My trusty brother fax ran out of toner at a very bad time this morning and I didn't have time to get a new cartridge so I blew the dust off of an inkjet refill kit that made it into one of my drawers somehow.

Anyway my unit is newer so I had to google to get the instructions but after that I filled 4 cartridges in less than 5 minutes. all I had to do was use a supplied hand drill to put the ink in and whamo no need for a trip to the ink jet shop and cheap too.

Interesting subject! Really, when my printer runs out of ink, it's cheaper to buy a new printer than to buy the ink for it!

Be careful which cartridges yoiu refill. On my epson, it has smart chips which ensure that you cannot reuse the cartridge without somehow modifying it. MY lexmark also has those chips on it too. However, I find that if i look hard enough, I can find great deals on printer cartridges on the internet. I found 2 black and 2 of each color for my epson for les than 10$ on ebay, so I think I have found where I am going to buy my future replacement cartridges.

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

Refilling is by far cheaper but the heads do wear out so you'll get streaking and gray patches around the 2nd or 3rd refill. If your cartridges still print clean beyond that, that's a bonus.

I believe the Epson cartridges have a chip built into them that stops the cartridge from working once it is empty. They have to be reset to be reused and there is a device for it if anyone happens to have one of those printers.

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k

I got a color Laser printer for $450 a Samsung...

It doesn't take long to to through that much in your average inkjet cartridges. Found that out with my old Epson 740

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

mine is 16 ppm full duplex printing color..built in network card and cost $450 at CompUSA less than a year ago.

thats not really all that expensive when you figure our what 5 or so injet cartriges cost...and your average laser toner does about 10X the page count or more.

You can get pretty nice prints...not as good as a decent inkjet but then the cost per page is far less for everyday use than an inkjet.

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Its pretty good on some....mine is real decent an I am happy with it....I keep the inkjet for photos on the good paper...but the epson was damned expensive as a primary printer...ink cartriges every few hundred pages was mighty pricey.

True inthe long term an HP is a better bet....but in a few years I could replace it and still have saved bundles from what an inkjet costs to run. They are cheap to buy but bleed you to death on supplies.

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

The Epson, Samsung, NEC laser printers are nice and work well BUT their life cycle for those products is shorter and the companies will likely not support them and or be able to service them later on through their limited dealer or service network. I have a NEC 870 and a Epson 1000 laser and parts are hard to find for both.

This is compared to a Xerox or an HP unit which costs more up front. The advantage is that there are more places that can service them and have access to more replacment toner and parts suppliers as they age when the fuser, rollers, imaging units start to burn out. Plus, feeding them is cheaper since you can get refurbished cartridges for cheap if you print in volumes and you can punch a hole in the cartridge once the toner is used (which goes for all laser cartridges) and fill them up, empty out the waste toner compartment and reuse them. For black only, that works, color is a different story. Remember to not expose the transfer roller on the toner cartridge to sunlight since they are sensitive otherwise you'll get some weird prints.

My 2 cents.

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k