8th July 2002

Who knows the ins and outs of refilling inkjet cartridges? Lockergnomie Charles Balch from SERENESOUND.COM: "Refilling in an eco-friendly, cost saving trick worth sharing. You can't get infinite life out of a cartridge - plan on maybe five refills before the print head gets worn / damaged. This won't hurt the printer. HP printers keep track of how many pages a cartridge has printed and will give low ink warning on cartridges even when they are full. HP memory is limited to three cartridges, so the trick to stop the warnings is to have four cartridges and rotate. I've managed to accumulate my set over the years. Even a cartridge with a busted print head works to fool the machine. If the blinking low ink light doesn't bother you, then you don't need the other cartridges. Use quality refill ink designed for your printer (not the cheap 'one size fits all' stuff). The actual process takes about 20 minutes and is best done on some old newspapers and near a sink. I save my cartridges to batch process, as most of the time is spent in prep and cleanup. Expect your fingers to look a little like dyed Easter eggs for a couple of hours after the job. If that sounds too messy, there are companies that will do the refilling for you. When you buy your ink, it is worth buying some cartridge holders to keep your cartridges in top shape and ready to use. Finally, do some math. Inkjets are for light duty. If you are printing a lot, it may be be cost effective to use a (color or black toner) laser, as they are faster and cheaper per page to operate."