Save money on printer inks

Posted on 8 Apr 2009 at 15:19

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Van den Hoogenband supplied us with one of his refilling kits and a chip resetter. As you can see in our walkthrough opposite, we found the process easy and, more importantly, we successfully recharged a cartridge.

So how many times can an inkjet cartridge be refilled? Van den Hoogenband says that it depends on the type of cartridge. For cartridges with a sponge, it depends on how the cartridge is used. To gain the maximum number of refills, you must never empty the cartridge completely. This means resetting the chip so you'll notice when the ink level is low.

He advises printing regularly, even if just to produce a test page once a week, to stop the print head clogging up, and refilling the cartridge as soon as you're notified that it's low on ink. He also suggests that, if you're taking the cartridges to a refilling company as opposed to refilling them yourself (in which case they will be out of the printer for some time), you should protect them by transporting them with a protective cap or clip in place. Failing this, you should place them in an envelope, but not in a plastic bag or wrapped in kitchen paper.

If you follow these precautions, you should be able to refill a cartridge up to five times. Van den Hoogenband claims that some heavy users recharge up to 10 times. The more frequently the cartridges are used, the less time there is for the ink in the cartridge to dry up in the sponge. Some cartridges are ink tanks, including many of Epson's single-ink cartridges. Van den Hoogenband claims that these can generally be refilled more than 10 times. He points out that all the cartridges he has received for refilling could be refilled more than that.

Fancy a refill?

With so much information to consider - some of it apparently contradictory - it isn't clear if refilling cartridges represents a worthwhile saving, or if you get what you pay for. Some individuals and companies will always use manufacturers' cartridges: it's certainly the safe option. If you strive for optimum performance and financial concerns are secondary, branded cartridges are the best option as they give results that are rarely bettered.

We can't ignore the fact that refilling cartridges is the cheaper option, and often considerably so. Certainly, some independent tests have shown that the quality and longevity of prints produced with refilled inkjet cartridges can suffer by comparison to prints generated with printer manufacturers' cartridges. However, with so many refilling companies and DIY refilling kits around, it's inevitable that there will be considerable difference between them. Both Cartridge World and Refill24 were able to quote independent reports that showed their refilled cartridges produced results as good (or almost as good, depending on the type of cartridge) as new and branded cartridges.

The independent report commissioned by HP is worrying, because it found that refilled inkjet cartridges from a range of companies, including Cartridge Word and Refill24, invariably produced fewer prints than branded cartridges. Sometimes the numbers were significantly fewer. If this is true, it would largely negate the cost benefit of refilling. However, it's important to recognise that the test was carried out on a sample of just four types of cartridge.

Refill24 acknowledges that with a few types of cartridge it isn't possible to refill with as much ink as was present in the original. In such cases, this fact is taken into account in the pricing. In general, Cartridge World and Refill24 provide at least as much ink as in the original cartridge. When we consider that printers accurately control the volume of ink squirted on to the paper in a print operation, it's hard to see how such a refilled cartridge could produce fewer prints.