Original vs 3rd party printer ink refill ?

Jeddie · 23 Dec 2021

I have been using third party ink for a numbers years without a problem.

fireberd · 23 Dec 2021

I tried 3rd party refilled cartridges on several brands of printers. Hit or miss, and I tried cartridges from a couple different sources. Tried refilling once and it was a disaster with the (under filled) cartridges leaking.

I now just "bite the bullet" and only buy OEM cartridges. I use my printer (a HP Officejet Pro 8720 AIO) in my recording studio not just for casual or infrequent printing.

quandary · 23 Dec 2021

I have used Canon ink jet printers for at least the last 15 years. Refilling was done in the early years but have switched to 3rd party cartridges from a variety of suppliers, and go through 20-30 per year. I generally buy based on best price from either Amazon or ebay (highly rated sellers), and can only recall 1 cartridge not working. My print volume has slowed over the last year and found that I had to run deep cleaning for blocked nozzles. This could be from lower quality 3rd party, but I will never know as I am not buying OEM's.

I do very little photo printing.

unifex · 23 Dec 2021

I know that was not the topic, but I stopped using ink-based printers a while ago. For me the main issue was always that I'm printing too infrequently (not more than a couple of pages a day on average) and the ink dries out faster than I can use it making the whole process excessively expensive. I switched to laser and all is good, toners last way longer and per page costs are effectively lower. There are also third-party toners available online, but I would not bother, the savings are not worth the risk, in my opinion.

colinp · 23 Dec 2021

I've had a Canon MF 4770 for several years and other than the original toner, have only used Chinese no-name toner from Amazon. Price difference from no-name to OEM is over a hundred bucks. Works for me.

So far (knock-knock) after 3 replacements no disasters.

alphanumeric · 23 Dec 2021

Things to consider are?
Is the print head built into the cartridge or the Printer?
Refilling "your" cartridges or buying refilled knock offs?

On my HP inkjet the print head is part of the ink cartridge. New cartridge means new head. If I mess it up / clog it with cheap ink buying a new OEM cartridge gets me back working again. My cartridges have chips on them that keep track of how much ink is used. When they get low enough the printer stops printing. They don't actually measure ink quantity, they just approximate what ink is left based on use. I have to reset the chip to full to be able to print again after refilling them, which is a bit of a PITA process. Refilling them was messy and it took weeks for the ink to wash off my hands. The tendency for me anyway, was to overfill them, thus the mess. I eventually went back to no mess no fuss OEM cartridges.

sportster · 23 Dec 2021

Thanks to all for sharing your experience on printer cartridge replacement/refill. It seem no one mention about fill up for ink tank
printer since this is what i owned. Guess i will stick to OEM or branded 3rd party refill ink but stay away from brand less one.

eLPuSHeR · 24 Dec 2021

unifex said:

I know that was not the topic, but I stopped using ink-based printers a while ago. For me the main issue was always that I'm printing too infrequently (not more than a couple of pages a day on average) and the ink dries out faster than I can use it making the whole process excessively expensive. I switched to laser and all is good, toners last way longer and per page costs are effectively lower. There are also third-party toners available online, but I would not bother, the savings are not worth the risk, in my opinion.

+1 to what Unifex said. After owning several inkjet printers I bought an HP Laserjet 1200 twenty years ago, which is still working, and now all my printers are laser.

Try3 · 24 Dec 2021

sportster said:

It seem no one mention about fill up for ink tank printer since this is what i owned.

I did not realise you were talking about this type of printer in my earlier responses.
Members who have experience of them have responded in glowing terms in other threads.
In the only estimate I have seen of their printing costs, ink tank printing was reported as costing less than 10% of that of inkjet printing.
I think @Bree has at least one of that type.

Denis

I have also switched to using a Laser printer because I ended up printing so infrequently that every print had to be preceded by its self-clean-nozzle procedure. I will never revert.

Berton · 24 Dec 2021

My first printer was a Panasonic KXP that used a color-ribbon feature, second was a Lexmark Optra R black-only Laser, never did have a printer that printed white although the shop I worked in sold them. Still keep a Laserjet and Inkjet.