In the last dozen years I’ve gone through three printers (an HP, an Epson, and a Cannon), and even though I’m a printaholic, I haven’t purchased a single ink replacement cartridge for any of them. How is that possible? A long time ago I discovered the magic of printer ink refill kits that allow you to easily refill your ink cartridges and save tons of $$.
Refill kits took me through grad school, plus two years of creative writing workshops printing hundreds of pages of re-worked manuscripts over and over again, plus the bazillion photos that I print, plus every other printing need I have. So with all the printing I do, as you can imagine, discovering printer cartridge refill kits have saved me hundreds of dollars, and possibly thousands.
In addition to refilling my own printer ink cartridges, I somehow became the official ink cartridge refiller for everyone in my family. So it’s not uncommon to get the question, “Hey, can you refill my cartridges this week?” from either my brother or sister. And since I’m such a sweetheart… well, you know.
This past week I refilled my cartridges and my sister’s cartridges so I thought I’d share this easy money saving idea with you. My current ink jet printer is a Canon and my sister’s is an Epson, but I used the Canon kit for both since the process is basically the same with all ink cartridges, even though the cartridges are shaped differently.
So you’re probably wondering how much can you save by refilling your cartridges versus purchasing replacement cartridges. Let’s take a look at the following three ink cost options for my Canon Pixma printer. (If you own a different brand of inkjet printer, you should expect to see similar cost structures for cartridges versus refill kits.)
1. Official Canon brand ink cartridges – one Black + one Tri-Color: $53.98
2. Remanufactured ink cartridges – one Black + one Tri-Color: $31.98
3. InkTec Refill kit in Black + InkTec Tri-Color Refill kit: Approx. $25
So not only is the refill kit half the price of the brand cartridges, but you get FIVE refills per kit!
That means you end up paying about $5 PER REFILL! Compare that to the $30-$50 cost of replacement cartridges!
So is it worth refilling your own cartridges? You bet-cha!
Is it easy to do? Absolutely.
Is it messy? Well, I’m not gonna lie. I do recommend wearing plastic or latex gloves so you don’t end up with rainbow fingers. And make sure you’ve got a plastic covering on your work surface or you’ll be really sad later on.
Here’s what the kits come with…
1. Instructions (I’ll walk you through the instructions below.)
2. Cartridge labels (So you know where to insert each color.)
3. Cartridge holder (I don’t really see the purpose of the holder, but it’s there.)
4. Ink
5. Ink injection needles
6. Screw tool
7. Ink suction syringe
Ink Cartridge Refill Instructions
Step 1: Start by placing the enclosed label on your cartridge. The hole(s) on the label indicates where you’re going to puncture the cartridge to refill the ink. (My cartridge is already punctured since I’ve already refilled it multiple times before.)
Step 2: Use the screw tool to puncture a hole in your cartridge.
Step 3: Remove cap from ink container.
Step 4: Attach ink injection needle to the end of the ink container. (It will click into place.)
Step 5: Place the cartridge into the cartridge holder (optional). Then insert the ink injection needle into the hole you made earlier.
Step 6: Use your finger to push down the plunger on the ink container. Your kit instructions will include the specific volume of ink to insert into your particular brand cartridge.
Step 7: Insert the ink suction syringe into the bottom of the cartridge and pull back on the syringe plunger to suction out about 1 ml of ink. This will clean the cartridge head.
Step 8: Use a paper towel to clean off any excess ink.
Step 9: Place a piece of tape over the ink hole. This step is not in the kit instructions, but I like to do it to reduce ink evaporation.
That’s it. Now just place your cartridge back into your printer and you’re ready to go.
As I mentioned earlier, I also refilled my sister’s Epson cartridges using my Canon refill kit…
Here’s what my work surface looked like when I was finished. You can see why I recommended using gloves and covering your surface well…
But it’s definitely worth the cost savings!
So if you or anyone in your family is a printaholic like I am or if you have kids in school that need to do lots of printing, ink cartridge refill kits are a great money saving option!
This post linked to some of these totally fabulous blogs and Remodelaholic.
If you use black ink 99% of the time, your best bet is to invest in a laser printer. I got my HP Laserjet 1018 over a decade ago and have gone through at least five to six packages of paper — that’s between 2500 to 3000 sheets — and I’m still using the original cartridge that came with printer! Granted, I use “econo mode” when I’m just printing anything where the quality doesn’t have to be super-crisp as long as I can clearly read it (such as a shopping list) but that’s still pretty impressive.
Wow, that’s a lot of printing! And a great tip! I do though use color a lot though, because I like to print photos. But this is a great tip for anyone reading this!!
Would you know where to purchase the refill kits in Australia?
Hi Jo, I’m in the U.S. so I don’t really know about Australia. Does Amazon sell in Australia? I’d imagine that would be a good place to start. Or google ink refill kits.
Great way to save money! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
hugs,
Jann
I had just commented on a Halloween post and then saw your thumbnail picture and thought it was blood rather than ink! lol Great tutorial.
When I insert a refilled cartridge my printer won’t recognize it. How do you reset the printer to accept the refilled cartridge?
Hmmm. I haven’t had that problem with my printer, Cheryl. My printer, however, does always read as low ink, but it never stops me from being able to print. I googled your question and found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJQ1FQ68lU8. Hopefully that’ll work for you.
When refilling ink cartridges first came out, there were problems with the quality of printing. Has this changed over the years? I would love to do this, but my husband refused to refill them in the past because of this. Just curious… There for a while you could buy a brand new inexpensive printer cheaper than the ink. :)
I know! Isn’t that crazy. But did you know that often new printers don’t come with full cartridges, just so you’ll have to buy more ink. Anyway, I don’t know what the quality of printing was in the beginning. But I don’t have any issues. I print photos and they come out good. I do recommend when printing photos to print on glossy paper rather than matte. They come out so much better on glossy.
Most printers need you to use a print cartridge resetter?
Hi Tracey, I can’t really speak for other printers. But on the printers I’ve had, I’ve only had to restart to get the cartridge to keep printing. I’ve never had to use any kind of resetter.
I just bought one! My printer cost me 40$ and it was a brand new one, so I didn’t want to buy inks that are way more expensive that my printer! I can’t wait to try it! thanks for the tip :)
I know! It’s totally ridiculous how ink can cost just as much as the printer. But that’s how the printer companies make their money. I like to think that by refilling my own cartridges I’m “putting it to the man” so to speak. Lol. :-)
Thank you for your post. I homeschool my children and we seem to go through ink weekly, not really but it certainly feels like it. I’m then at the mercy of when I can get to the store to purchase the cartridge and whether they will have what I need in stock. I’m really looking forward to trying this idea!
Karen, You will be so happy with how much you’ll save by refilling your own cartridges. For some printers, you’ll have to reset something so that the printer doesn’t think the ink is empty. I don’t seem to have a problem with that on my printer. But if you come across that issue, you can just google the solution or look for it on youtube.
I have been refilling my cartridges for years but after the first time they seem to clog up a lot faster now the cartridges have to be reset if you fill them i dont know how to do that so end up buying refilled ones to save money and yes i have found that buying a new printer is cheaper than buying the ink cartridges you would think cartridges would be a lot cheaper than a whole printer Scares me to think how many printers that still had a lot of years in them have gone to a landfill
Hi Deb, I’ve never had any trouble with clogging cartridges (knock on wood) and I also haven’t had to reset the cartridges. I have a Cannon printer so maybe that’s specific to the brand. But, yeah, I just can’t stomach paying the full price of cartridges when refilling is sooooo cheap and easy!
I notice the numbers available today are different from what you posted. Would this make a difference? I am using an Epson 220.
Hi, Are you referring to the prices? If so, those listed were the costs at the time that I wrote the post.