I'm happy with the price of what I can get locally so I don't bother ordering any.

Look for the cost of new cartridges to nosedive with the new Kodak printers. Their new cartridges are at about half of every other manufacturer. I suspect they intend to buy the printer market. My daughter just purchased one at my recommendation. The 4 X 6 prints on photo paper are Excellent.

Robin of the Wichita Hood

I buy my ink cartridges from cartridge world at less than half the price HP cartridge. In fact to replace both cartridges in my printer with HP cartridges it cost more than the printer its self

I have been buying my cartriges from dell but I can't help but feel cheated.
I was changing the cartrige when the low ink warning came up, but on a lean week I decided to see how long the printer would go before changing the cartrige. I normally get about 53 pages before the warning pops up. When I let it go and started ignoring the warning I found I got up to 70 pages after the change ink warning popped up. That seems a bit fishy to me. Sort of dishonest, instructing customers to change the cartrige shen it's still over half full.
I tryed the refilled cartriges on my old Epson C 60 but they never really worked right after refilling them. I would get streaked photos and would have to clean the heads 3 or 4 times per print job.

I use 2 printers: a Canon ip5000 for photos and an HP laserjet 1012 for almost everything else. Black & white is just fine for the vast majority of my printing needs and using toner instead of black ink is far less costly. I cut my costs even further by refilling the toner cartridge with toner I get from tonerrefillkits.com. I've performed about a dozen refills with never a problem or noticable change in quality of print output.