Printer ink refilling - what am I doing wrong?

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DellAxim

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Feb 14, 2003
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I print quite a bit of black and white text with my cheap Lexmark printer. I bought a black cartridge for it a while ago, and when it was empty I started refilling it with bulk ink. The first couple times I refilled it worked fine, then it would start leaving white streaks in the printing if i didn't clean the print nozzles before every print. (wasting a ton of ink)

So, after I refilled that cartridge about 5 times I bought a new one, and now it's empty. I tried refilling it yesterday, and it worked perfectly. Today I tried printing with it, and it was making white streaks already. I tried cleaning the print nozzle, and it helped, but the problem didn't go away completely.

Am I doing something wrong here? Why is my ink refilling not working worth a s**t? Is there anything I can do to fix this...short of getting another cartridge?
 
DellAxim said:
I print quite a bit of black and white text with my cheap Lexmark printer. I bought a black cartridge for it a while ago, and when it was empty I started refilling it with bulk ink. The first couple times I refilled it worked fine, then it would start leaving white streaks in the printing if i didn't clean the print nozzles before every print. (wasting a ton of ink)

So, after I refilled that cartridge about 5 times I bought a new one, and now it's empty. I tried refilling it yesterday, and it worked perfectly. Today I tried printing with it, and it was making white streaks already. I tried cleaning the print nozzle, and it helped, but the problem didn't go away completely.

Am I doing something wrong here? Why is my ink refilling not working worth a s**t? Is there anything I can do to fix this...short of getting another cartridge?
Click to expand...

not worth it

generally if you buy good quality ink and refill, 1 cartridge would net 1 or two refills before it turns to shit.
 
spend a little money ~70 and get a low-end laser printer.

i have found that it is much less hassle, produces much nicer quality prints, and prints a hell of a lot more pages per cartridge (toner).

downsides: the original price is a bit higher, and the toner is a little more expensive than the cartridges.


i think i the long run though you save money because it prints very nicely and a lot per toner.
 
What you're doing wrong is owning a Lexmark. Get an Epson. Black and color ink is only around $5 a piece...
 
And now for some RELATIVE information

No it's not because you have a Lexmark but it's part of the problem.
All newer ink cartridges where teh print head is contained with the ink have a resister that boils the ink causing it to spray out of the nozzles and onto the paper. If you wait until the cartridge is empty the resister overheats and burns out thus making the printhead useless.

Printers such as the Epson R series and Canons where the ink is in a tank and the print head is seperate you can refil the tanks for a couple of times until the sponge in the tank becomes deformed thus no longer creating a good seal. This lets air in that causes the ink to dry out and congeal and clog the print head.

To try and stop people form refilling the cartridges, Lexmark developed a chip inside the print head that causes it to "expire" after a set amount of time. This created a whole slew of lawsuits as people complained that perfectly unopened cartridges could in theory sit in a warehouse or on the shelf and expire even though they were never used. You can read about the suit on any news site. Most printer manufacturers now use some form of chip to monitor ink usage, levels etc. The R series from Epson once the "ink" level is empty on the chip, the printer will not accept it, even if you refil it. You have to have a chip reseter to reuse the cartridge.
 
If low cost per print is what you're looking for laser is really the only way to go. Yes the printer itself is much more expensive compaired to low end inkjet printers but toner never dries out, can be refilled or refurb catridges used, and they last a lot longer.

A black and white laser can be obtained for around $200 while a color will run around $400 to $500 for a low end decent printer.

From my experiance with my HP and Epson printers in the past, their ink is the least expensive. I own an R200 for the CD printing and teh ability to replace only the color that has been exausted.
 
The_Mage18 said:
And now for some RELATIVE information

No it's not because you have a Lexmark but it's part of the problem.
All newer ink cartridges where teh print head is contained with the ink have a resister that boils the ink causing it to spray out of the nozzles and onto the paper. If you wait until the cartridge is empty the resister overheats and burns out thus making the printhead useless.

Printers such as the Epson R series and Canons where the ink is in a tank and the print head is seperate you can refil the tanks for a couple of times until the sponge in the tank becomes deformed thus no longer creating a good seal. This lets air in that causes the ink to dry out and congeal and clog the print head.

To try and stop people form refilling the cartridges, Lexmark developed a chip inside the print head that causes it to "expire" after a set amount of time. This created a whole slew of lawsuits as people complained that perfectly unopened cartridges could in theory sit in a warehouse or on the shelf and expire even though they were never used. You can read about the suit on any news site. Most printer manufacturers now use some form of chip to monitor ink usage, levels etc. The R series from Epson once the "ink" level is empty on the chip, the printer will not accept it, even if you refil it. You have to have a chip reseter to reuse the cartridge.
Click to expand...

from what i remeber , it dosent acctually boil the ink, althow this also makes some sence... what i was told was that its a glass (or glass like) srtucture in the print head that is acctually a piezo element that quite litterly vibrates the ink out of the nosil(s), how ever, if you vibrate something at the right speed you can get it to "boil" not tthat this part of the argumant really has any thing to do with it.... now, "refill" ink if it isnt made by the componey that made the cartriges to begin with may have different viscositys, when you start to vibrate it, if the frequency is to high is gums up the inside of the nosil,overheating befor it gets its chance to escape if you will... if its to low it drips out befor it it has a chance to squirt, thus impeading the ink from hitting the paper like it should...

then there the mechinisim its self, as it is a vibrateing element, the replacement cartriges are made form cheaper parts to cut down costs and will only ossilate so many times befor they stop working like they should, this is a blessing to cheap printers and a real hardship to more expensive printers... just about the time that the cheaper ink cartridges print heads are about to start going bad, they run out of ink.. (and the preventing the from overheating theroy may help some.. keep the cartridge topped off from the begining may be a big help) when youi start talking about the epsons, they are nice and cheap for ink, but you only ever have one set of heads if they start to go, you buy a new printer... no way around it.. and epson dose happen to make a high copacity tank for there high end models, there are cartrage slots but have a tube fed tank in there place and a 4 or 6 tank set on the out side of the printer, and you can buy the correct ink from epson in bulk, if you doing mass pohto printing, this is the way to go with out going to true pro printing equipment

like was said... if you need to do massive ammounts of B&W pri8nts, use a laser, if you must have massive color capabllitys, there are options out there.. but they may not be as cheap to start up, but alot cheaper in the long run...

thore
 
It seems like the generic, bulk ink is messing up the ink jets. No doubt it is just a general purpose ink and it is drying or hardening to the jets causing them to clog. This is most likely due to the fact that it is does not like the specific temp of the printer cartridge, or has fine particles in it, which are building up.
 
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