Refilling at CostCo

[l_d_allan]

Allan, thanks for your answer.

I think costco doing it for me will be a good option since I don't really want to shell out for a chip resetter or any of those other tools needed to refill the carts myself. Like others suggested above, I'm really only after the cartridge prep work and am not that concerned with the brand of ink used.

I've since changed my opinion on the advisability of using Costco refilling. I agree with TH that you really want to know just what ink is going in your cartridges ... make sure it is quality ink. I would join others on this forum to advise using Canon oem carts for refilling.

If you are interested in having the prep work done for you ... which is justifiable I suppose ... then I infer you will do subsequent refilling. What model of printer do you have? The newer Canon printers all have chips, so you would want a chip resetter. Much depends on how much printing you do at what quality, and how much effort/time/money you are willing to expend.

I've heard of people on the forum advocating ARC's (auto reset chips) and/or disabling the printer's ink level detection. I'm ignorant of what that involves as I haven't done it, but it doesn't appeal to me ... YMMV. I suppose you don't need a chip resetter in that case.

You might consider using a partner of R-Jet Tek for refilling ... eswapink.com. You send them your carts, and they send you refills with OCP ink. I don't think you get your own carts back, but the cart prep would have been done. I haven't done this, so just passing on the info. However, they may only deal with commerical refill operations.

Something I did originally before I did any refilling but had lots of prints to make in the next several days ... bought 2 complete sets from a local Rapid-Refill (RR). As a first time customer, they gave me a decent discount on the cartridges, and didn't require a trade-in of my carts. I think it worked out to about $10 per cart. The local Rapid-Refill uses OCP ink, and my impression is that the entire franchise uses OCP ink, but I'm not sure of that.

Most of the RR carts had been prepped by a tech who knew what they were doing, but some were actually brand new Canon oem carts with Canon ink, IIRC. The orange twist off outlet port cap was still on, and the original plastic ball was still in place on the top inlet port. For your purposes ... if you want to avoid cart prep ... try to look in the boxes for ones that are actually prepped.

You can get a complete set of eight new CLI-8 carts for the 9000-2 for about $90 online, so the RR route doesn't save any money over new, but then you have to do the prep.

But prep'ing a cart isn't that difficult, once you get the hang of it. For top filling ... which I do ... getting the plastic ball removed has a learning curve. The disadvantages of OCP ink from R-Jet Tek are that they only sell in quantities of 16oz or greater, and don't count on any training/hand-holding to beginners/hobbyists.

I'm not advocating the Rapid-Refill way of building an inventory of prepped carts. I'd do things differently if I was starting over and had a better idea of how much printing I'd do with inexpensive Kirkland paper and low cost ink. It was a way to get started.

I'll edit the OP ...