Any difference in Injet Refill supply quality?

[Voixdelion]

I was wondering if there is any particular difference in the quality of ink in inkjet refill kits.  I need to refill my HP officejet cartridges and there seems to be a variety of candidates, but I don't know if there is any difference between them.  Some manufacturers claim that the ink in these kits is inferior and results in errors/problems or damage to print heads, but I'm inclined to believe that is so much hooey given what they charge for replacements and that I've not run into problems in the past other than the mess of completing the task.    I'm looking at HP compatible ink for the black and color cartridges with any numbers in the 92-100 range. Or any of the newer ones that have the shape indicators (hexagon=black, triangle=color) or the photo quality equivalents to them as it will take either kind.  Suggestions or experience in this?  vendor or manufacturer to look for or avoid specifically?

[wellington1869]

i used to refill them but havent done this in a while. I tried the home-refill kits (messy and imperfect); then i tried the 'mail-in' services and even the drop-off services for refilling (imperfect results but atleast the provider gets to deal with teh mess). Now I just buy new ones for quite cheap (about $15 from ebay or amazon) and I dont print that much anymore anyway (or i just print stuff at work).

[InSanCen]

There is a massive difference. Some are **** (and have been known to kill printers in certain circumstances), some are as good as the originals.

It depends what you are using the printer for. I can't touch most standard refills, as I sell prints. But for office type reports and invoices, I use them.

If you are doing photography, then you may (Not sure for HP), be able to use a "continuous ink" system. This is by far the cheapest way to print, and yet retain quality of prints. You also go quite some time between refills (And refilling is usually just changing a bottle. It will increase your printers footprint on your workspace though. I run A3+ printers, so it's hardly an issue. It may be for you. This also makes it decidedly non-portable.

[wellington1869]

btw i also found the refills never lasted as long as the originals, in some cases only 1/2 or 1/4 as long.

every now and then i did get a good one tho.

[hyperlinked]

I haven't tried any ink refills kits since I got one at the mall that killed my printer some five years ago. I don't know what vendor it was and they're probably long gone by now.

I own a nice large format inkjet printer now so I'm not willing to take any chances on it, but I also wouldn't be saving that much as I rarely do print work these days.

I see inkjet refills being offered at local office stores (OfficeMax around here) and at drug stores. Has anyone tried using one of these services before? Any good?

[instantkamera]

There is a massive difference. Some are **** (and have been known to kill printers in certain circumstances), some are as good as the originals.

It depends what you are using the printer for. I can't touch most standard refills, as I sell prints. But for office type reports and invoices, I use them.

If you are doing photography, then you may (Not sure for HP), be able to use a "continuous ink" system. This is by far the cheapest way to print, and yet retain quality of prints. You also go quite some time between refills (And refilling is usually just changing a bottle. It will increase your printers footprint on your workspace though. I run A3+ printers, so it's hardly an issue. It may be for you. This also makes it decidedly non-portable.

this also generally means that manufacturer supplied profiles will be useless and thus adds profiling time for each ink/paper combo to your workflow. Of course, this is something many people do already even with stock inks as they use different papers and want so form of consistency. When I had my HP though (9800), I stuck mostly with HP swellable and Ilford Galerie with the stock (dye) inks, otherwise life of the prints was abysmal.

Anyway, I think the point is that most ink refills are bad for production level ****, but fine for everyday use. I used to live above an ink refill place, I would drop off empties and pick up fulls, very cheap, no issues (black inks only).
I think with dyes you have little chance of any trouble, I would guess pigments have a greater potential for wreaking havoc on printheads etc.

[Phaedrus2129]

Forget about oil prices, ink prices are the biggest scam ever, charging $20+ for a few ounces of a liquid that costs nickels and dimes to produce per gallon.

[hyperlinked]

Forget about oil prices, ink prices are the biggest scam ever, charging $20+ for a few ounces of a liquid that costs nickels and dimes to produce per gallon.

I'd rather that they just charge what they should be charging for the printers and we can all pay a fair price. That'll never happen in today's often short sighted culture of discount consumerism.

[InSanCen]

...printer profiles

Yup, I profile my papers and inks. Agreed, it's a bit of a hassle, but with the savings I make using a continuous ink system on production work, it's worth it. Springing for the manufacturers own system is horribly expensive.

Most of my work is B&W, so I use a system that uses variations on black ink to print. It works flawlessly. Sadly, Epson offer nothing to equal this.

[Voixdelion]

I only want to be able to print out everyday stuff - I think very rarely if ever will I require something done in professional quality.  My main concern is that it be something that doesn't just run out the bottom of the cartridge again or hopelessly clog the printheads.  I don't think I'd even do too much photo printing for that matter.   But nice color would be better than not, even for non-lasting quality stuff.  I suppose whatever I'll be printing will still exist in digital form, so I can always reprint it later if it needs refreshing.

I simply refuse to support the disposable line of thinking at HP.  I WON'T pay them 30 bucks a cartridge OR pay for an upgraded printer for want of a 25 cent part that failed because of bad product design either.  I think I am one of two proclaimed successes in all the internet at fixing the "x-bias spring defect" that plagued countless photosmart and officejet printers from the last five years.  And I did it without even having the replacement part available thanks to my trusty circuit writer pen and scotch tape.  ***** taking the thing apart though - even worse putting it back together.  I was actually shocked that it worked.

[NamelessPFG]

I found an HP Photosmart 3210 at a thrift store for under $8. Took it home because it had an Ethernet port. That was the only reason, really; I was sick and tired of having to turn on an aging PC running XP with a USB printer, and because it's XP and my other PCs are Win7, it wouldn't make an effective print server.

But I looked inside and saw no ink cartridges...and judging by the ink cartridge slots, they wouldn't come cheap. I didn't expect to be THAT right-turns out a full set of HP 02 cartridges costs $70 brand new, but before I could convince my mother to let me look somewhere other than retail, we bought them.

Fortunately, the whole thing works just fine despite a bad reputation for failures, although disabling the scanner portion just because of empty ink cartridges is STUPID. Also, something doesn't seem right about how some of the color ink gauges went from 100% to 66% all of a sudden. (Then there's the drivers. MY GOD, THE DRIVERS. HP sure knows how to bloat up their AIO printer drivers, and there's no PostScript support to get around that.)

Certainly a nice printer for the price I paid, even with official ink pricing firmly in wallet rape territory. Print speeds in draft mode rival lasers, photos look pretty nice (unless they get wet and the ink runs all over), and most importantly to me, it has an Ethernet port and its own integrated print server.

Incidentally, we've had a set of Stratitec ink refill bottles for years, just sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing, back when we were still using cheaper inkjets (and still bought official replacement ink cartridges for whatever reason; first a Canon printer, but when that would refuse to print reliably, we got some cheap, crappy Lexmark X2350 with these "1" cartridges that would run dry in no time flat...at $25 a pop). All the right colors for an HP 02 printer, too. Just need some cartridges with Auto-Reset Chips...but I have my concerns about that ink doing bad things to the ink lines or print head. (It's dye-based ink like HP's own, at least.)

Should I take the chance, or find some other refill ink to use instead?

[ch_123]

Sounds like you should get a network adapter for your old one. They make ones for parallel printers, I'm sure there's USB ones too.

[Voixdelion]

I couldn't find much info on Stratitec, but then again I couldn't find much info on anything other than what Canon's like.  HP doesn't want people doing things themselves so I think they try to be as mysterious and closed as possible.   All I could gather was that Inktec is a decent but more expensive variety, Dataproducts is recommended by Consumer Reports, and Korean is better than Chinese.  There was also a site that claimed formula that rivaled HP oem ink, but I don't know if their reputation is good or not.   It's dizzying sometimes trying to find useful info on the webz.

[NamelessPFG]

Sounds like you should get a network adapter for your old one. They make ones for parallel printers, I'm sure there's USB ones too.

Given that the old Canon printer generally doesn't print reliably, the Lexmark X2350 also has a scanner, has some truly horrid drivers that make me think it won't work on any typical network adapter that isn't a whole PC running Windows, and runs out of ink quickly, and both of them are significantly slower in printing speed and have inferior quality to the HP Photosmart 3210, I don't see myself going that route.

Even with its flaws, the 3210 is still much, much better than anything I've had before, especially for under $8 without the ink. (Gotta love thrift stores!) I intend to make the most of it.

[Voixdelion]

Given that the old Canon printer generally doesn't print reliably, the Lexmark X2350 also has a scanner, has some truly horrid drivers that make me think it won't work on any typical network adapter that isn't a whole PC running Windows, and runs out of ink quickly, and both of them are significantly slower in printing speed and have inferior quality to the HP Photosmart 3210, I don't see myself going that route.

Even with its flaws, the 3210 is still much, much better than anything I've had before, especially for under $8 without the ink. (Gotta love thrift stores!) I intend to make the most of it.

yup our first 7410 came free off the curb - (I fix=I win) and the second one for 25 bucks at the second-hand shop complete with manual, duplexer, auto doc feeder, extra paper tray,  and  cartridges!  Considering the cheapest part on the damn thing is gonna cost at least 25 bucks for a used one, I got a deal on a working machine and have one for parts just in case...

[microsoft windows]

Given that the old Canon printer generally doesn't print reliably, the Lexmark X2350 also has a scanner, has some truly horrid drivers that make me think it won't work on any typical network adapter that isn't a whole PC running Windows, and runs out of ink quickly, and both of them are significantly slower in printing speed and have inferior quality to the HP Photosmart 3210, I don't see myself going that route.

Even with its flaws, the 3210 is still much, much better than anything I've had before, especially for under $8 without the ink. (Gotta love thrift stores!) I intend to make the most of it.

My canon printer prints pretty slow, but it's reliable and the ink cartridges cost $10.

[InSanCen]

Upgraded that Golf ball printer finally eh?

There, edited for accuracy.

[ch_123]

I wish I still had my Golf Ball Selectric... Wonderful thing.

[microsoft windows]

Upgraded that Daisy Wheel finally eh?

Nope. It's a black-and-white inkjet. For text (which is just about all I print), it prints pretty well.

[xwhatsit]

**** inkjets. Use film, then wet-print.

I love the smell of metol in the morning.

[instantkamera]

**** inkjets. Use film, then wet-print.

I love the smell of metol in the morning.

Nice to have you back, EIBM.