Ink cartridge refill services

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Rozmataz

Rozmataz

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
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Jun 13, 2002
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Fingerlakes Region of NYS
I used Office Max's ink cartridge refill service this week. Has anyone else ever done this?

It was alot less $$ for the equivalent new cartridges for my older HP Ink Jet Printer. I think they are working just as good as new cartridges. The only problem I had was that I waited while they did it and it took FOREVER... The process is really interesting so I looked at the (waste of) time as educational.

They have to empty the existing cartridge of any old ink residue, check it for the electric charge and then refill. This sounds like it should take about 10 minutes but it took nearly 40!! But it is done and in the future I can drop them off and pick them up later so I don't have to wait. And I am glad they did it and not me - really a messy process.

Roz
 
Do they reset the expiration date? This has become a serious issue with HP for printers manufactured in recent years. The printers will refuse to print with an expired cartridge.
 
I used to have Epson printers. The cartridges refilled nicely, but I had to buy a chip resetter for about $5 to reset the levels or it wouldn't work. I now have a couple HP printers. I have started refilling for those with a refill kit I got at Costco. In the instructions is a process for resetting those cartridges so that the printer will recognize them as full. I don't know if that is the same as the "expiration." But so far its working. I could post a copy of the instructions if someone wants.
 
We refill our cartridges with Cartridge World. They are customers of ours, so we return the support to them.

We use them for our Canon photo printer, HP Laser toner and Lexmark ink cartridges. For the common printers, like the Canon, they have refilled cartridges in stock that we trade in our empties for. If they don't have any in, or when we take the toner cart in, we drop them off and pick them up the next day.

We have not had any problems with anything being expired, etc. I don't know how they compare price-wise to Office Max, but they are much less expensive than buying new ones all the time.
 
Ya - I've done it and it works slick. My printer can't read the refill so it thinks it's still low on ink. If I tell it to quit whining about that - it does.

If you are going to do this, take the cartridge straight from your printer to the refill site. There are little sponges in there that dry out if you leave them lying on the kitchen counter while you remember to go to the office supply store.

How many times can you refill a cartridge? According to they guy at Office Max - about four.

Val - the process takes 40 minutes so you have plenty of time to wander through the store and find other things you need.

Kit
 
I refill my own cartridges and save alot of money. I can buy a refill kit for about $23. This kit will refill a cartridge about 10 times this is what it costs you to refill it once with them. I find myself going thru certain colors more often and just top those off. You still won't get the most out of a cartridge if you have them do it, because they are exhausting out any ink you have left and refill the same ink again which you didn't really need. When I do photos I find that certain colors may never be used or just a little of the ink.

It takes me about 10-15 minutes at home to refill a cartridge.

Actually if the cartridge is not run dry you can fill them up to 10 times and longer if you top them off on a regular basis. Just don't touch the copper on the printhead and never clean or wipe the printheads unless you use a wet towel.

I buy ink from http://www.printerfillingstation.com/index.htm

You get free shipping on orders over $50 and 10% off if you key in their code listed on their homepage when you order.

They also have a faq page to answer questions, you might have. They provide you with dirctions for each cartridge type and you can view them from their home page.

They have ink for all cartridges not just certain types that Officemax has.
I believe Officemax can only refill HP, Dell, and Lexmark.
 
If you refill HP cartridges yourself, how do you get around the embedded expiration date that tells the printer not to print? Inquiring minds want to know. I hate HP (even though I love their printers). Does that make sense?
 
This cartridge has a chip that knows its serial number and manufacturer date. It lets the cartridge operate and be refilled for two years then it will stop working. If the cartridge sat on a shelf for 6 months before you bought it then you only have 18 months to use it and refill it as much as you want. The printer will read the serial number off the cartridge and will keep it in memory, even though the cartridge is refilled the printer still remembers that cartridge as one that has been in use. The cartridge will still print fine and the running low warning will eventually go away. The printer can only remember about three serial numbers of each color. The only way to get around this is to have four different cartridges you rotate into the printer. When the first one comes around again the serial number would have dropped off the printers memory and it will think the cartridge is a new one. Or just keep some old ones around and just put them in and take them out till you ge to the most recent one again. Only takes about 10 minutes.


I usually have to replace the cartridge with new new one within the two years, because I refill and print photos quite a bit; but you can get around the date by changing the date in Windows, print, then change the date back. Most of the older printers don't use the date stamp technology and only the newer ones have the date.
 
Just be aware that with Photo printers and others using the higher end inksets you will NOT get the same performance in terms of color and life expectancy. A few exceptions are the custom inksets for photo printers but these are premium products and not what these ink cartridge refill services offer. Henry Wilhelm testing has shown that the aftermarket inkset services can have a major effect on the expected life of the finished prints with changes from an expected life of 85+ years to less than 3 years.

If it is anything important or you are doing photos or artwork, stick with the combinations designed to yield the finest results.
 
I know that the ink that Officemax uses is the same for all the cartridges that they refill cartridges with ink which is considered universal inks. The company I that buy from is ink specific to specfic cartridges and color. I believe their ink is made by OCP of Germany and are also most chemically identical to the manufacters original inks without infringing on their patents.
 
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