Replacement Ink Systems

[dave111223]

Last month my all-in-one printer broke (ie chewing up paper, jamming, not printing etc..) so i decided to buy a new printer.

On the old printer it had cost a ton in ink cartridges, and the injection refill syringe that i tried didn't seem to work that well.

So for the new one i thought i'd get one of these printers which has been modified to replace the ink cartridge with large ink containers, which can be refilled easily with cheap ink (a Canon MX318 to be exact). Anyways a month in and the printer is already busted, showing ink/cartridge related error messages. And to be honest after i got home from buying it and took a look at all the tubing and half-assed modification i kind of was expecting this. So looks like i will have to spend my boxing day going to see if they can repair the ink system.

So just a word of warning. It may be better just to pay the higher price for real ink cartridges than have the hassle of one of these ink systems. I guess it depends how cheap you are; and i thought i was pretty cheap, but if i could go back i'd probably just get a regular printer with regular ink cartridges.

Anyone else had any experience with the modified ink systems? I am the only one to have it blow up in my face?

[longball53098]

Before you completely shoot down what they installed?

I have been using aftermarket non Canon cartridges in my MX 700 and I experienced the error messages related to empty warnings. After reading the manual I discovered that this error can be over come by pressing the reset button to over-ride the error but what this does now is stop the feature and when a cartridge is low/empty there is no warning at all.

Canon wants you to use and buy their ink at the high cost.

My guess is you have the same type of issue and if you read the book you can bypass the low and empty conditions but you must keep the tanks topped up or you will unexpectedly run out of ink. In your case you can visually see the tank levels.

[Digitalbanana]

I have tried replacement ink cartridges on both HP and Canon and in both cases ended in tears. In each case the replacement ink wasn't a direct copy, needed messing with somehow and then things went wrong.

I am not sure if any ink players make exact replicas of the cartridges the purport to replace? I don't do much printing per se, so now just eat the high cost of the original brand name inks. At this time Canon 8 series inks as I haven't seen much to tempt me elsewhere yet.

[Gary A]

I had a Canon i70. It was a good little printer. The problem was that the replacement ink tanks were hard to find. I finally weakened and bought the refill kit. I used the printer maybe three times and the ink head failed. I blame the ink refill. The new print head cost 2,500 baht. That's what I paid for an HP all in one printer, scanner and copier. A print cartridge cost 550 baht and will print 200 pages. That suits me fine. If I were printing books, I'd look for a cheaper way but I seldom print more than 10 pages a month.

[MJP]

I run a CISS (Continuous Ink Supply System) in my HP L7680 all-in-one.

FAN-DABBY-DOZZY-TASTIC!!!!

Cost me £40 on ebay, came full of ink. Worked from the get go. Never had a problem with it and I use it for office work, not just domestic.

Bought ink at £20 a litre, waterfast stuff, HP suitable.

Must save around 95% on print costs.

It's a bit like this one,

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CISS-CIS-HP-88-HP88-...%3A1|240%3A1318

[GungaDin]

MJP.

Is that the same ebayer you bought the tanks from?

Did you buy the HP printer in BKK, if yes how much was it?

It has a good spec.

cheers

[MJP]

MJP.

Is that the same ebayer you bought the tanks from?

Did you buy the HP printer in BKK, if yes how much was it?

It has a good spec.

cheers

I forget which ebay seller I bought it from now, but I've bought two CISS for HP88 now. One to leave in England with my L7680 and another to bring to Thailand where you can buy the L7300 for 10,000 Baht or the L7500 for 14,000 Baht.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/th/en/ho/WF...86-3198086.html

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/th/en/ho/WF...86-2511708.html

Now the L7300 takes the cartridge type HP18 which I'm pretty sure is the same as the HP88 . . . but check this first.

Here's where I buy my 1 litre bottles of HP ink.

http://www.consumablecafe.co.uk/acatalog/H...ackard_Ink.html

Fantastic all-in-one. I use them in regeneration site offices which are quite harsh environments and they get loaded into the car fairly often and bumped around.

If you get the L7500 get the HP BT500 Bluetooth dongle so no need for wires.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HP-bt500-Bluetooth-U...%3A1|240%3A1318

Should be around £15.

This is the best system I have ever run. With the BT500 Bluetooth you can effectively network the printer without having to fuss over bizarre network stuff I've never understood.

By the way, I know it looks like an expensive set-up, but if you do a lot of printing this will save you a lot of money in a fairly short space of time.

Edited December 26, 2008 by MJP

[GungaDin]

MJP,

thanks for that extra info.

cheers