Trying out a refilled HP ink cartridge
I was recently at Fry’s Electronics looking for replacement ink cartridges for an HP G95, and decided to try the refilled cartridges this time around.
I wouldn’t recommend refills for photo printing, but for everyday draft printing and copying, the generic ink cartridge refills seem to be a completely transparent substitution.
The price difference between the official HP cartridges and the refilled ones is substantial. The standard HP 51645A (45ml) black ink cartridge was around $29, while the refill (Innojet) was around $19. I noticed that the refilled cartridges are marked “Remanufactured in China”, so it’s apparently worth collecting the empty cartridges, sending them to China for refill, then shipping them back to the US. The print heads are the tricky part to manufacture, and don’t wear out nearly as quickly as the cartridge runs out, which makes it attractive to refill them.
Most of the printer’s output gets thrown out after a few days, so it’s loaded with the generic ($0.99 per ream) recycled paper, and I can’t tell any difference in output quality in everyday use. The color cartridge initially seemed to have a clogged nozzle, which I cleared using the normal printer maintenance utility. This might be a problem for some users, but I’ve had problems with clogged nozzles on HP original cartridges as well, which is how I became acquainted with the printer maintenance utility.
The refilled cartridges have original HP print heads, so assuming the nozzles are clean, the main difference is in the quality of the ink. HP’s inks are likely to be more fade resistant and have a greater color gamut than aftermarket ink. If nothing else, the HP print drivers are developed for use with HP ink components, and the refilled color cartridge is unlikely to be an exact match, so photos may look better with HP ink.
For casual users, though, the combination of cheap paper and cheap ink seems quite practical.
I don’t currently have this problem, but you may also be interested in resetting the HP cartridge DRM.
Update 10-21-2006 11:01 PDT - Today I got a refilled color (78A) cartridge, in which the cyan didn’t work at all. I exchanged it at Fry’s for another, which is working fine. In contrast, I’ve never had an HP ink cartridge fail out of the box. So there’s an additional tradeoff between cost and reliability. For casual use, the $10-per-cartridge discount is still worth it for us, but on the other hand, we’re only 5 minutes from Fry’s, and go through a lot of ink.
If I’m feeling adventurous / bored, I may try one of the ink refilling kits next time around.
January 6th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I just talked to some factories while I was in China, and for them there is profit either way. You can’t imagine how affordable it is for them to make the heads. Actually the ink is something they can’t control as much.
As far as being practical and for non-photo quality purposes, your method is the way to go…especially if you are near a Fry’s.
Please update on the refilling kits.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I make all of my own greeting cards and while they aren’t photo quality, I ‘d say they take a fair amount of ink. I have an HP all-in-one psc and have tried to save money by purchasing refills AND refilling my own. It’s about $49.00 for color and black for HP at Staples. I have to say that filling my own was a bloody mess and the ‘pre-filled’ refills did not produce the quantity of printing that the original HP cartridges did. Someone told me that it had something to do with the pressurization process done at the factory. I don’t know about that, but unfortunately, I have better luck with HP. I also tried to save a few bucks by buying the Store brand and my printer would not recognize the color cartridge. Thanks for listening to my rant!
July 17th, 2007 at 2:44 am
I have an HP 5160 officejet all in one, and though I can run with the generic ink from Fry’s I still can’t put the larger ink refill in and this is only due to the programming (by HP) to disallow the “larger” (its really the same physical size and pin setup) ink cartridge. I would love to know if there is a hack for making the printer recognize the larger color toner refill (57) since this would cut my costs in a third on color ink.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am
I have a HP Photosmart C6180 All-in-One Printer Scanner Fax. I have used it to print photos, art work, scrapbooking, and even print on canvas. The replacement ink cartridges are expensive. However I would suggest getting a continuous ink system instead buying individual ink cartridges….it is equal to 61 cartridges of each color so the need to refill it is alot less often. They are easy to install and not messy at all…it took me about 5 minutes to get mine completely installed and when I need to refill it the tanks are outside of my printer so there is no need to remove the cartridges. The cartridges are also set with non-expiring chips so there is no need to reset the printer. I am very please with the quality of the ink also. It has saved me a fortune. The best place I found that has all printer models and I bought mine here Printer Ink Cartridge Refills and Continuous Ink Systems
Good luck and happy printing