Refilling Ink Cartridges

So, the time had finally come to replace my trusty HP DeskJet 5650′s colour ink cartridge.  It was the HP 57 cartridge that I needed so off I popped in the car to Argos to be greated with this price:
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6813002/Trail/searchtext%3EHP+57.htm
£37.99 for a colour ink cartridge!!!  I was bewindered.  It is afterall just a small pot with ink inside it right?  All it has to do is give the printer some when it needs it and not leak in the meantime.   Anyway, to cut a long story short after a 5 mile drive to 3 different shops, i tried a different tact.

On ebay, the only option was “remanufactured” ink cartridges, which were alot cheaper, but I struggle to justify paying £10 for something that is “second hand” and could have been made by any old muppet with food colouring for ink.  A short while later I stumbled upon this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330342162997&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
Everything I needed to re-manufacture my own cartridges AND it even came with black ink so I was sold..

The package arrived this morning and I couldn’t wait to get home to try it out.
The picture on the left is the cartridge as it is bought new, and on the right is the cartridge ready to refill.

HP 57 Tri-colour ink cartridge

Cartridge with the sticker removed

My logical mind associated the 3 columns of holes with the red/blue/yellow dots on the front of the cartridge.  As it happens, this was a mistake.  I reached for the “red” ink out of the packet, and without looking at any of the other inks or instructions began to fill my cartridge.  I then repeated the same for the second hole with the blue ink and reached for the last bottle of ink.  It was darker, much darker than the “red” ink I had used for the red hole so I immediately took a double-take, cursed and looked at the instructions.

The holes on the cartridge, actually make no sense at all and are Yellow, Red and Blue.  What this means is that I had correctly filled the yellow with yellow (I didn’t realise that though) and filled the red with blue.  I then tidyed up my many ink-spills and inserted the cartridge ready to see what damage I had done.  A test page revealed a strange result, the printer was fine.  The only problem is that the red was printing as a light-yellow.  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was wrong so the game began to try to empty the cartridge completely.

After 45 minutes over the sink, with ink on my hands, clothes, eyes, lips, teeth and all over the bathroom & many towels, I was ready to refill.  I took time to refill into the correct holes this time and now this is the point I am at now.  I now have a full cartridge that prints all solid colours fine (except red) but as soon as it comes to print anything remotely mixed, I get a lovely shade of shitty-brown rubbish….  My colour wheel now looks like a well tattooed tribemans arsehole and anything I print is ruined .

Morale of the story:  Always read instructions thoroughly before starting any job

Stephen

PS.  If anyone knows how I can make this better please comment below.

PPS.  4 hours until 2010 folks, Happy New Year!!

2 Comments

• 

  By Craig, December 31, 2009 @ 8:24 pm

  ROFL – Cartridge World FTW!

• 

  By Stephen Groom, January 3, 2010 @ 2:57 pm

  Yeh.. If only I’d have known.

  The ink still hasn’t washed off my hands and I’m now printing all blues as purple…..

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