Of course, the companies which make printers say that you should only buy the "brand" name product. Note that stock in Lexmark has done very well this year on the basis of excellent sales in replacement cartridges.

Is there anything wrong with reloading cartridges from do-it-yourself kits? (I'm only dealing with black ink, not colour.)
Thanks for any help.

There are good and bad products that may cause damage to the print heads.

The specification for the ink includes a 'droplet size', using an ink of the wrong spec will see too little or too much ink flow. If the droplets are too big, you may clog the print heads.

Some places will 'refill' your existing cartridge and offer a guarantee, so they are a 'safer' gamble.

Remeber that the quality of you printed material is 98% governed by the print head / ink cartridge / ink combination.

If you screw up the cartridge / print head, then you can also cause permanent damage to the printer.

You can save a lot of money by re-filling.

I have found the secet is to re-fill imediately the cartidge becomes empty, or better still just it does. Otherwise the remaining ink starts to dry out, and can start to clog. Particularly on cartidges that include the print head. On these the head will eventullay wear out after a number of re-fills.

I did have a problem, in that the new ink is water based (the old is not) and it was being used on labels in a damp environment and started to run.

Good luck - keep us posted.

Yes, they are

i noticed that the ink wasn't as dark as the original epson ink was. It's was still dark, but compared to the original ink, it was a little bit lighter.

But to everyone else, they won't notice a difference...it's still accessible.

The problem I had was that you never know when the ink will run out (status monitoring program can't predict it correctly anymore?). I would keep a set of original ink cartridges around, since you won't know the ink's out until you try to print (and you don't have time to sit around refilling the cartridge).

Also, a cartridge can only take a certain number of refills. I think my cartridge already gave up on me, so I had to run out and buy an original cartridge.

All in all, I would say refillls are great. Next is substitute ink cartridges (made by 3rd parties)...and lastly I would get one from the manufacturer.

Thanks for all this.

Brian, will either the original cartridge or the refill kit specify the droplet size, so that one can gert the correct replacement ink?
Thanks again.

I've been refilling cartridges and using after market cartridges on my Epson 640 since I bought it. The only problem I've run into is refilling the after market cartridges. The ink I use is a bit thin and tends to run too freely which causes a bit of smudging, so I have to half fill them. I'm talking about $5 cartridges here so I'm a real cheapskate. Never had a problem refilling Epson cartridges or using after market cartridges from new.

Bryan

Use a dot matrix!!
Far far far far cheaper, can still pick up the ribbons from most decent printer shops, and a dot can be found at a car boot sale for nothing nowadays.

IBM

Special offer at the moment for new Compatible ink cartridges....

http://www.pcxtreme.uk.com

Epson Stylus 480 (my printer & works OK) & 480SX/580/C2OUX/C4OUX
black £1.50 colour £2.50

other makes also available & no messy refilling.