Ink Refill Tips

1. The MOST IMPORTANT tip is to refill your cartridges BEFORE they run empty - if you do this you'll significantly increase your refilling success rate!

2. Refilling your cartridge is just like anything else - the first time you refill your cartridges you'll want to go slowly and follow the instructions step-by-step.  As you become more comfortable with the refill process you'll be able to refill faster and faster.  Once you're experienced you'll probably be able to refill them in less than 5 minutes. 

3. Refilling cartridges isn't messy, time consuming (in fact it saves time) or complicated any longer.  Our refill systems provide you with exactly what you need to quickly and cleanly refill your cartridges.  You save time because, with our multi-refill kits  you'll always have extra ink on hand, and will always be prepared for the eventuality of running out of ink.

4. The MOST IMPORTANT tip is to refill your cartridges BEFORE they run empty - if you do this you'll significantly increase your refilling success rate!

5. When you're injecting ink into a cartridge make sure that the hole that you're injecting ink into is a little bigger than the needle so air has a spot to leave the cartridge.  Otherwise you'll just force ink out of the printhead.

6. Do your refills over newspaper and wear thin rubber gloves.

7. Refilled cartridges work best if they're allowed to sit in an upright position (printhead down) for 24 hours before reinserting into your printer.  The refilling process builds up the internal pressure in the cartridge, and this pressure can cause all kinds of weird things to happen.  Letting the cartridge sit will let ink drip from the printhead which will stabilize the pressure.  Make sure that the cartridge is suspended over newspapers or paper towels and not touching the paper because that would 'wick' the ink out of the cartridge, and remove a large amount of in ink.

8. When you're injecting ink into a cartridge which uses a sponge to hold the ink (you'll know because the sponge gives the syringe needle resistance when you insert it), inject the ink DEEPLY AND SLOWLY.  The most common problem is that an air bubble forms which keeps the ink from reaching the printhead,  so inject deep (get the need tip all the way down to the printhead which will force the air up - not down), and inject slowly to let the air work it's way up out of the sponge.

9. It's best to have two cartridges - when one runs out replace it with your 'spare' and then fill the spare at your leisure.  Store your spare in a zip-lock bag along with a damp paper towel to keep the printhead from drying out, and wrap saran wrap around the printhead (store both empty cartridge awaiting refilling and full refilled cartridges this way).

10. When you're refilling a three-color cartridge, refill each color until full then remove 1-2 ml of that color while your syringe is still in the cartridge.  Repeat for each color  and then suspend the cartridge ABOVE paper towels until it stops dripping (the removal of ink from each chamber will significantly reduce the required 'dripping time'). Then sit the printhead directly on the paper towels for 5 minutes.  You do this to draw a little ink out of each chamber to draw out any cross-contaminated ink from the bottom of the cartridge.  These types of cartridges can't be refilled without a little cross-contamination happening at the printhead itself, and this little trick will make refilling these cartridges a snap.

Some Common Ink Refill Problems

• MY CARTRIDGE ISN'T PRINTING WELL (OR NOT PRINTING AT ALL):

  • This could be caused by a number of factors - We have developed detailed step-by-step troubleshooting techniques which usually can lead you directly to the problem and it's solution.

• MY COLOR CARTRIDGE IS PRINTING WRONG COLORS:

  • This is a very common problem which happens with tri-color cartridges.  It is caused by a ink drop which forms on the bottom of the cartridge, and a little of that ink 'seeps' up into the other color chambers, causing a little cross-contamination of the colors.  Fortunately, the cross-contamination is at the bottom of each chamber, so you can simply print two or three color-intensive pages to get rid of the cross-contaminated ink.  You can find our color intensive pages here.

• MY HP PRINTER'S INK LEVEL INDICATOR DOESN'T WORK AFTER I'VE REFILLED THE CARTRIDGE:

  • Many indicators can be reset with different techniques - click here for the techniques we've been able to develop.

• MY CANON PRINTER'S INK LEVEL INDICATOR DOESN'T WORK AFTER I'VE REFILLED THE CARTRIDGE:

  • Some Canon cartridges indicators can be reset with different techniques - click here for the techniques we've been able to develop.

• MY EPSON PRINTER SAYS THE CARTRIDGE IS EMPTY AND IT WON'T PRINT AT ALL:

  • Epson printers have a 'smart chip' which measures ink-usage, and when the chip registers as empty the printer won't work.  Fortunately, we sell an 'Epson Chip Resetter' which will reset the chip on any Epson cartridge, and it's available here.

• MY EPSON PRINTHEADS ARE CLOGGED:

  •  If you need to un-clog the print-heads on your Epson printer, click here.