Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

tomyrush
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Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by tomyrush »

I have a Dell 810 inkjet printer and need to replace cartridge - last time Dell gave me a deal for 4 cartridges - today no deal from Dell available (Dell price $21.95 each)

I have never tried a re-manufactured cartridge but found some on Web for approx $14 plus shipping - just want to see if any one has had problems with re-manufactured cartridges

Tom

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DaveA
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by DaveA »

Yes I have and had to help clean several others.
I would stay away from them and use the correct ones from the OEM.

Most warranties are invalid if third party supplied cartridges are used.
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June Bug
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by June Bug »

Amen to Dave's reply. The potential problems aren't worth the savings.

JB
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by ChrisGreaves »

tomyrush wrote:I have never tried a re-manufactured cartridge but
I know you said ink-jet and I'm color-laser, but I wanted to add that I'm glad I switched to OEM laser cartridges after about 8 years of re-filled and/or re-manufactured cartridges.
No more leaks, smears etc. in the middle of a big or urgent print run.
I don't think the small savings were worth the hassle.

I cut down on some of my use by using a free PDF generator to "preview" the output; if it looked good on the PDF i just sent the PDF to the printer device.
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tomyrush
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by tomyrush »

thank so all -

Tom

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stuck
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by stuck »

I've had trouble with Canon 'compatible' inkjet cartridges, where depending on how they are feeling on the day, either the magenta, cyan or the yellow component will not print. It's never the same colour that fails twice in a row though, just to add to the irritation. OEM costs more but they work.

Also, like Chris, I've had bad experiences with non-oem colour LASER...

We have a HP 4600 in the office that gets heavy use. The original toner cartridges are expensive but we insist on them because every time someone in Purchasing decides to 'save' us some money any buy recycled onesi spend the rest of the day cleaning the leaked toner out of the printer and ranting :megashout: about how my time costs more than any 'saving' we've just made, not to mention the fact we still have to buy an original cartridge in the end anyway.

Ken

tomyrush
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by tomyrush »

thank you very much

Tom

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jonwallace
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by jonwallace »

We've been alternating Canon and non-Canon cartridges (NOT recycled/refilled) for a while in our moderately used S630*. So far so good.

The rationale is that swapping a full Canon cartridge with an empty tesco cartridge will swill out any gunge left behind by the cheapskate cartridge.

Maybe I'm just fooling myself...

* The S630 was rescued in a non-working condition years ago from those heavy-handed people in Infection Control. Removing the print head and soaking it in deionised water overnight, followed by a good dryout in Virology's hotroom restored it to health. When the hospital standardised on colour lasers (printers, not light shows, although that would be cool...) I re-rescued it and gave it a good home printing bits for my wife's card-making. God knows how old it is but it just keeps keepin' on. :clapping: to Canon...
John

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by ChrisGreaves »

stuck wrote:... spend the rest of the day cleaning the leaked toner out of the printer and ranting :megashout: about how my time costs more than any 'saving' we've just made, ...
:offtopic: But isn't that the way, that employees are sometimes treated as capital costs, or fixed costs, rather than being valued for what they could do if allowed to be creative?
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tomyrush
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by tomyrush »

can I slightly change the subject - I just got back from a Costco run and they offer a one hr refill service and the specifically have my cartridge on the chart.

Any experience with refilling cartridges?

I get tickled at some of the responses - it is evident that most of you are still working and possibly have to worry about department printers.

I am a little old retired critter that doesn't have much else to do except worry with my computer. Cartridge costs for my Dell all in one run $21 to $25 for new cartridges, $13 to $15 for re-manufactured, and $9 for a refill - so it's not a big expense for me. Some of the horror stories recounted about leaks, smudges, etc. have convinced me to go with OEM cartridges, but I am still curious about refilling.

Thanks for letting me bend your ears

Tom

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by ChrisGreaves »

tomyrush wrote: but I am still curious about refilling.
The only refilling I've ever done with printers is spraying ribbons with WD-40.
I still have the Citizen 120D dot-matrix I bought over 20 years ago and I still run it occasionally for continuous-feed labels etc.
Over the years I've become adept at levering off the case cover without dislodging plastic gear-wheels and enough ribbon to stretch from here to there and back again, I know how much and where to spray, and I know to wrap the lot in a plastic bag for 24 hours to let it all soak through.
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StuartR
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by StuartR »

tomyrush wrote:...Any experience with refilling cartridges?
...
Leaking cartridges, damaged printers, and poor print quality. It's just not worth the money you 'save'.
StuartR


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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by ChrisGreaves »

StuartR wrote:Leaking cartridges,
(Later)
I'm doing a mass-mailing. Yesterday (Sunday) an awful mess on the envelopes and letters. I had planned to print 180, double-sided letters, and matching envelopes.

The first pass of letters, I had to turf all but the initial 14 because of terrible smudging down the left-hand side.
I wiped out the feeder belt and cartridges as best i could and struggled on.

I gave up after 14. when I ran out of black toner cartridge.

I purchased a new OEM cartridge this morning, and things look fine.

I'm wondering now if the smudging sometimes arises at the end-of-life for a cartridge; a bit like teeth decaying, eyesight failing, hair falling out etc.
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StuartR
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by StuartR »

ChrisGreaves wrote:...I'm wondering now if the smudging sometimes arises at the end-of-life for a cartridge; a bit like teeth decaying, eyesight failing, hair falling out etc.
This should not happen. I suspect it was caused by a poor quality or faulty cartridge.
StuartR


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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartridges

Post by ChrisGreaves »

StuartR wrote:This should not happen. I suspect it was caused by a poor quality or faulty cartridge.
I'd like that.
FWIW I'll report back here (in 3 months or so!) at the end-of-life of this latest OEM cartridge.
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartrid

Post by ChrisGreaves »

ChrisGreaves wrote:FWIW I'll report back here (in 3 months or so!) at the end-of-life of this latest OEM cartridge.
(reporting back ...)
For the second time in two months:
A colored smear develops on the right-hand side of each page.
The smear is traced to a patch of (today) cyan on the anodized-green roller in the cyan cartridge.
And the HP2600N reports that it is time to buy a new cyan cartridge.
(last month it was the yellow cartridge).

It seems to me that around the time a cartridge is truly empty, it begins to malfunction somehow; perhaps it doesn't have enough toner to level out, or something.

I have disabled the HP2600N warning, that counts sheets and makes an estimate of cartridge life.
I think that this warning is based on some kind of pressure or density sensor.

Replacing the yellow cartridge three weeks ago solved the yellow-smear problem.
Let's see if replacing the cyan cartridge solves the cyan-smear problem.
(Hops on bicycle and pedals off to Staples ...)
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DaveA
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartrid

Post by DaveA »

Do you use this color printer at least once a week?
If not, then the jets may be clogging.
I am so far behind, I think I am First :evilgrin:
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stuck
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartrid

Post by stuck »

DaveA wrote:Do you use this color printer at least once a week?
If not, then the jets may be clogging.
The HP6000N is a laser, not an inkjet.

As for colour smears appearing on the page, this is a looooooong shot but...

That sounds similar to a problem the main office workhorse printer, an HP4650, has developed recently. Toner leaks out and ends up all over the transfer belt and consequently all over the pages. In this case the fault is because one of the 'alienation bars' is broken. These are bits of plastic that support the cartridges. No idea if the 2600 also has such beasts or not but I'd guess so.

Chris, if you remove all the toner cartridges can you see two black plastic bars inside the printer, at the back? Is one or both of them broken? If so, there's your problem.

Ken
PS, unlikely to be able to offer more advice on this one any time soon, I'm going a away for a few days.

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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartrid

Post by HansV »

stuck wrote:I'm going a away for a few days.
Travel safely!
Best wishes,
Hans

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Any experience with remanufactured color ink jet cartrid

Post by ChrisGreaves »

stuck wrote:Chris, if you remove all the toner cartridges can you see two black plastic bars inside the printer, at the back? Is one or both of them broken? If so, there's your problem.
Ken, thanks, and safe trip.
I can't see "two bars", broken or not, but since you are unlikely to post snaps of your hols I posted some myself.
Huge images, long d/l time
Attached is a 246KB zip file with reduced images. (I have 5 images but can attach only 3).
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
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