Alonzo Printing

Were you aware that Epson ink cartridges are intentionally designed not to be refilled. They contain a chip which measures the amount of ink remaining. When the ink cartridge is empty, the chip is ready to empty. Simply putting more ink in the cartridge won't work. The chip also must be reprogrammed to a full state.

More recent chips are purposefully designed not to permit reprogramming, therefore this process regularly fails. I've seen many beefs on the net of people who acquired refilled ink cartridges only to have the printer report that they were empty immediately upon insertion.

Epson Ink Refill

How does the chip know when the ink cartridge is empty? It counts the pages printed and guesstimates ink use. Eventually it reports the ink cartridge to be empty, regularly when there is still 10-20% left. Once the chip is ready to empty, it will not be reset. The chip still has to be reprogrammed. Some chips cannot be reprogrammed at all, so after they report empty they are going to stay that way permanently. This includes Epson T069, T078, T079, T098, T125, T126 and T127 ink cartridges.

But there are larger dangers than merely having a cartridge report empty. Inkjet printers squirt ink thru microscopic holes. If these holes get clogged, it can cause issues from poor print quality to finish printer failure. All ink has an inclination to coagulate when exposed to air. Otherwise it might never dry.

Now think about an empty ink cartridge which sat around for a bit before someone injected more ink. The original remaining 10% of the ink in that cartridge has coagulated. Now it has been refilled. You are already losing 10% due to the coagulated ink which was there at the time of refill. But the problem is even more heavy.

If that old ink clot breaks free, it can clog and irreversibly damage your printer. Regardless of if you refill the cartridge immediately, if you're using an ink bottle, there will be clots along the opening of the bottle. If one clot makes it to your printer head, you may lose you whole printer in a futile effort to save a few bucks.

Some printers use a vacuum process to suck ink to the heads. If air enters the little tubes, the vacuum is broken. When refilling cartridges using hypodermic-type needles, it is common for air to enter the tanks.

Then there are more pitfalls. You've got to keep four to six ink bottles around with four to six different hypodermic needles. It is very unlikely to refill without dripping ink. And it is just about inevitable that at some point an ink bottle will be dropped and spilled or break. The mess would be horrible!

So why refill? It's a untidy process. If you do it yourself, it is difficult for you to avoid getting ink all over the place. If someone else does it for you, refilled ink cartridges still tend to leak, clot or bleed air into the printer. You do not economize. Places which refill generally charge about $10 a cartridge. You can purchase a fresh compatible for $3. And you are risking your printer. Refilling is stupid on so many levels.

Note that re-filling a single-use ink cartridge is not the same as doing so with an ink cartridge specially created for re-filling and using special ink dispensers engineered to eliminate air, leaks and spills.

Ruel Run is a researcher and author on different kinds of subject matters including Epson inks. If you happen to are interested receiving a great deal more material click right here: Inkjet Cartridges Epson and Refillable Epson Ink Cartridges.