Printer inks don’t last forever. As a printer owner, when you want to replace ink cartridges, would you refill ink cartridges or buy new ink cartridges? Especially to those who want to refill ink cartridges, you need to have a read about it. Let us explain to you whether you should refill ink or get a new ink cartridges.
Ink Consistencies
There are different types of printer inks in this global market, they contain different consistencies. It will bring problems to your printers if your ink cartridge is refilled at printer repair shops or shops which are not from original manufacturer. Refilled ink cartridge price is lower compared to new ink cartridges. Don’t fall into the trap. It may lead you to unexpected costs when you refilled ink cartridge.
The reason is the new refilled ink cartridge has different consistency compared to the previous one. When the ink is too thin, it will leak eventually, whereas when the ink is too thick, it will cause printer ink head clogged. Different consistency may lead to printer leak or clogged, it will be costly to repair and clean.
Ink Quality Reduced
OEM ink cartridges always make profits. The reason is very simple, OEM ink cartridges produce higher quality ink compare to refilled cartridges. Why refilled ink cartridges have lower quality compare to OEM ink cartridges?
When you refilled your printer ink cartridge, you will notice the quality of the print is not as vivid as the original ones.
It is obvious to see the reduction quality of the print and different colour shades. When ink is refilled, some previous ink is left in the cartridge. This leads to different shades of colour mixing inside the cartridges, causing double shaded effect when you print.
Besides that, you may observe the quality in terms of accuracy of colour prints, levels of contrasts in grey scale prints, sharpness, or preciseness of text and line art prints. This can happen as the ink in refilled ink cartridges is not the same quality as the ink in original cartridges. Therefore, the composition of the ink in refilled cartridges and OEM cartridges are different.
Other than that, when you refilled ink cartridges, it will be dirtier every time you use it. The reason is the residue will be stuck at the nozzles and causes the ink clogged.
In conclusion, if you are particular with the quality of your printing materials, you definitely need to reconsider before you use refilled ink cartridges.
Cartridges Durability
Do you know that many ink cartridges have been designed only for one time use and it isn’t refillable? If you insist to use them, the printer head will get damaged easily. Eventually, the ink gets clogged and jammed inside.
Using refilled ink may void your printer’s warranty. If any damage occur to your printer, it will be troublesome to send your device to repair shop.
Printer’s Health
Refilled ink cartridges can ruin your printer in many ways. The usual problem is the printer low ink notification. It will get messed up easily and you will receive the notification at all time. If you are working in a law firm, the important contract that you have printed, fade after a few years. This may lead to other party take advantage of this by taking your client to the court and you will lose. It is because you don’t have proof!
Some Printers May Not Support Refilled Cartridges
Do you realised that many printers are selling at low prices? I believe that you also notice that ink cartridges are more expensive than the printers. Doesn’t this sound odd to you? The reason for this is that OEMs have a tendency to sell printers for a loss. They cover up for that loss and push their returns into profits on ink cartridges.
That’s the reason why ink cartridges are so expensive. All the refilled ink cartridge sellers out there saw this opportunity. So, they took this advantage to sell cheaper cartridges. From this, they can make huge profits to beat OEMs. In another way, a user who uses refilled ink cartridges is cheating on the OEMs.
To prevent huge loss of profit, the technologies of OEMs have improved to make ways for them to balance back the profit loss. How they do that?
First, the new printers that have manufactured are no longer fit to refilled ink cartridges but only for OEMs. The main purpose is to protect OEMs profits. Let’s take one of the printer as an example, Epson CX series. It uses Durabrite inks which contain cleaning agent. The purpose of the cleaning agent is to keep the tubes and nozzles clean to prevent jammed and clogged.
Another method that OEMs use to prevent refilled cartridges from being used is a countdown circuit. The countdown circuit is a part of ink cartridges. It’s responsible for counting the number of pages being printed. Once the set limit expires, the cartridges become worthless even when refilled. A similar OEM technique is to use embedded chips on the ink cartridges that verify if the cartridge is original or refilled.
Environmental issue
Do you think that reusing printer cartridges is part of saving the environment? The answer is wrong! Why?
Many users bought the refilled ink cartridges, end up throwing them away and purchase a new one. On the other hand, if you purchase new ink cartridges from original manufacturers such as Canon, Epson, Brother etc, they will recycle your used ink cartridges. This applies to toner cartridges as well.
Thus, which one is a greener option to you? Choose wisely! It does not only save the world into a better place, and also keeping your printer healthy too.
From this article, you can see there are many benefits in purchasing new ink cartridges instead of refilling. It may seem it has higher cost at the beginning, but you will save more time and money in long term wise.