A Good Color Inkjet Printer That's Okay With Refills? - Not HP

[gbfan]

I need to know what good color inkjet printers are out there with large black ink cartridges (as I do mostly black printing) that don't have any measures in place to prevent the cartridges from being refilled. I bought a HP Deskjet D4260 inkjet printer five years ago, but only recently started refilling the cartridge instead of wasting a lot of money on HP's ink cartridges. Ever since then, it's been giving me problems left and right.

I thought that the Stratitec CH74XL Refillable Inkjet Cartridge...
secure.datatekusa.com/product_info.php?cPath=285&products_id=2106
...would be a good solution, but the printer won't even recognize the damn thing and won;t print at all as long as it's in the printer! That gives me little hope that the tri-color Stratitec CH75XL Refillable Inkjet Cartridge that I also bought at the same time, but still haven't opened yet, will work when I need to refill the tri-color cartridge.

Prior to the HP, I had a Lexmark printer that never gave me a problem with refilled ink cartridges, but sadly, it eventually died. I was looking for a Lexmark at the store back in 2007, but they didn't have any in stock, so I chose the HP because it had the largest black ink cartridge of all of the models being displayed. I never bought a HP printer before, and I can assure you, I never will again. Besides the problems with using refilled ink cartridges, I don't like how much bloatware it tried to install during the driver installation.

By the way, the only reason I haven't had a problem with the HP printer in the past 4.5 years that I've had it is because I've been pissing away money on HP's overpriced $35 ink cartridges for all that time. I've finally had enough with that wasteful spending, and this is the result.

 

[The Hat]

gbfan
I need to know what good color inkjet printers are out there with large black ink cartridges

I've had it is because I've been pissing away money on HP's overpriced $35 ink cartridges for all that time.
I've finally had enough with that wasteful spending, and this is the result.

If you want a good printer that can be refilled easily and cheaply then stay clear of HP and Lexmark for starters.
You have three options Epson Canon and Brother as all of these can use good quality ink at a fraction of the price of OEM ink.

There is no point in me recommending one or the other to you as the best printer because
I would be bios towards the one Id prefer so here is what you should do.

View lots of reviews on these three printer manufacturers check out the high streets and websites
that way youll narrow down your search to one or two printers that might suit your needs best.

Just be aware before you make you final decision on a printer to please check on this forum first
as to whether the ink cartridges can be refilled and or what pit falls there might be using it.

Its not much of an answer for you to go on but do your homework first
and you wont be disappointed with your final choice, good luck..

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

It may be that the cartridge is not making good electrical contract. Try to reseat the cartridge in the printer. Clean the contacts if necessary, and if that doesn't work, you might want to try to get the dealer to replace the cartridge.

This printer has a tricolor cartridge. I'm sure you can refill it easily by injecting ink into the sponge, but there's a problem in getting the right amount of ink into all three colors. If it were mine, I would just try injecting some ink and let it sit for a while to make sure it wasn't dripping one or another color. But you probably don't have a fresh, HP cartridge to try this with, so you probably won't want to try that.

HP printers can be installed without all that software. Just don't let that CD run. You should disable Autorun in your computer if you haven't already (it's a security risk). Then install the printer, and when you are asked for a driver, then put the disk in.

Whichever printer you get, just look for one that has a separate cartridge for each color. That means 4 or 5 cartridges. One thing to watch out for: Some printers come with starter cartridges that do not hold very much ink. A new set of cartridges will probably cost you considerably more than cartridges for this printer.

I have to disagree a little with The Hat. HP printers aren't really harder to refill, although you can't monitor the ink level on refilled cartridges. In fact, Canon and HP cartridges are almost identical. The only thing is, HP and (most?) new Canons use opaque cartridges, which some people find scary. For Canons, you can buy an older type of semi-transparent cartridges (this is optional), but you have to carefully switch the chips on the cartridges.

 

[qwertydude]

I hate to say this but HP's black cartridges ARE the easiest to refill and because the cartridges have the print heads built in, if you bungle the refill process you just need to buy a new one vs risking burning out an expensive replaceable head. Now HP knows this and so instead of putting more and more annoying and frustrating chips and sensors, they simply let you press "ok" to acknowledge ink is getting low and let you print til you burn out the print heads forcing you to buy another cartridge.

I've been refilling my parents OEM HP cartridge going on 2 years now, it might have gone more but they printed a lot one time and ran it dry. That's the secret. Don't let the cartridge run dry. When refilling these cartridges it's important not tolet them run dry, just simply keep topping them off. Letting them run dry allows air bubbles to get into the intricate passages in the cartridge and this can starve the print heads of ink and then they burn out.

Don't get an HP "refillable" cartridge, they're junk. Use the OEM. Now the caveat with refilling OEM cartridges is that you don't know how much ink is in them since after refilling they don't reset. But that's ok just keep topping them off and I can't stress this enough, NEVER LET THEM RUN DRY.

So the best thing to do to refill is remove the OEM sticker and get a needle bottle and slowly inject ink into the top holes on the black cartridge then use scotch tape over the hole but make sure to leave a gap where the serpentine air path ends that way air can enter. Don't over fill it but if you do ink will start coming out of the nozzles on the bottom. You can simply blot this on a folded up paper towel until it stops leaking out, it's important that the ink is not leaking out at all, the print head area should remain bright and shiny and not get coated with ink. Reinstall it on the printer and run a couple cleaning cycles and you're set. I usually printed a couple of solid black pages just to purge out any extra ink to prevent excess ink from the refill from leaking out.

It's sad to say that with every newer generation of printer they try to get around the refillers and third party carts more and more. So If you hate HP because of it you'll hate Canon and Epson that much more cause they're even worse at the proprietary game. Luckily for you you only print black and white. This in my opinion makes you an ideal candidate for refilling an HP printer. You just have to learn to do it right. The learning curve for refilling an HP black cartridge is much less steep than the other brands.

 

[gbfan]

Thanks for all of the advice, everyone.

It was around October or November of last year that I switched over to refilling instead of rebuying. I started by refilling a OEM HP cartridge. The printer hasn't worked correctly since. It would only print when IT wanted to, and there was no rhyme or reason as to when it would print and when it wouldn't. I finally had enough of this in January and did a quick bit of research online, where I saw lots of warnings about HP cartridges having a chip that prevents refills by permanently saying that the cartridge has no ink in it. It was at this point that I bought the Stratitec refillable cartridges for the day when either the refilled OEM cartridge would be out of ink, or the printer would not print anymore at all with it. That day came last week when the OEM cartridge ran dry. I decided to open up the Stratitec refillable cartridge and give it a try. That was a mistake. As previously stated, the printer won't recognize it at all, even after I left it in the printer and pulled the power plug for three whole days, thus insuring that when I plugged it back in, it would be a clean memory reset. This was the advice Stratitec support gave me (though they only suggested leaving the printer unplugged for a minute). Thankfully, they didn't give me an issues at all with getting a refund, so now I can throw out the refillable cartridge and not be out the money I spent on it. All I'm out is the ink that I wasted inside of it.

I'd like to follow your advice Qwertydude, but after the experience I had with a refilled OEM HP cartridge, I'm very scared to try it again. I want to be able to print when *I* want to, not when the printer decides that *IT* wants to. That's what lead me to the refillable cartridge and the predicament I'm in now.

I'm gonna look into Epson, Canon, and Brother as alternatives to the HP.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

...I saw lots of warnings about HP cartridges having a chip that prevents refills by permanently saying that the cartridge has no ink in it.

That doesn't prevent refilling. It just prevents the printer telling you whether it has ink.

You didn't tell us you had been refilling. I don't know if many people here have much experience refilling your type of cartridge, but they don't recommend it either. If it were mine, I would give it another try. It sounds like you probably have had trouble with sufficient ink flowing from the cartridge. There are many possible causes, but usually it should work (I think) if the sponge is making good contact with the head below, there is sufficient ink, and nothing is dried out.

Whichever brand you get, you hopefully won't be getting this kind of cartridge. It's fine to try another brand, but be aware that just buying another brand will not necessarily solve all problems either.

 

[Andrew1937]

You might want to take a look at either the Epson R2000 or Epson R3000. I have the R3000 and I love it using Inkjet Mall (Jon Cone) Refillable Pigment Inks & Carts since the beginning of the year. Another printer I just picked up last week was a Canon Pixma iX6540 which had very good reviews and the reviews were right, it is a very good printer. It's a max 13 x 19 printer using Dye Inks and was very inexpensive. For this printer I bought a refillable Inks & Carts kit from Inkjets Carts and very happy with this setup.

The only problem with the Pixma iX6520 is that Canon had the GALL to include 5 - 11mil carts for a printer this size which are very small carts. It's no wonder that 3rd party inks are available all over the Internet for most printers at low low prices.

BTW I always had an Epson for the last 14 years to do my photo printing and always used a Canon to do my general text printing. I'm telling you the Canon Pixma iX6520 I just picked up has some beautiful print outs. I could only imagine what their upper level printer could do, I bet they are awesome.
Andrew

 

[OutOFtheinkwell]

I have stuck with Epsons because I'm used to working around their occasional shut down/counter methods and I find the Piezo heads to be very forgiving. I don't even need to run head cleanings as long as I print something at least every other day! Also ink capacity is never a problem with any color as long as I'm using a good CIS system with tubes and bottles. The dampers with flip top refill openings are good too as long as you don't mind the more frequent refilling. I have that down to about 15 minutes. The tube systems can offer up to 240 mil bottles and refills are not that often unless you print 8 hours a day! It all boils down to how you use a printer and what your needs are. It's all good! Outoftheinkwell!