 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Refilling inkjet cartridges - again... Bob Burt bobburt@melbpc.org.au |
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There is a very practical reason for reviving this topic at this time. The
Melb PC User Group is, I am told, considering making a kit available to refill inkjet cartridges. This brief
article provides some background information on the contents of the kit and the cartridges that it can
service.
The kit
The package is made in England by JR Inkjet Ltd, Rainham, Essex and is designed to service cartridges
supplied by Hewlett-Packard, Olivetti, Canon, Canon/Apple, Epson and Lexmark, for which instructions are
provided. It will also service AEG, Citizen, IBM, Integrex, Mannesmann Tally, Olivetti, Panasonic Fax,
Triumph Adler, Sharp, Star and StarWriter, but no specific instructions are included for these.
Packs are available for both black and colour cartridges. My review sample was the JR Inkjet Refill, Black,
Universal Kit. It comes equipped with
- 40 ml of black ink in two bottles
- Syringe filling needle (blunted for safety)
- Sealing plug
- Screw (plug extractor)
- Step by step instructions for 18 ranges of cartridges, both black and colour.
Bulk refills are also available in 60 ml and 250 ml packs.
The instructions
I shall focus my remarks on the guidelines provided for the HP cartridges, simply because I own a Deskjet and could therefore carry out the instructions. Separate instructions are given for the HP high capacity cartridge which uses air bags for pressure control and the earlier-designed standard-capacity cartridge, the core of which is filled with a sponge block. The instructions for the latter are very simple, accurate and require no comment. The instructions for the high-capacity cartridge do require closer examination.
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The reason for this is that the technique depends on using a ballpoint pen
or similar device to push the plastic ball in the corner aperture on the top face into the cartridge and use
this cleared area as the filling point. After filling, you use the plug provided to reseal the opening. This
is a method that I used a few years ago, except that I resealed the aperture with a plug of plasticine. This
is clearly rather chancy, particularly if the printer is used by a range of people at different times and one
of the uninitiated "tidies up" by removing the plasticine. (This actually happened at least once to my
knowledge, causing ink to pour out and ruin the particular machine.)
A sealing plug is a safer alternative, of course, although I could not follow this technique even if I had
wished to do so, since the plug was missing from the review sample. This is probably no fault of the
suppliers, since the pack had been opened before it reached me. A further difficulty is that newer versions
of this cartridge do not have this opening and you must drill 3 mm hole in a similar position. Although this
is explained in the instructions, drilling raises the possibility of accidentally puncturing the adjacent air
bag and ruining the cartridge.
To avoid these problems, I prepare a syringe with a small calibre needle cut off to about 3 mm and fitted
with a small rubber washer to provide an effective seal. With this device at the ready, I can inject ink
through the air inlet opening on the underside of the cartridge, empty and clean out the syringe and
re-inflate the air bags by inverting the cartridge and pumping air into the centre hole from below.
The ink
The quality of the ink is of the utmost importance. It should be of the correct density (many standard inks
are far too thin). The ink supplied is a good quality thermal ink, refined to 0.5 micron.
More information
As JR Inkjet has a web site, surfers can call in to
http://ourworld.compuserve.comhomepages/inkjet
Reprinted from the May 1998 issue of PC Update, the magazine
of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
