Cheap ‘Jumbo’ Ink Refills: Too Messy to Recommend

Is ink cartridge refilling worth the hassle and risk? As PCWorld's Consecutive Refiller, I've been buying and using a change of third-party inkjet cartridges and refill kits. So far no has matched the printer vendor's own cartridges in both output signal quality and ease of use, but most have provided adequate of a savings to be worth considering–until now.

I'm penning up this episode with ink-stained fingers and a quite a little of shredder-worthy, ink-spotted pages past my root. The culprit is a refill kit that I found on Amazon, with the catchy nominate of "20 oz (600 ml) Jumbo HP Printer Ink Cartridge Refill Kit Color & Black." I bought my kit for about $15 from a vendor with the equally catchy moniker of "KT21568." A quick search online showed that the same kit is available from some other sources. IT is a universal kit: "Works best with HP, EPSON, CANON, LEXMARK, BROTHER, OLIVETTI, XEROX, COMPAQ, IBM and others," claims the product information on Amazon.

Whatsoever it is, it taught me a deterrent example: Among ink-refill products, on that point is much a affair as too cheap. The first of these kits I tested was disastrous, and the second-chance kit out was lonesome slenderly less so. Unlike with other ink products I've tested and then far–remanufactured cartridges from Cartridge World and Office Terminal, a 1-hour fill again service from Costco, and a exercise-IT-yourself refill kit from InkTec–I can't recommend this kit, at any rate not to anyone World Health Organization uses an H.P. Photosmart e-All-in-United printer, as I do.

As with entirely my Music Refiller adventures, my short-run experience with each of these products is anecdotal. I do non quiz the enduringness or archivability of third-party inks, nor how the printer fares after perennial utilize with them. Withal, my ink refilling trials offer a taste of what you can expect if you strain a third-party unconventional with your own printing machine.

Cheapest Ink, Cheesiest Results

Product: 20 oz (600 ml) Jumbo HP Printer Ink Cartridge Refill Kit Colour & Black Available through various vendors on Amazon and elsewhere Worth trying? No Hassle factor: High Print quality compared with OEM ink: Poor Yield (mixed set of samples): Not relevant Cost per page: Non practical

First Jumbo printer ink refill kit — First Jumbo refill kit out

A Serial Refiller's destination is to keep open money on printing supplies. I decided to try the Jumbo refill kit because it provides an sea of ink for just $15. The kit includes 300 milliliters of black ink (in three 100ml bottles)–that's 7.5 times the 40ml supplied in the other DIY kit I've tried, from InkTec. Use 10ml of black ink per refill, as per the instructions, and you'll get 30 angry-ink refills per kit. Your ink cartridge wish probably chip in upwardly somewhere along the manner, but you could always buy another cartridge to start replenishment over again. The kit is generous with color inks, as well, supplying 100ml each of cyan, magenta, and yellow. InkTec provides just 25ml for to each one color.

Second Jumbo printer ink refill kit — Second Jumbo refill kit

Because the first Jumbo fill again outfit I tried worked so badly, I bought a second kit just to take in sure the first one wasn't a trematode. Interestingly, the firstborn and indorsement kits were slightly different. The quantity of ink was the same, but the second kit enclosed four syringes and needles–one for each color–rather than the single syringe and acerate leaf that came with the first kit. The sec kit also put-upon different bottles.

With the first kit, I had to rinse the single syringe and needle thoroughly after renewal each color. The kit up didn't attach to replenish book of instructions for my HP 60 cartridges, but it did ply a URL to an online version.

I started with the black cartridge; the first step was to peel cancelled the best label, revealing the center hole where the ink goes. The tricolor tank has ternary holes.

I followed the vendor's instruction manual, which said to inject 10ml of black ink, and 6ml each of cyan, magenta, and yellow, into the cartridges. Big mistake! Ink overflowed from the holes, creating a considerable mess. Later, the syringe broke–not until I finished the refills, thank goodness.

After the refilling, a river of ink began seeping from the nates of the cartridges, specially the black tank. Silent following the instructions, I set the cartridges atop a pile of middle-aged rags and waited a couple of hours to gift the ink time to saturate the internal sponges.

Next, I inserted the cartridges into the printing machine, ran a cleaning cycle, and began printing. Yikes! Big blotches of black ink appeared happening the pages. The colors were wildly inaccurate, as well, maybe a result of the overflowing inks' seeping into strange tanks.

The printer's LCD started posting error messages that I hadn't seen before, including 'At to the lowest degree one of the Cartridges has a problem' and 'Incompatible Print Pickup'. I removed the dishonorable cartridge, and stained signs of leakage inside the printer.

Okay, then the first test was an epic fail. But could the product really be that penitent? I bought a secondment Jumbo refill kit from KT21568 and prepared to try it with a newly emptied set of HP 60 cartridges. As I mentioned in the first place, the second set of bottles looked different–although the amount of ink was the Same–and this time I got four syringes and needles, non one. Things were looking up.

Just what about the ink-runoff job? I began to question the vendor's refill instructions. Kind of than inject 10ml of ink into the clad cartridge, and 6ml into all of the tricolor cartridge's tanks, I decided to attempt InkTec's refill advice: Utilise 4ml of soiled, and 1ml of each color.

Injecting less ink seemed to prevent overflow the second sentence around, but the fun wasn't over yet. In one case again, I primed the cartridges atop old rags to imbibe excess ink. Aft an hour, I noticed a large stain on the rag nether the black magazine. When I began printing, streaks showed ethical absent in the text and images; the black tankful appeared to be already low connected ink.

Second Kit Marginally Better Than First Kit out

Later all that hassle, the results were non worth it. The first base Thomas Nelson Page shown here was written with a fresh duet of HP 60 undiluted and tricolor cartridges (click to see the sounding foliate).

Hither's a page from the first kit.

And here's a page from the second kit.

Any Ink Refills Are Riskier Than Others

The Jumbo refill kit I proved for my pressman was a dud twice over, with inconsistency the whole way from the promotion to the final results. Because I didn't test the kit with other congruous cartridges and printers, I can't say how well the inks would work with them. But information technology's probably safe to say that a kit out that industrial plant with that many printers probably won't work equally well with all of them. I checked user reviews connected Amazon, and found that for most people who commented, the kit worked zealous; for some, however, IT didn't work on all, and other users shared my problems with vague instructions and unseaworthy product. One user stated that the kit worked great with their HP 60 cartridges–the same case American Samoa the ones I tried refilling–so at least one person had such better destiny than I did.

I'm not suggesting that entirely do-it-yourself kits are malfunctioning. After all, my experience with the InkTec kit was positive. The lesson learned from this episode is that even if you do your homework–read online reviews, ask around–you mightiness still get caught as I did, with the cheapest achievable solution turning into the biggest possible problem.