Printer Cartridges - Refill Services

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MrEarl

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Hello,

Just wondering, what are peoples opinions on getting cartridges refilled for your printer ?

Personally, I am in favour of the concept, given it should be more environmental friendly and save money. However, on more than one occasion I have felt that the refill has not lasted anywhere near as long as I felt it should - so it raises the question of how do I know it has actually been fully refilled ?

I would be interested to hear other peoples views and experiences on this and in particular if anyone has any recommendations for good reliable services.

Thank you.
 
I go for new/compatible cartridges rather than drill and fill. You probably have an inkjet and it probably doesn't have separate ink and printhead cartridges, rather combined cartridges. So if you only ever refill the cartridge you never replace the printheads, which may reduce print quality.
 
Hello,

Yes you are quite correct about me having an inkjet printer and also about the printheads not being replaced with refills. Clearly cartridges that have been refilled multiple times will have older, more worn printheads. Any idea on the deterioration rate or life expectancy with printheads ?

I have just done some research and I see that I can buy a compatible cartridge for my printer for about €4.50 more than it costs to get existing cartridges refilled and that includes delivery of the cartridge to my house (rather than me traveling to get the cartridge refilled). Obviously the arguement for refills is not great from that point of view.
 
Hi MrEarl,

I too had an inkjet printer for years which was the scourge of my heart. I tried the refilled cartridges years ago and gave up on them. The print quality generally from the printer was dreadful so I gave up on it and bought a which I have some months now. I've not looked back and the quality of the print is much better. I haven't needed to purchase a replacement toner unit yet but when I did check the prices they didn't appear anymore expensive than the previous ones. I understand a lot of the problems that I encountered with the previous printer were because our printing is erratic i.e. we can go for quite a while not printing and then do quite a lot.

Reviews on Google confirmed that this is a common problem with the ink jets. I understand that the toner is the money making side of printers so you might recover your outlay quite quickly. Its just something worth considering.
 
Hello Sue Ellen,

Thank you for the reply.

Your comments may well also apply to me, as I do go through periods of needing to print a lot in a short space of time, then possibly nothing for a period of weeks.

I will definitely look at the long term alternatives here and in particular, with regards to the possibility of investing in a laser printer. If you don't mind me asking, how big is your laser printer (would you compare it to the size of a typical hard drive for a PC, only two or three times as deep perhaps ?) ? The reason I ask, is because I am very tight for space, in my "office" (aka the box room :)).
 
I'd second Sue Ellen, ditch the inkjet printer; laser printers are not expensive & you can get fairly neat models for a small space.

Brother is a good brand & Samsung also do a good value laser.
 
Hi Mr. Earl,

We were very tight on space too and the new Brother one fit neatly into the same space as the old inkjet



The dimensions are below and the front tray (paper holder marked Brother on the photo) does not need to be left down all the time. It can be neatly and quickly closed up and the paper can just sit on top of the machine until it needs to be used.

The Dimensions‎: ‎385 (W) x 340 (D) x 255 (H) mm

On some reviews that I read about the inkjets confirmed that part of the problem can be leaving it lying unused for any length of time. When you do go to use it again you can waste a lot of the toner trying to improve the quality of the print.

I do find with the new machine that some items can print quite faintly but it is generally the case that the original was not great quality especially on items copied from the internet. It is also very important to shake the toner quite a bit before you put it into the machine as they settle in storage and don't give as good a quality print if this is not done.
 
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