New Or Refilled Ink Cartidges?

[ringway]

Hi everyone,

I have been buying (HP Vivera) inkjet cartridges for our HP L7780 Inkjet printer which is becoming expensive as the young ringways seem to be forever printing things for homework etc in addition to my home/office usage.

I did once refill a HP laserjet cartridge and that was okay.

However I hear a lot of conflicting reports about the refilling of inkjet cartridges.

Thanks for any information.

 

[Sp!ke]

When your ink runs out, throw the printer away and buy a new one - it is most likely cheaper.

Refills and clone cartridges have never really been any good for me.

 

[bennesspipers]

Dont buy inferior ink packs, they'll jam the printer heads up

 

[SilverSaloon]

i use refills and all has been OK. this is just black ink though. i've used colour refills before but it was a bit 50/50 with quality

 

[wemorgan]

When your ink runs out, throw the printer away and buy a new one - it is most likely cheaper.

Refills and clone cartridges have never really been any good for me.

I did that with the HP OfficeJet All-in-one. (printer/copy/scan/fax)
The printer cost me ~£30 (inc. colour and black ink)
New ink was roughly £15-20 per cartridge.
I sold the old printer to a mate for £10.

When the ink ran out again I bought some ink from Cartridge World, as I wasn't able to find another £30 printer bargain. The black in has been very unreliable since.

Also OEM ink can be bought from online shops registered in Jersey, so tax free.

edit: whilst on the topic, I'd shy away from cheap paper. HP paper is about £5 for 500 sheets and makes the quality much nicer.
Less learnt for me. OEM ink or new printer next time.

 

[x332race]

Always use Original ink to get best quality....false economy otherwise.

 

[bennesspipers]

Look on e-bay, iv often found genuine ones at quite a saving, BUT, check how the ad is written, cos some sellers try to decieve & make out they're gen when not. I only buy the ones with the correct box picture.

 

[moonloops]

I always refused to buy cheap ink until I found I could buy two full sets of colour for my epson for less than £10 on amazon. A single epson cartridge costs £14+ the printer takes 1 black and 5 colour carts!!!

If my printer does clog up I will throw it in the bin and buy a new one

 

[x332race]

I always refused to buy cheap ink until I found I could buy two full sets of colour for my epson for less than £10 on amazon. A single epson cartridge costs £14+ the printer takes 1 black and 6 colour carts!!!

If my printer does clog up I will throw it in the bin and buy a new one

While I was looking for ink cartridges on ebay recently, I found 1 seller selling cartridges for my machine with, essentially, a free printer thrown in! If my printer was not in full working order, I would have been silly not to have gone down that route...as it is, my printer is working ok and it is "greener" to keep it than replace it.

 

[Roger Jones]

The few experiments I've had with non-OEM catridges have not been happy ones.

I had a splurge on OEM inkjet and toner cartridges on eBay not long ago. Watch out for expiry dates: most people aren't aware of their existence and I guess we must believe that they have a serious purpose.

 

[Dryce]

When your ink runs out, throw the printer away and buy a new one - it is most likely cheaper.

It may be. But some cheaper printers come with 'starter' cartridges which are good enough for just a few pages. So some care is needed.

 

[Merc Owner 2B]

A lot of (HP Particularly) printers' cartridges contain the print head so cheap aftermarket replacements are often poor. So generally, if you have an head/cartridge setup then buy genuine.
Many Epson's cartridges are just ink resevoirs so there's lots of cheap aftermarkets around.
This is why it's so important, when buying a printer, to research the cost and availability of ink cartridges.

 

[CE230]

I'ved used refills for my HP all-in-one for years, the only problem encountered have been faulty print heads but they change the cartridge without argument. New printers I use OEM until the warranty runs out.

 

[Aoraki]

I use a CIS (continous inking system) on the Epson R2400 using quality Lyson inks, there's 8 inks @ £15ish each so total 8 Epson carts is about £120 .
Lyson CIS with 125ml (approx 10 carts) of each ink cost about £200, it wasn't long before I was making a saving. 125ml of Lyson ink is £29, equivelant to £2.9 per cart. Printer is only used for quality A3 photo's though, all work related stuff goes through a Canon.

 

[AANDYY]

I've tried alsorts with printers, cleaning the heads with proper solution, CIS, etc but they always clog up, so when it happens in the future I'll just buy a new printer, £30, I can get replacements cartridges for my Epson on ebay for £1 each, so it works out cheaper to buy a new printer every 2 or 3 years, crazy but true.

A good tip is to use the printer easch week even if you don't need to, to keep the heads flowing.

 

[LTD]

Another good tip is never to switch your printer off as it always draws a little ink from the cartridge on start up.

 

[Rory]

I have a HP 7780 too and the print heads are separate from the carts so that would make it more of a candidate for refills. I use originals anyway, but don't print a huge amount these days.

My FIL always buys non-OEM carts for his Canon printer but has a fair amount of problems with it (which he then call on me to fix). I think it has 7 carts and they're small so one seems to need changing with every use.

Regarding it being cheaper to buy a new printer - it's probably often true, although these days they do generally come with demo/initial carts in them with very little ink.

 

[Dryce]

I think it has 7 carts and they're small so one seems to need changing with every use.

Manufacturers tout 7 or 8 cartridges as being an advantage. It may well be. But if you go through the equivalent of a set of cartridges every two months then on average you're changing one every week. Depending on what you print then the some may be used up at greater rate (not helped by some manufacturers who put different amounts of ink into the different colour cartridges) - which makes keeping a stock of spares a bit more hassle.

 

[Dryce]

Another good tip is never to switch your printer off as it always draws a little ink from the cartridge on start up.

As with most of these sorts of tips - it's not universally applicable.

Depends on the printer. Some models claim to recycle the ink they use for priming. Two of my printers go through a head clean/prime cycle periodically by themselves if they are left switched on.

 

[stevesey]

Another good tip is never to switch your printer off as it always draws a little ink from the cartridge on start up.

Or another tip is to allways turn if off

The Epson printers do a "mini-cleaning cycle" when the printer is first turned on. This is to get the ink flowing through the printhead after it has been unused for a while. If you never turn the printer off, then these mini-cleaning cycles to not take place.

Personally our has auto-power down set to 5 mins anyway (and auto turn on of course).