How to Refill Ink Cartridges

Video Transcript

" Hi! This is Zak with Expert Village and today I’m going to talk to you about refilling your ink cartridges. This is a good idea if you want to save some money and it’s also a really good idea because some new cartridges for printers can cost around 70 to $80. A refill kit might cost the same price but you can use it to refill your cartridges numerous times. Most kits might come with a tool to puncture your ink cartridge and a tube of ink along with a syringe tip for inserting the ink into the cartridge. You’ll also need something to seal the ink cartridge once you’ve punctured it. We’re going to use hot glue but you could also use scotch tape or any other kind of air type flat tape. Duct tape is not recommended because it’s ridged and that actually let’s air into to your cartridge and it can cause leaking of the ink and it can really not be good for your printer. So the first step is to open your printer and remove the cartridge that you want to fill. We’re going to refill this black cartridge, which has already been refilled before so you can see there’s hot glue sealing the top. First thing you’re going to need is a piece of tape. In this case, duct tape can work but it’s only for a short term cover and not something that you actually want to seal the ink cartridge with. This is to make sure that your ink doesn’t leak while you’re working with a cartridge, so you’ll want to keep this pressed over the ink cartridge head and you want to make sure that it’s very tight and you keep the pressure on the whole time you’re working with the cartridge. So I’m going to peel back the hot glue. Now we’re going to fill the cartridge. You want to make sure that when filling the cartridge the needle doesn’t go all the way in. It should only be towards the top because once you fill it and release the pressure from the inkbottle, it’s going to cause some of that ink to go back up into the bottle if it’s down too far. We’re going to put the needle in just a little bit. Enough to make sure it’s in there and then just squeeze and it’ll fill your cartridge. You should fill slowly and you can watch the ink level rise as you fill the cartridge. Once you’ve filled your cartridge with ink, you can place tape or re-glue the hole very simply. After placing the glue you might want to blow on it and make sure it cools down. After a little period of cooling you can use your finger to press the glue down over the hole and make sure that it’s air tight."