Save £££'s (Inkjet Refill Kits)

Member Name: rob_writer

Product:	Inkjet Refill Kits
Date:	04/05/01 (1014 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Saves you a fortune

Disadvantages: Messy, Could be harmful to your printer

If there is one aspect of computers that people are moaning about at the moment it is the price of inkjet refills. Printers seem quite a bargain, costing only around £100 for one capable of very high quality. While mine is a slightly cheaper (£60) Lexmark Z12 it still claims to offer photo realism. This comes at a price however, as the printer guzzles ink. When printing an A4 sized photograph at the highest quality you can literally see the ink level dropping on the on-screen display as the page is printing. And when you consider that a new ink cartridge costs around £28 then you soon realise that your printer's cost will soon be multiplied massively if you use even a moderate amount of ink. It's not just my printer that is the problem, everyone seems to be complaining now regardless of what brand of printer they have.

It seems every new printer now eats ink and people are beginning to realise that it is going to cost them a small fortune. Some people are revering to their old printers for plain text and only using the new one for colour, some people are simply paying the money, but others are realising that refilling their ink cartridges is very cost effective.

How well your ink cartridge can be refilled depends a lot upon the make, as the four main printer manufacturers have varied designs and ideas on how their printers should work.

HP and Lexmark both incorporate the print head in to their cartridges, meaning that the print head is replaced every time you buy a new cartridge. This ensures good quality printing but when it is empty you often throw away a perfectly good print head. Of course this also increases the price somewhat. A typical HP cartridge costs around £21 while a Lexmark cartridge is going to set you back about £27.

Cannon on the other hand use separate print heads and ink tanks, meaning that you can replace them at will, making most Cannon cartridges a bit cheaper at about £16.

Epson on the ot
her hand build the print head in to the printer and all you buy is a tank of ink. This has the advantage that it should, in theory, reduce the price of the cartridge but the cartridge for the Epson Stylus Color 680 is still a whopping £23.

You may just think that what I said above wasn't really important, but it is. The manufacturers claim that refilling your ink cartridge is dangerous as it can damage the print head and produce inferior quality prints. With Lexmark and HP you have nothing to lose by refilling your cartridge, because if any problems should arise then all you need to do is buy a new cartridge. With Epson though, if the print head is damaged it is difficult and expensive to replace.

But should we believe all that the printer manufacturers tell us, after all they obviously don't want us to refill our cartridges instead of buying them at extortionate prices from the printer manufacturers. Personally I doubt that there will ever be any problems, but be warned that it is not without risk. If nothing else on certain makes of printers refilling may void your warranty. Then again warranties only last for a year, so is it that much to lose if you've already had your printer for 8 months?

There are two types of ink that you can use for your printer, universal refill kits or printer matched refill kits.

Universal ink is just that; ink that can be used in any printer. To print colour printers use three colours, namely cyan, magenta and yellow. So it would follow that you could just use the same ink in any printer. The answer is yes and no. It will probably work, but different manufacturers ink may vary slightly in colour, texture and how runny it is etc. If all you want is black printing then these will do fine but for colour printing I would recommend a printer matched kit.

Printer matched refill kits solve this problem by trying to copy the ink that the printer manufacturers make for that printer. Thi
s should ensure a print quality that is undistinguishable from the original cartridge. These kits are quite professional too, they come with the ink, all the tools needed, gloves and instructions.

So how much do these things cost, bearing in mind that it takes roughly 30ml to fill a normal black only cartridge or around 10ml each of cyan, magenta and yellow to fill a colour cartridge.

Generic ink is by far the cheapest. 100ml of black ink can be bought for £3.99, which is roughly 3 refills of a normal tank. That is less than £1.50 per refill. Colour ink is £5 per tank and you will need one tank of cyan, magenta and yellow so the total cost will be £15. This should refill about 10 cartridges making the price work out at £1.50 per refill again. And to think that a new cartridge could cost you £20 or more!!

Printer matched kits cost a little more. They are usually around £7 for a black kit and £10 for a colour kit and most offer about 3 refills per kit. This still works out at £3.33 which is very cheap compared with a new cartridge.

Epson is the only manufacturer who actively fight refilling. They place a chip in their cartridges which monitors the ink level. When it runs out the chip renders the cartridge useless forcing you to buy a new one. Not beaten though, the ink refiller’s have made a kit costing £25 that allows you to reprogram the chips and refill the cartridges as normal.

The only problem with refilling cartridges is the fact that you have to personally refill them. This is not always easy and can be messy, and as I sit here I have multi coloured fingers from refilling a Lexmark cartridge earlier this evening. The normal process involves removing a cap from the cartridge, sometimes by force depending on the model of printer. You then inject the ink in to the sponges in the cartridge. It is important not to add too much ink as the separate compartments may flood over in to the next, mixing the colours and
ruining the cartridge. Excess ink may also cause leakage through the print head which could damage the delicate head.

For people who don't know (and I didn't till I refilled one) an inkjet cartridge contains a separate tank for each colour. These are filled with a sponge. The reason for that is when the ink is used in the printer it is heated up and therefore expands. The sponge simply helps it to expand freely.

Refilling a cartridge can be very difficult and confusing at first but once you have done it a few times it becomes second nature. My advice would be to lay down some paper to catch the stray droplets and take your time when injecting the ink. Rushing could lead to over filling. It is also essential to remember that cartridges cannot be refilled indefinitely as components like the print head will wear out over time. Between 5-10 refills is the average for most cartridges.

I have refilled a number of cartridges and have never had any problems with it, nor do I know of anyone who has. It is an easy way to save a LOT of money, for example I can refill my Lexmark Z-12 for £3.33 as opposed to £28 and to my eyes it looks identical in terms of quality.

There are lots of places to buy ink refills online but my personal favourite is a site called www.aktivdirect.co.uk. They are friendly, reliable, cheap and offer a profession looking kit.

Before you splash out on a new cartridge think of the cheaper alternatives!!!

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