Refilling Lexmark cartridges

[joyea]

My sister has a Lexmark Z23 printer that uses the #26 color cartridge and the #16 black cartridge. Does anyone know a easy way to refill these (with pictures)? I cannot get the tops off and do not know what to do.

I have a Canon mp530 which I refill using the great German method pictures that pharmacist posted http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2465 and was hoping to maybe find instructions like these for the Lexmark cartridges.

Thanks

And can I use the same ink in them that I use in the Canon CLI-8?

 

[wantmore]

I have also Lexmark Z23 but .. after i refilled it using non-original refill ink. The printer still showing black ink is empty and i can't print anymore. I am searching a way to reset ink sensor or something that can solve this but till now i didn't find anything helpful. ..I am waiting for the answer too. good luck

 

[jflan]

My sister has a Lexmark Z23 printer that uses the #26 color cartridge and the #16 black cartridge. Does anyone know a easy way to refill these (with pictures)? I cannot get the tops off and do not know what to do.

I have a Canon mp530 which I refill using the great German method pictures that pharmacist posted http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2465 and was hoping to maybe find instructions like these for the Lexmark cartridges.

Thanks

And can I use the same ink in them that I use in the Canon CLI-8?

Here's the best that I could find:
Your carts are the first two in the list :
http://www.printcountry.com/how_to.asp

As far as using Canon-type inks, I would wait for someone else to comment.

 

[wantmore]

replying to my own question

The ink-jet printer cartridge market contains high profit margins. The Dell cartridge is a Lexmark cartridge. Any company that repackages Lexmark products under their own name wants to have the highly profitable ink jet cartridge business for themselves. They only want their repackaged ink jet cartridges to be used only in their repackaged ink jet printer. They do this mechanically and electrically. ARTD above found the mechanical method. Those bumps on the back of the cartridge is the first line of defense. They prevent a Lexmark cartridge from being used in a Dell printer. But you can defeat this prettty easily. That's why there is the second line of defense. In each cartridge is ROM and WORM memory (along with the ASIC). Some of the memory is dedicated to things like cartridge serial number, original capacity, vendor ID. These are stored in ROM. The gas guage is stored in WORM. The Dell printer driver is programmed to only accept cartridges with ID's it likes. There are a number of bits dedicated to the gas guage. As a certain number of dots are fired, another bit is burned. When you run out of bits, you are out of ink. This is all accompished with the printer driver on your PC. The driver associates the unique cartrdige serial number with the number of dots fired. It handles a command interface to the cartridge that tells it when to print or burn a gas guage bit. When I say burn a bit, it really gets burned. The bit is a fuse that gets burned when the correct command is sent to the cartridge by the driver. Once it is burned, it cannot be reset. It's a fuse, not a circuit breaker. Give up trying to reset a "chip" on the cartridge. There isn't one. Just a fairly simple ASIC running the firing and command interface. Once the gas guage bits are burned, refilling the cartridge will not reset them. You will forever have the driver tell you that you are out of ink. You have to figure out how to ignore it.

that's what i found from the web.. i think someone could figure out what to do. (though i can't)

 

[pharmacist]

I won't even think refillling these horrible things. I can consider myself as a experienced refiller. Succesfull in refilling Canon, Epson, HP cartridges, but never been able to get satisfactory results from refilling Lexmark/Dell cartridges. Those things are made to last only one time. Refilling is very difficult and results are more than disappointing.

 

[kspeed55]

I want to comment on refilling Lexmark cartridges. Before I got Canon printers, I found them the easiest to refill. The quality would start to degrade after a few refills but as I was printing mostly black this wasnt a problem as I could always step up the quality with the printer driver. I had an X5150 and now have an X7170. I also had an 1100 that I bought for $10.00 after the rebate and didnt print reams of paper with it, but literally cases. (I did a lot of low quality text printing then and used my HP for the good stuff.) I refilled the black cartridge on that printer at least 15 to 20 times each. I would probably still have it but I couldnt find a printer driver that would allow it to work with XP. I gave it to a school running Linux and it may still be printing. I have had mixed results refilling HP cartridges and witnessed what I call the rise and fall (in my opinion) of HP printers and after my last, a Business Jet 1200d, I gave up on HP. I had 500, 600, 700, and 900 series and the best was the 700 series (the 800 may have been good too). I now have an iP4200 and iP3500 which I love. Ive also got an MP240 that I havent used much that I got with a new computer.