Refilling Printer Ink Cartridges

[Martin963]

I've been actually rather enjoying myself with this project to save money (in anticipation of another five years of "This Labour Government") and generally if you get to a cartridge sooner rather than later it seems quite successful.

However,  only two of my three HP "15" B/W cartridges have recovered.   The third one will print - sometimes - half a page and then seems to stop flowing.

I've cleaned the nozzle with the cleaning fluid,  and then decided to mount a full-scale solvent attack on it.   I took out the ink,  and washed it out with acetone,  then meths,  then the proprietary pink cleaning fluid supplied with the refill kit.    When I refilled it with ink it initially wept copiously (as they do,  this is normal) and I thought I'd won,   but no it still only does a half page.

What's the best solvent?  Water or organic compound based?   Has anyone any other tips?

As I say,  it's not life-and-death but I'm annoyed that I can't seem to restore it to full health.

Thanks.

[Théière]

You really have too much time on your hands [:D]

I have completely stopped all that messing about and now order generic cartidges from www.ink.co.uk the catridges for my canon pixma are so cheap at £0.57 or £1.37 for one with a chip it isn't worth getting dirty.

I bought my chip zapper for about £7.00 but always keep a stock of new chipped ones as the chipps seem to fail after about 4-5 zapps.

 

[Pierre ZFP]

It might not be anything to do with a blocked jet but many of these cartidges have a chip in them to say what the ink level is.  If the chip thinks its empty then no amount of cleaning or filling will persuade it otherwise - good trick for making you buy a new cartridge [:@]

I have heard that there may be ways around this by pushing a sequence of buttons on the printer but you'll have to do a bit of Googling for your specific model.

EDIT : Ooops sort of crossed with the above

[Martin963]

Actually filling ink cartridges suits the very fragile state of my back at the moment,  sitting down is difficult so I'm more like a toddler on the floor playing with his paint pots!!   And there's so much that needs doing here too;  (trees to prune,  grass to cut,  etc etc)

Thanks for the link to ink.co.uk,  that certainly IS cheap.

Pierre - the HP 15 does not incorporate the chip-scam.   I would NEVER buy a printer that did.  

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

I would suggest you vote Tory.

[AnOther]

[quote user="Martin963"]Pierre - the HP 15 does not incorporate the chip-scam.   I would NEVER buy a printer that did.  [/quote]HP are total shysters and fraudsters.

On a wholly different plane I agree but at work we have 2 HP5500 colour laser printers. These use 4 separate toner cartridges, one black and 3 for colour. The replacement cost for these is around £180 each so a total of over £700 for the lot.

It was noticed very early on that the 3 colour cartridges appeared to be depleting at an identical rate as displayed by a graphic on the LCD panel. This was simply not possible so I did some investigating and it turned out that whilst the toners do have an optical sensor to flag up when they are truly empty they also have an RFID chip fitted which is little more than a turns counter. Since all 4 toners rotate regardless for every single page printed if you only ever printed in black at some point the 3 colour toners would report empty and the printer would come to a standstill forcing you to spend £500+ for new colour toners to replace ones from which not a single grain of colour had been used !

Once I had identified the problem it didn't take me long to source 3rd party replacement chips @ a princely £7 a pop or £21 for a set of 3. Using these, which take less than 2 minutes to fit, I can recycle most toners about 5 times before they truly become exhausted. If this is not fraudulent and outright robbery I don't know what is. I have estimated that throught the UK business unit where this model of printer has been the standard for about 5 years we have been robbed of something in the region of £100,000

There is a secondary scam going on too. HP generously and thoughtfully provide a prepaid label to send old cartridges back for recycling. Because of the turn counting swindle it's almost certain that the average returned cartridge will have still contained up to 50% unused toner and there are no prizes for guessing what happens to that when it gets back to HP !

As a form of protest I now deliberately contaminate and damage every cartridge I do send back and I drill holes in them so that the remaining toner is shaken out during transport, hopefully creating an unholy mess when opened at the factory. This has the added satisfying bonus of effectively rendering the unit completely useless for reuse.

[mint]

LOL, Erns, I love your chutzpah..........Oh, the organisations I'd like to have some ingenious means of getting back at!

[Chancer]

Love it Ernie [:D]

You sound like the kinda guy that would defecate in a jiffy bag and send it to the person that had done the dirty on you. 

Go on, admit it, you have havn't you! [6]

And I bet you didnt put a stamp on either [;-)]

[Théière]

[quote user="sweet 17"]LOL, Erns, I love your chutzpah..........Oh, the organisations I'd like to have some ingenious means of getting back at![/quote]

And my new word for the week is .........Chutzpah [:)]

Nice Ernie, same way I feel about cartridges with chips, luckily able to zap them.

Sorry to hear about your back Martin, must be awful in your line of work.

[AnOther]

Seems I've touched a nerve. It's only small thing but it does make me feel that I'm getting some revenge !

Chancer, you may well think that but I could not possibly comment [Www]

Actually it's a good response to junk mail where a prepaid envelope is provided. A little sample of u-no-wot with a note to the effect:

"You sent me your s*it so I'm sending you mine" [:D][:D][:D]

[Gluestick]

Our house now enjoys a convenient spare supermarket bag, lurking near the front door, as of yesterday.

Now in this is going to go all the hordes of crap flyers banging through my letterbox, offering a range of nasty instant food, delivered to my door!

Pizzas, Chinese, Indian take-aways, ribs, whatever: grease burgers etc saturated with transfatty acid, monosodium glutamate etc.

And when the bag is full, I am going to close my eyes and remove one: they will be the lucky winner!

And thereafter, I shall drive to their premises and empty the bag on their floor and tell them how absolutely fed up I am with their shuffling morons shoving this crap into my letterbox, day after day: and now it's their turn!

Shame they cannot employ leaflet droppers who can read English and comprehend what the words "No Circulars!" mean..........

 

[Quillan]

I like 'Pub' we have a machine which we bought a few years ago, don't know exactly how it works as Mrs 'Q' is in charge. We put all our 'Pub' in to a bucket and she fills it with water and laves it overnight. She disappears with it down to the garage where the machine is located and out pops these 'bricks' which burn just as good as any log. So I thank those companies that send me 'Pub' as is saves a few Euros on the old heating bill every year. She is trying to encourage me to collect from our neighbours as well.

[AnOther]

Give us your address then Q and we'll forward all our 'Pub' to you [:D]

I recall reading somewhere that you can get a sticker from La Poste to put on your postbox saying no to spam post ?

[Martin963]

Thanks for the sympathy Theirere!   On the mend...

Lovely Ernie,   brilliant idea.   I now only send back cartridges that I can't get to work again. 

But no-one has answered the question as to how you *do* get them flowing again.....?

[Théière]

[:)] As you are spending more on solvent than the cartridges I buy does it matter? Maybe Ernie has super glued the one you can't get to work, where did you get it from [Www]

Gluey's the chemist so for a sensible answer.................

[Gluestick]

From my earliest HP Colour Inkjet (850C), I have tried all sorts of "Guaranteed" re-fill kits: and never ever managed to make one work properly thereafter.

And furthermore, cheap professionally re-filled cartridges, have also tended to leak and smudge and never replicated the quality of work we needed.

Our big A3 format full photo resolution HP colour inkjet (1220C) which cost a bundle has been precisely the same. It is only used occasionally for full colour brochures and flyers.

So now I grit me teeth and sport out for the best discounted genuine replacement cartridges. I suspect the core problem is the Piezo Crystal valves: which have a finite life: and then leak, block or smear.

The only really successful re-fill kits seems to have been for those printers (Epson e.g.) which have "Tanks" and feed tubes to the print head. Same as the big Multi-Colour Flat Bed Plotters.

Anyway, I have now bitten the bullet and a full colour network laser printer is sat waiting for me to install on the network and commission. And on cost grounds, I shall try generic toner cartridges, 'cos the OEM jobbies are £100 each!

Like laser toner powder, inkjet inks are different constituents, OEM to OEM product: and I suspect herein lies another cause for failure of re-fill kits to work properly.

That said, we have always used a generic toner powder for our big office Xerox copier: and that works fine.

Solvents BTW, range from water to esoteric chemical compounds.

All you didn't want to know about inkjets!

[tel]

Hi,

I buy original HP cartridges off EBay at less than half the normal price including postage.  May have a shorter shelf life but as a heavy user I use them long before they are out of date.

 

Regards

[Polly]

Some of you live very sad lives.... all this worry about ink: buy a box of pencils and dig out your old pencil sharpener

[Gluestick]

[quote user="Polly"]Some of you live very sad lives.... all this worry about ink: buy a box of pencils and dig out your old pencil sharpener[/quote]

Now, if you would explain how I can file myriad official tax, VAT, NIC, Company returns online using pencils and keep copies, I for one would be obliged, Polly.

[Www]

[NickP]

[quote user="Gluestick"]

[quote user="Polly"]Some of you live very sad lives.... all this worry about ink: buy a box of pencils and dig out your old pencil sharpener[/quote]

Now, if you would explain how I can file myriad official tax, VAT, NIC, Company returns online using pencils and keep copies, I for one would be obliged, Polly.

[Www]

[/quote]

You employ a secretary and a filing clerk, plus you  buy plenty of carbon paper, lots of people did it for years before computers became the be all end all. It's easy.[:P]

[Gluestick]

[quote user="NickP"]

You employ a secretary and a filing clerk [/quote]

One already does.

[quote] plus you  buy plenty of carbon paper, lots of people did it for years before computers became the be all end all. It's easy.[:P]

[/quote]

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

So out of touch with reality in your buccolic idyl.

Please Read:

Ditto:

Clearer now?

I do hope so.

I'll let you return to your Abacus and Quill pens then.

[Www]

[Théière]

Are but Gluey, they are also stored on line to be viewed anytime so no need to print them [6][:)]

[NickP]

[quote user="Gluestick"][quote user="NickP"]

You employ a secretary and a filing clerk [/quote]

One already does.

[quote] plus you  buy plenty of carbon paper, lots of people did it for years before computers became the be all end all. It's easy.[:P]

[/quote]

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

So out of touch with reality in your buccolic idyl.

Please Read:

Ditto:

Clearer now?

I do hope so.

I'll let you return to your Abacus and Quill pens then.

[Www]

[/quote]

Never has or will be  a problem for me dipstick my old mate. Funny, the old spelling 'aint improving is it? Bet your mum's upset that she wasted all that money on an expensive  education? [:P]

[Chancer]

Some of my favorite customers were a couple of small businesses that had been around since the beginning of the last century and still occupied the same premises, one was an estate office and quarry, the other was a traditional blacksmith and woodwork shop.

I havn't seen them for a few years but before they were still using typewriters and carbon paper, they did have faxes and one had a photocopier but neither had computers, book-keeping was still done by double entry in ledgers.

Will companies like these be forced to do on line declarations? I suppose that their accountants culd do it forthem but it does seem unfair.

One day the nternet will go tits up for a week like airline travel and they will be begging us to do paper declarations again. 

[Gluestick]

[quote user="Théière"]Are but Gluey, they are also stored on line to be viewed anytime so no need to print them [6][:)][/quote]

Problem is:

Firstly take Tax Returns (Which we have been filing online since the system first started: indeed, my practice was in the first cohort, when the dial-up modems we were using were standalone external!!): whilst we file online, we have to print off a hardcopy and ensure the taxpayer has duly signed it, before we can file online.

Secondly, we are bound by the terms of Practice Ethics and procedure, both by  professional bodies (Who only issue Practice certificates on such terms of reference) and Professional Indemnity Underwriters.

If we are unable to demonstrate a complete file in terms of Audit Trail and Compliance, then we're in trouble.

It is not unknown, BTW, for online sources to "Lose" filed documents.

Accountants and Tax Advisers it must be remembered are Agents when they undertake such tasks for clients: and thereby are subject to various legal liabilities and duties: in both directions; i.e. to HMRC and to the client.

The "Paperless Office" is, I'm afraid, many years hence; sadly.