An ink cartridge, or inkjet cartridge, is a replaceable piece of an ink jet printer that contains the ink. Each ink cartridge contains one or more divided ink reservoirs.
Replacing an ink jet can be expensive, especially if you do a lot of printing. Fortunately, many manufacturers have developed refillable ink for ink cartridges. Often people can save up to 50% or more over a replacement cartridge. Ink jet refill kits contain easy to use tools and instructions for refilling an ink cartridge.
The following are general instructions to putting ink in a printer cartridge:
1. Buy an ink refill kit at an office supply store, computer store, or department store.
2. Gather all of the materials you will need to refill the cartridge. This can include: syringe, latex gloves, and paper towel
3. Remove the empty cartridge from the printer. Depending on what type of printer you have, there may be a particular method of cartridge removal. Refer to your printer manual on how to refill a unique type of ink cartridge.
4. Place the empty cartridge on a piece of paper towel.
5. Find the fill holes on the top of the cartridge by sliding your finger across the label.
6. Use a pencil or tooth pick to puncture the refill holes in the top of the ink cartridge.
7. Insert the long needle of the syringe on the refill ink bottle into the correct hole.
8. Little by little, add the ink. It is important to make sure that you do not over-fill. It is usually 10 cc for black ink and about 5 to 8 cc for colored ink.
9. Stop when you observe ink coming out of the hole. Remove the needle from the hole after expelling any remaining ink.
10. Carefully pat the cartridge contacts on the paper towel to observe a spot of ink leaking out.
11. Cover the hole with a tiny piece of clear tape. Make sure you do not transfer the colors.
Repeat steps for each ink color. There are three colors of ink: magenta, cyan, and yellow. Follow the instructions on which hole to insert each color or push a toothpick into the holes to ascertain the colors as the markings on the printer cartridge
12. Put the ink cartridge back into the printer.
13. Leave the ink cartridge in the printer for about 12 hours before using it. This will permit the sponge inside the cartridge to become uniformly soaked with the ink.
14. Print several test pages to make sure the ink is running.
There are a number of different methods to refilling printer cartridges. The benefits of refilling include that they are much cheaper than replacing a used cartridge with a brand new cartridge, and they help keep ink out of the environment which is toxic to the soil. You also will help reduce the amount of garbage going into the landfill. The next time your ink cartridge runs out of ink, consider purchasing an ink refill kit.
