Problems Refilling HP Ink Cartridges
Running out of ink in a printer is a frustrating experience because most original manufacturers of printers do not offer ink refills, and discarded ink cartridges can waste precious space in a landfill. Several brands have popped up that allow the user to refill their ink cartridges. Unfortunately, these ink refill kits or refillable cartridges may cost more than an original cartridge, factoring in ink and paper waste.
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Considerations
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Hewlett-Packard does not design any of their ink cartridges for refilling, according to the HP website. Some companies offer ink cartridges that one can refill and use in HP printers. HP believes that ink refill kits and refillable third-party ink cartridges give inferior results to an original HP ink cartridge, and third-party quality assurance testers such as QualityLogic have found ink refill kits have as much as 35 times the chance of developing some sort of problem as an original HP ink cartridge.
Types
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Most of the types of problems encountered trying to refill an HP-compatible ink cartridge are related to the reliability of the product or the quality of the page printing, reports an ink refill cartridge reliability study by QualityLogic. Problems with refillable, HP-compatible cartridges sometimes prevent the printing of a usable document, or even from using the refillable cartridge at all.
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Common Problems
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Up to 8 percent of cartridges from non-HP brands came "Dead On Arrival," meaning they could not print more than 10 high-quality pages or simply came in an unusable state, in the 13 brands tested against HP original cartridges in the QualityLogic study. This usually means the cartridge leaks in the package or the printer, does not actually work in an HP printer or colors do not print properly.
The printed page using a refillable cartridge may suffer from noticeable bands that run down the page, the color may bleed into sections outside of the print area or the page may contain missing content or random blotches.
Prevention/Solution
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Since HP does not support the use of non-HP cartridges or refill kits in their printers, users would have to contact the manufacturer of their specific brand of refillable cartridge for any solutions to their printing problems, or better yet, purchase an original HP ink cartridge. For low-quality prints, the user should retry the print job until they receive a copy of suitable quality.
Warning
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According to QualityLogic's study results, non-HP cartridges have a higher incidence of leaking ink while in the printer and may negatively impact the performance of the unit. Leaking ink can cause issues such as crusting on the rollers that prevent the automatic paper feeder from pulling paper correctly.
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References
- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Jason ford
