Does anyone refill their inkjet cartridges?

[minnie1928]

Mom needs more ink for her inkjet printer. Should I bite the bullet and pay for a replacement cartridge or simply refill hers? Is it worth the effort/mess?

 

[daughtersrus]

I take mine to Cartridge World to be refilled. I just had my magenta and cyan filled yesterday and it cost me about $14.00 for both. They also have a punch card and after 5 refills, you get one free.

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

I have neverdone the refilling, but I recently bought a "refurbished" photo ink cartridge for my HP printer and the color is just terrible--everything has a serious orange tint to it. It's in my car now to take it back to Office Depot because it is unusable.

 

[Todd&Copper]

We tried to do it ourselves with a kit from Staples, and it was a little messy, and the color one didn't fill properly. Unfortunately, the HP printer died a few weeks later, and now we use a Lexmark printer and the ink is cheaper.
If you have someone else do the actual refilling it is probably worth it.

 

[jcemom]

I've never done it. My mom has tried and all she got was a big mess... ink everywhere. She did eventually take it to someone else to refill and was happy with it, I think. I purchased one of the refilled/refurbished cartridges before and it was awful. The colors weren't right and they ran out much faster than a new cartridge.

 

[drag n' fly]

I go to the guy in the mall. He fills my Dell cartridges for 19 bucks each. Works perfectly every time.

 

[daughtersrus]

How do you refill them yourself?

As I said, I take mine to Cartridge World and the only problem that I had was when a new guy forgot to reset the chip to show that the ink was full again. When I put it in the printer (Epson), it kept coming up as "empty". After I took it back to CW to be reset, it worked fine.

 

[decaff38]

Just after I discovered that Snapfish( online Photo processing) will send your photos electronicly to Walgreens for no shipping and they are ready within hours of your order (Yahoo) for pick up and cheap, I discovered Walgreen's will also check you ink cartriges and refill them pretty cheap too. i just read the poster so I can not give you details but i'm sure it is competive. I like Walgreens more and more!!!!

 

[bab31]

I took mine to the mall and it worked just a handful of times...I dont print much. What a waste of money.

 

[Hedy]

I've never refilled, but I personally (keep in mind, I was a college student, so my printing was above average) found generic catridges to be cost ineffective-they lasted about a month, and the ink always ran.

 

[MommaPooh]

We are definetly not the norm on this one. DH refills our for less than a dollar a pop. The Dollar Tree here sells the refill (black only) and we get two refills out of one bottle. We do not hardly ever print in color, have not filled that one in over a year. The printer is a Dell copier/fax/scanner/printer. He has no patience, but has never complained about a mess or it being difficult so it must not be too hard or messy (plus I have yet to find any ink spills on my desk or carpet).

 

[Straitlover]

No. I just order from 123inkjets.com. The ones for my printer are less than $10 apiece (one black, one color), and there's usually some kind of code where you can get more off. And I go through MyPoints to get my 350 points. Besides, I don't print a whole lot.

 

[PoohHappens]

We have just refilled for the first time, We got the kit at Costco for 14.00 and it will refill the cartridges 5 times each, black and color. THe cost to replace our cartriges would have been $56. My DH said it was easy and not messy. I read the directions before he did it and it looked very simple. They are working fine.

 

[Mickey527]

I just read in their ad that some Walgreens do cartridge refills. I plan on taking mine in within the next few days because I am almost empty. I will try and let everyone know what it is like if I can find this post again. Peggie

 

[lori1043]

I have refilled mine for a couple years now-so expensive to buy new all the time-and we homeschool so you can imagine how much ink we go through. I gotr my kit a couple years ago from Sams to try out- it was about $20-25-I figured it was worth a try. I still use the same kit-it is actually almost out and I will have to go get a new one!
Each of my cartridges handle refilling about 3-5 times each b/f actually buying a new cartridge-it saves us a lot of money! I have refilled for 2 different types of printers and it it not too messy at all-has syringes to fill in the little holes on the top the cartridge-very easy. It is amazing that cartridges cost so much when you realize how simple it is to refill on your own in to a piece of platic w/ a chip on the back-ridiculus
When the ink cartridge stops printing even after refilling, I know it is time to buy a new one and I suck all the ink I just filled it with right back out for one the new one runs dry. The messiest it gets for me is ink coming out of the other side-and so i just have some paper towels on a paper plate b/f filling. You can control it though by not overfilling.

Hope this helps!

 

[Cindy B]

I actually got a huge mess when we tried to refill with our old printer.

We wound up getting a printer with the new computer and it is the individual inkwells that can be taken apart separately. That works well because if you just run out of yellow, you can buy just yellow. These refills are about $13 at BJ's separately and a 3 pack is about $28 dollars. (with three different colors)

I find this one color tube at a time is more cost effective and easy compared to refilling the tubes and trying to get more ink. The ink wells also run until there is no ink left--it can say low on ink for about a month before it truly runs out.


The printer is a Canon I 560. I've not had any problems with it.

 

[2angelsinheaven]

Tried it once with ours and it ruined the printer and ink catridge. Never again. I wonder if Walgreens does a good job and if so will they cover any damage done to your printer if not.

 

[snowwite]

Mom needs more ink for her inkjet printer. Should I bite the bullet and pay for a replacement cartridge or simply refill hers? Is it worth the effort/mess?

I thought it would be simple to refill and save money.
Ha! We ended up needing a new printer.
The first refill went ok but the next time it leaked and ruined the desk,the printer,the carpet and my clothing. I will stick to buying replacement cartridges.