Damned ink jet cartridges

Errrr - what printer is this?

Sometimes if you let them soak in hot water for awhile they will free up. I would do this before I refilled them. As for storing them, try putting them in plastic bag with a moist paper towel and sealing them as air tight as you can. I can't guarantee success but it has worked for me more than it hasn't worked.

Newfdog

I'll tell you my own brief experience with both re-inking and ink drying up. Of course I could be corrected, as there are many different types of printers on the market. I tried re-inking - drilling the hole, injecting the ink, etc. etc. First time I was successful, second time I wasn't - it was very messy and in the end didn't work. Also it doesn't help when many ink jet manufacturers make it difficult to reink, with pressurized cartridges etc. I eventually gave up in disgust and on our newer printer just buy reputable budget cartridges. As far as ink drying up, I suggest that if you're not going to use the printer for long periods, then at least once a day or every couple of days you do a registration pattern or something like that, just to get the ink flowing through the heads. As I said, it's my experience with only one or two different older printers. Some printers may be better than others at re-inking and preventing ink from drying up in the heads.

Henry.

Lenny, the best advice I can give you is to get a used laser printer. Used B&W laser printers are about $100-200. My LJ 1100 is worth about $150 and while it was a gift, if I were to have bought it and could double my money on it I still wouldn't part with it.

The whole thing is, do you NEED color ? If you really need color go used. You can get cheap and get a Tektronix Phaser, but I have heard bad things about them.

At any rate, with an inkjet the ink is water soluble and one drop of dew off you soda (or beer :) ) can can wipe out quite alot. Also if you print something that uses alot of ink you get the wet noodle syndrome.

If you're dead set on keeping what you got, you might be able to clean the head with a Qtip and some water, or even ink. Afterward you can setup a scheduled task, for example a batch file.

I could find out how to write a batch file to make it print something, anything every other day or so. Or, I wonder if there's a way to drag "print test page" into the task scheduler.

I understand that you don't print that much, but I hate inkjet printers. It seems almost as though if your coffee's too hot the page smears, but get that stuff on your skin and it won't come off. I spilled some on my foot one time and it looked like I had some wierd disease.

I have a file called prin.bat that could probably be modified for your purpose, and unlike trying to get it to print a test page I'm sure a bat file will work fine in the task scheduler.

Let me know if you want the batch file.

JURB

I used a refill kit also. It is a hassle to make the cartridges work again when they get dry. Here is what I did. First you take the cartridge and dip the printing side of it in some hot water to loosen up the dry ink. Then you put the cartridge in a sock with the printing side facing the toe part of the sock. Then you go outdoors and you swing the sock around hard a bunch of times. This is a centrifugal action to get rid of any air bubbles that are blocking the ink inside the cartridge. Then you put the cartridge in the printer and do a test printing. You may have to do a lot of test printings before the cartridge works well. You can repeat the cleaning and the centrifuge if you need to. Like I said, it's a hassle, but it works. When you refill cartridges, do it slowly to avoid air bubbles.

When not using the ink jet cartridges, it is best to put them in a very well sealed plastic bag with a slightly dampened piece of paper towel, or cloth.

As for refilling these, I have had very little quality success, and found that refilling them was not worth it for me, in relation to the reliability and performance I had. Also, it is too easy to make a mess when trying to refill the cartridges. I know of someone that ruined a very nice rug, and stained a very expensive table top with this procedure.

If you don't need to have a colour printer for every day use, it would be best to invest in a low cost laser printer, or a high end rebuilt one. There are rebuilt printers that come with a warranty, and are done by reputable printer rebuilding places.

A B&W laser printer will cost only a few pennies per page to use, while a typical ink jet printer can work out to about 50 cents a page just for a non colour page.

If you need basic colour printing that is of not high end photo quality, a low cost laser colour printer would be ideal. The toner cartridges can sit for years, and there is no drying out problem. The drawback is that the colour laser printers are very expensive to refill. But, for occasional use, it will last a long time.

Another thing you can do is send out all your colour print jobs. Over here it is cheaper to do that, than to print the pages at home or in a small office that does low volumes of print jobs.

Personally I like the HP printers. When the toner cartridge is changed, the drum is also inside the cartridge. This is a better system, even though the replacement cartridges are more costly.

In the HP inkjet printers, when a new cartridge is put in, there is a new set of jets built in to the cartridge. This helps keep the printing quality up. But, the added quality comes at an expense.

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JANA
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 wrote in message
news:1112649993.563557.203680@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> The problem is we don't use our colour printers very often and in the
> interim the colour cartridges dry up. The black ones do too in record
> time it seems also. This is frustrating and expensive as well.  We
> bought a refill kit for our specified cartridges, and tried refilling
> the blacks first. We drilled the hole on top and refilled them and then
> plugged the hole all with only marginal success. I have two black ones
> sitting in front of me right now that are refilled but won't print. Is
> there a trick to successfully doing this? And is there anything I can
> do to try to prolong the life of these stupid things between long
> periods of inactivity? Thanks, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics.
>

I've had very hit and miss luck with inkjets and no one brand is always good, some of them just dry up constantly, others don't. Lately it seems the HP printers seem fairly good about not drying, though I'm itching to get a color laser eventually.

I had the same problem with the color cartridges - use em once every few months, and they are dead. As for the black and white, I always have success filling them several times. Initially (i.e. the 1st few pages) the print quality is bad, or doesn't work that well. However, I just print a few test pages and they're ok after that. It also seems to help if you leave them overnite before printing.

The usual reason (IMHO) is ink in the head drying out through lack of use and clogging it. And although it's basically water soluble when wet, after drying it ain't. Things like IPA or ammonia are likely to shift it - but you'll have to remove the head and soak it in it. More desperate measures involve forcing IPA through the head with a syringe type device. The squeezy bottles some replacement inks come in are ideal for this - use some sleeving as a tube to join them.

You could try doing a search on your printer. I easily found instructions on how to remove the heads on mine.

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*One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

I had an HP inkjet for about 10 years, mostly used the black which I was able to refill multiple times before the printer crapped out mechanically (paper feed issues). If you need mostly black, these days you can get a new mono laser printer for ~$200. I have a Brother HL5140 which is about a year old, had good reviews when I got it, goes for about $200 now

At these prices it doesn't make sense to fool with inkjets for B&W. Inkjets sell cheap & they make their money peddling cartridges, not printers, also some of the newer cartridges are dated and actually EXPIRE (all to protect your printer and to maintain optimum print quality, you understand. Uh-huh) so if you buy several to have on hand when one runs out (since most are so damned SMALL) the last one(s) on the shelf may not work even though it has never been out of the package, not because it's defective, but because it's expired. This can also be a factor if you refill the same cartridge repeatedly.

Dan

What we need in the consumer end of things is a inkjet printer with an ink reservoir where all you have to do is just pour ink in and close the lid. I have a commercial inkjet plotter that has just that, ink tanks with flip up lids. Problem is the cost of such a printer is too high for someone who just needs a low cost reliable printer for occasional use.(Mine cost me

2,300 bucks US. But then we do graphic pre-press and need a reliable plotter for doing proofs.) Back in the mid 90's we got bent over more than once by sales reps from Epson buying their so called "professional" inkjet printers.(I have a closet full of Epson high end printers just collecting dust. A stylus pro XL, a 1500, a 3200 colorado and a couple of their photo-printers. ALL junk!) I've given some of the other brands a try for use around the office on various stations and have gravitated to Canon BJC-100's since most of the internal stuff is just B&W anyway. I can pick these units up at garage sales or goodwill for a couple of bucks and by buying new blank generic cartridge blanks and filling them myself can get by for the least amount of outlay.(I usually get 3-5 refills out of each cartridge before they fry out.) Not since the days of snake oil salesmen have we seen such blatant and obscene crookery. Inkjet salespersons should be required to slither up to you on their bellies as you enter the store.

I've seen after market kits like that (on eBay?) with big external tanks and thin hoses.

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N

Really??? Do they make them for any of the Epsons? I might be interested in ressurecting some of that damn expensive Epson "pro" junk I've got filling up my storage space if so.

I installed one on a B&W HP printer a few years back. Didn't like it much, and returned it to the store (Wal Mart or one of the CompUSA-type places, as I recall). ISTR that the hose either wasn't flexible enough, causing head misalignment, or dragged on something, with the same result. Today's units might be better.

Bill =====================

n>

I'd suspect you'd need silicone rubber tubing.

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N