Printer Ink - New Cartridge Vs Refilling?

selfbuildache · 24-10-2011 10:45am #1

Apologies if this is in the wrong place. I did look around.

Just wondering if buying a refill kit would be cheaper than a 'new' cartridge and do people have any recommendations about where to go for either??

I've tried inkjet and inklub for cartridges but they still seem expensive...

yoyo · 24-10-2011 5:28pm

selfbuildache wrote: »

Apologies if this is in the wrong place. I did look around.

Just wondering if buying a refill kit would be cheaper than a 'new' cartridge and do people have any recommendations about where to go for either??

I've tried inkjet and inklub for cartridges but they still seem expensive...

What printer? Only newer Brother machines can be refilled for little hasstle afaik. Get a Epson or Canon and get remanufactured cartridges, best option really. Another site to try is www.justmedia.ie, I find them the cheapest, also look at Ebay, although disadvantage here is most sellers are English so long delivery times!

Nick

selfbuildache · 24-10-2011 7:09pm

Thanks. Have a HP. Just a cheap one so I fear I'm paying for it now. I used to have a Dell one though and could get them refilled locally so I'm going to try them if nothing else turn up.
Have tried your website and can't figure out how to find my cartridge number

Cerbera · 24-10-2011 7:15pm

I've got a mix of Canon and HP printers and I get the inks / toners refilled off my local Recharge Cartridges place and I have had absolutely no problems with any of them ever.

yoyo · 24-10-2011 9:59pm

selfbuildache wrote: »

Thanks. Have a HP. Just a cheap one so I fear I'm paying for it now. I used to have a Dell one though and could get them refilled locally so I'm going to try them if nothing else turn up.
Have tried your website and can't figure out how to find my cartridge number

Just Media changed the site recently and I've found you can't search for cartidge numbers easily any more, best off clicking HP>and looking for your model in the list of items

Nick

allthedoyles · 24-10-2011 10:10pm

We used to buy refills for our HP 2550 , but they sometimes leaked .

It does work out cheaper though .

We also used to buy a printer chip like this one below , and it meant that we used to get more value out of a cartridge .
If you have a printer that counts the number of pages you print , it may tell you that the cartridge is empty , when it is not .:

craftypaddy · 24-10-2011 10:14pm

refill kits are for sale in tesco, 25 euro for black and colour, gets 20 fills roughly, fairly easy to do just watch a video on youtube first

yoyo · 24-10-2011 10:20pm

craftypaddy wrote: »

refill kits are for sale in tesco, 25 euro for black and colour, gets 20 fills roughly, fairly easy to do just watch a video on youtube first

Many printers use Chips these days which stop you from bieng able to print after the countdown regardless of there being ink or not, without a chip resetter and even with some ink cartidges (Epsons especially) are manufactured in such a way that if refilled they just will not work.

Nick

selfbuildache · 25-10-2011 1:34pm

Thanks for the replies! These companies are really devious!
Allthedoyles - where would I get one of these chips and is it the same as the one YoYo is talking about??
CraftyPaddy - it was those refill kits I was talking about buying - you can get them on Ebay for less so if you think they work I might go that route - thanks.
Cheers!

yoyo · 25-10-2011 2:18pm

selfbuildache wrote: »

Thanks for the replies! These companies are really devious!
Allthedoyles - where would I get one of these chips and is it the same as the one YoYo is talking about??
CraftyPaddy - it was those refill kits I was talking about buying - you can get them on Ebay for less so if you think they work I might go that route - thanks.
Cheers!

I think he's linked to a chip resetter, could be wrong though! Even if you can reset the chip some inks just will not refill, Canon and Epson especially are notorious for this, Check this out to see how they do it

Nick

Overheal · 26-10-2011 12:33am

selfbuildache wrote: »

Thanks for the replies! These companies are really devious!

Ultimately they aren't devious but rather protecting their profits and investments. Granted they could provide a better, mainstream refilling method, but at the end of the day it was refillers that encouraged printer companies to start microchipping their cartridges.

selfbuildache · 26-10-2011 11:01am

Overheal wrote: »

Ultimately they aren't devious but rather protecting their profits and investments. Granted they could provide a better, mainstream refilling method, but at the end of the day it was refillers that encouraged printer companies to start microchipping their cartridges.

I understand your point and that they have to make profits but I'm annoyed at not knowing this before I bought this latest printer. I think this printer (HP) is cutting me off at a set amount of pages, whereas my previous printer would go 'til the ink ran out basically. Obviously, if I knew beforehand I'd be looking for a non-chipped (if this is even possible now.) printer

Mattryan13 · 28-10-2011 7:03pm

Don't bother, messy and you don't get a full refill. Huntoffice.ie or www.officespot.ie are cheap and fast delivery. I do our office ordering and this has worked out best for us.

hanloj1 · 28-10-2011 7:26pm

I used to get mine refilled for hp photosmart c4380. They were costing me 24e to refill xl one. Got two cartridges for 26e including delivery from 7dayshop.com . good times.

silvine · 28-10-2011 7:27pm

Get a laser printer. Works out cheaper in the long run.

okiss · 28-10-2011 7:42pm

I have a hp printer and the cartridge here in Ireland are expensive.
I don't do a lot of printing but I looked up the price of these on amazon and found they were a lot cheaper that buying them in Ireland.
If you buy over STG £25 you will get free delivery.

marknine · 07-11-2011 11:26am

selfbuildache wrote: »

Apologies if this is in the wrong place. I did look around.

Just wondering if buying a refill kit would be cheaper than a 'new' cartridge and do people have any recommendations about where to go for either??

I've tried inkjet and inklub for cartridges but they still seem expensive...

I have a HP C5180 that takes 6 different inks that costs a few bob. A few years ago I started to order bulk ink from http://www.cityinkexpress.co.uk/ and I honestly saved €100’s of euros. Last year I was in Art college and I needed to print photos for my portfolio, but I ran out of two colours of my bulk ink (light magenta and light cyan). Because I did not have my credit card or debit card (long story) so I could purchase the bulk ink at around €7 for a 100ml bottle (a 100ml bottle will fill a cartridge about 20 times) I had to buy the inks in PC World. The cost, just for these two colours was around €70 as I ran out a few times due to all the photos I had to print. Needless to say I have since re-purchased the bulk ink and I bought enough to do me for a few years which cost way less than buying new HP cartridges.

caddy2 · 07-11-2011 11:37am

we get the refills, they are half the price, Recharge do good deal, dont know where you are located but we use a branch in mallow. what we find is that as printers are pretty timid yokes that anytime we have something wrong with the printer itself, (even though we didnt buy the printer in recharge, we get all our ink there) and the guy aidan there is excellent and has a look to do his best if he can do anything to fix the printer for you. Great service I must say

selfbuildache · 07-11-2011 10:46pm

Thanks for all ideas. I'll follow up on all of them. Cheers.

freakystreak · 05-03-2012 11:28am

As someone else commented, refilling is messy and you can't always guarantee results but like anything, practise makes perfect. Epson cartridges are just not worth refilling as the price of compatibles is so low.

Here's a link to something you may find useful about refilling - http://lifeonthefreakyside.blogspot.com/2012/02/refilling-empty-black-ink-cartridges.html

Nothingbetter2d · 05-03-2012 1:46pm

yoyo wrote: »

What printer? Only newer Brother machines can be refilled for little hasstle afaik. Get a Epson or Canon and get remanufactured cartridges, best option really. Another site to try is www.justmedia.ie, I find them the cheapest, also look at Ebay, although disadvantage here is most sellers are English so long delivery times!

Nick

dont use refilled cartridges on an a3 brother 6510 dw printer they will kill the printer. it destroys the printer heads.... had 2 replaced under warranty beacuse of it.

OP a4 laser jet colours have come down alot in price... i highly recommend getting one.... the quality is far superior and the toner lasts alot longer.

yoyo · 05-03-2012 2:11pm

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

dont use refilled cartridges on an a3 brother 6510 dw printer they will kill the printer. it destroys the printer heads.... had 2 replaced under warranty beacuse of it.

OP a4 laser jet colours have come down alot in price... i highly recommend getting one.... the quality is far superior and the toner lasts alot longer.

It depends on the refills I find, some are not done properly, have air inside and this can cause print head issues. Remanufactured cartridges are better than refills generally. Also it is physically impossible to refill modern Epson ink cartridges, as Epson design them in such a way you can't inject into the cartridge properly without upsetting the balance of it (Epson inks have multiple chambers, some must have air while others ink, very messy but look up epson cartridge disasembly and you'll see)

Nick

Printer Ink - New Cartridge Vs Refilling?

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