Home | Computers | Printers & Ink Cartridges

Facts about Refills for Ink Cartridges

By: Luke Wildman Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Anyone who owns an inkjet printer realises sooner or later that within a year or two of regular use, the cost of ink cartridges will most likely surpass the cost of the printer itself. Printer manufacturers have steadily dropped the price on the main hardware but the printer consumables remain at a very costly level particularly for original equipment manufacturer (OEM) branded ink cartridges.

To illustrate the point, there are brand new inkjet printers in the market today that sell for as low as $90. The corresponding inkjet cartridges in comparison costs around $34 in retail – almost 40% of the price of the printer! Such incongruence in pricing structure has driven consumers to patronise aftermarket solutions such as ink cartridge refills.
However, the use of ink refilling technology in order to alleviate the cost of inkjet printing is still rather a grey area at best. It is therefore important to know the various products and services as well as the pros and cons of solutions related to inkjet cartridge refills.

Ink Refill Kits
Refilling ink cartridges is undoubtedly an outright messy task but there are individuals who insist on being “do-it-yourself” persons. Compared to OEM cartridges, ink refill kits are a mere fraction of the price of its branded counterparts. For example, an original HP 45 black ink cartridge, common amongst many HP DeskJet printer models, costs around £21. The ink refill kit for the same cartridge type is less than £6 at some retail outlets.
However, the final quality of the refilled cartridge is questionable as the self-performed refilling is subject to human error amongst other factors. There are various reports that after repeatedly using ink refills for a few months their inkjet printers began to perform poorly or broke down.

Ink Refilling Services
For those who do mind the mess associated with refilling inkjet cartridges by themselves, commercial ink refilling services are also available in certain areas. This costs slightly more than the ink refill kits but are still considerably less expensive than new OEM cartridges.

Conceivably, the process employed by ink refilling services is subject to quality control. Therefore, the refilled printer cartridge should perform more consistently than when individual users employ ink refill kits by themselves. Nevertheless, the quality of the refilled cartridge remains doubtful in comparison to the OEM inkjet products. Furthermore, an individual cartridge can be subject to the refilling process for up to a few times only. Beyond three refills, the loss of quality in output becomes obvious.

What we can take away from this discussion is that good quality comes at a premium price. As consumers shift from OEM ink cartridges to self-refill kits and ink refilling providers, immediate cost savings can no doubt be availed. Unfortunately, quality printing suffers in the long term. The use of refilled ink cartridges should be limited only to non-critical printing and should be restricted to older inkjet printer models since damage arising from the use of non-OEM products would void the warranty on any new printer.