Inkjet refill kit

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An inkjet refill kit is a set of tools and a number of ink used to refill ink cartridges. The specific tool and the amount or type of ink depends on which cartridge is designed for the kit. The purpose of this inkjet refill kit for consumers is that it offers a low cost alternative to buying new cartridges.

Video Inkjet refill kit

Contents

Typically, refill kits are equipped with cartridge holder, ink bottle and needle. The right tools that come with the kit may vary by manufacturer or with which the cartridge kit is for. Some tools are found in all kits because they need to be refilled, but others, such as cartridge holders or needles to draw air from cartridges, are optional.

The most common refill kit comes with: black ink bottle for black refill kit; or one bottle of each cyan, magenta and yellow for a color refill kit; or one bottle of each cyan photo, magenta photo and a black photo for a photo refill kit; or any combination of colors for combo refill kits.

Maps Inkjet refill kit

Process of recharging

The refill process usually involves the following steps:

• Inking Ink Depending on the type of refilled cartridge, the ink can be injected through the hole above the cartridge, or directly into the ink space after the top has appeared. The ink can be injected directly from the bottle (with the tip of the needle on it) or from the needle containing the ink. Ink should be slowly injected into the cartridge to avoid causing damage, or overcharging, or overflowing into another color ink reservoir. (For color, the label on the cartridge may have three color dots ordered to show the corresponding three ink colors from the reservoir space.

Some refill kits include the last step in which a small amount of air is removed from the cartridge to restore the ink-liquid balance present in the cartridge before recharging.

• Install and run : After the cartridge is loaded, the top is placed back (if necessary) and the cartridge can be reinstalled in the printer. Extra ink that flows from the print cartridge head can be removed or deleted (for a few minutes). On some cartridges, the ink has problems getting into the bottom of the cartridge (especially color cartridges), the ink should be forced down either by suctioning through the jet plate or by putting pressure from the top with a syringe to clean the ink through the jet plate very gently. It may be necessary to run the printer cleaning utility on a refilled cartridge, in case of excess ink is left from the refill process. A note for the unknown: the cartridge capacity of some brands is much more than that when new cartridges (especially colored ones), there may be room for 2 or 3 ink sold in some "kits" (this can be learned by doing an autopsy on cartridge that does not work, also why ink does not reach the bottom in case of some colored ink). In such cases, the needle should be able to reach within 0.375 "from below or closer to ensure that the ink can reach the jet and not just saturate the sponge.The sponge can in some cases take two or more ink costs and still has not reached the bottom ( jet).
• Printhead cleaning : Sometimes the ink flow may be blocked by the dry ink on the printheads of the ink cartridges. For color cartridges, usually one ink color fails to flow because the ink is dry. Dry ink can be cleaned by using isopropyl alcohol (50% or higher) on a swab or a folding paper towel gently rubbed three or four times over the printhead. Another method is to let the cartridge sit overnight in a shallow cup or a glass of very warm water (not necessarily distilled water). The required water depth is about 0.25 or 0.375 "; remove and clean it as above and try to use.

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Anti-charging protection used by printer manufacturers

Many printer manufactures provide their cartridges with chips and/or sensors to prevent recharging. This chip can also serve as a "copy protection," so the printer does not work with cartridges made by other manufacturers. In such cases, the refilling process shall include a waiver of such anti-refilling protection. (Rechargeable instructions, resetters chip or autoreset chip [last reset every time the printer is turned on] for different cartridge models, and other tools available on the Internet.)

Ink cartridge time code

To make more money, some manufacturers provide their ink cartridges with time chips, so after a certain period of time or after a number of printed pages, the ink cartridges are no longer working and/or the message appears that they are empty even if they are still almost full. So users can not buy some ink cartridges to store them for longer periods, but must regularly purchase new ones.

Region-encoding printer and ink cartridges

For price discrimination, some printer manufacturers (eg Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark, Xerox) provide their printer ink cartridge area code - similar to the DVD region code -, so users can only use printers and ink cartridges from their region and can not import which is cheaper than other regions. This area can be changed multiple times; then, the printer is "region locked" like a DVD RPC-2 drive and only accepts cartridges from one particular region. Sometimes a change of territory must be done by the producer's customer service and can not be performed by the user Xerox printers shipped with neutral "factory" sticks without region coding. After the installation of the first new ink after this factory sticks, the machine will assign the area code based on the installed ink sticks and will only accept ink sticks for the area from that point on. "Officially," only three starter sticks per color can be used; then, the printer will no longer accept them and will want ink that is encoded in the area to be included, but there is a solution to that problem.

When moving to a new territory, it seems a good idea to keep empty cartridges from the old territory (or to reuse the Xerox factory-free ink stick) and to refill them with ink from the new territory. However, they usually also have chips and sensors to prevent recharging (such as the "time chip" mentioned above).

Some region-coded printer manufacturers also offer region-free printers designed specifically for travelers, but, generally, the best solution seems to be to avoid region-coded printers.

Integration of printheads in cartridges

Some manufacturers install print-head not in the printer, but integrate it into the cartridge. This makes it more difficult or even illegal (due to patent laws) to other manufacturers to rebuild the cartridges, and just refilling the cartridges (including cleaning the print head and rearranging or disabling the chip/sensor, if necessary) is sometimes not enough, because someone can not print again after the printhead no longer works.

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Advantages and disadvantages

The main benefit of using refill kits is the cost savings that are claimed. Environmental benefits are also claimed, because the process of reusing cartridges should be discarded once used once.

The downside to recharge is the time associated with it and its uncertainty. Refilling cartridges can take 10-15 minutes for those unfamiliar with the process, and some may prefer to buy new cartridges for the effort needed to recharge. Also, ink cartridges usually last for 4-5 refills, but some can only be recharged once before they run out.

The biggest disadvantage felt to recharge is the chaos associated with it. Many consumers avoid refilling either based on past experiences or stories they have heard. Many refill kits are not successful in the past called "universal" kits, which means they are designed for use with multiple cartridges. Because all manufacturers use different types of ink, and because different cartridge designs require different refilling processes, this universal kit has a high failure rate. Today these kits are harder to find, because refill kits made for specialty cartridges have become more common, but the perception that all refill kits are still a mess.

The main reason for the reduction of refill kits is the emergence of a large chain of ink stores that offer refill process. This is similar to the evolution of car oil changes. Just as the car becomes too complicated for the average driver to change the oil, the new cartridge also becomes too complicated for the average consumer to do it on his own.

Ink refill fittings are available in various sizes and with different ink levels.

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See also

• Continuous ink system
• Ink cartridges
• Inkjet printers

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References

Source of the article : Wikipedia