Isn't having the tanks on the outside the same as refilling. I have just discovered that the last bottles of ink I bought were spurious, caused a lot of damage by clogging, even though the shop owner swore his was original ink and the ink where I bought the printer was supplying the copied stuff.....not easy to win, is it?

By the way, the owner of the shop in TukCom when asked to buy a printer by somebody who is trading up buys them alright.......for 300 Baht.

No tanks on outside is not the same - you have to pressurize an entire system (about 20-30 minutes I believe each time opened) to deliver ink and much easier for blockage issues as longer path - when you directly fill a cart it is just the normal few seconds to pressurize the cart itself every time.

That said if doing a lot of color printing the outside tanks make sense as the saving is worth the extra time and once working they should work until empty in busy usage.

I've had tanks on the outside since my first printer, never had to wait 20 or 30 mins. I just keep them topped up all the times. I do agree (as I mentioned in an earlier post) they would be more lightly to have blockage problems for the reasons you mentioned.

Based my post on what I have read on sites such as this regarding the Epson L210 system - which says 20 minutes for initial charge. Have seen another general report of 7-9 minutes for Epson cart.

https://www.gogi.in/epson-l210-review.html

Was recently in a store in the US looking at printers (Walmart). I don't need color, but there were no black ink only models.

One model looked good, was around US$70, comes with a black ink cartridge and the three colored ink cartridges.

Right there on the same shelves were the replacement cartridges, and the four of them cost close to $50.

Huh?

But back to the hardly-ever-use-it situation: how about taking the cartridges out, putting them in a sealed plastic bag?

Can someone tell me if I remove the color cartridges but keep the black one in will the printer still function?

BTW I hate printers, developed this animosity back in the days of parallel printer port connections.

Might work bendejo, personally I'm so fed up with it that I'm going for the Laser, although after reading the posts here that may not be the best option for me because I mainly use the printer for printing photos, and they certainly look better on glossy paper which, according to the posts here, I may have problems with the heated rollers.

Taking out the heads would have been a problem for me also as I have the tanks attached on the outside. It would mean disconnecting the tubes from the head, that is easy enough but then the hole left would have to be blocked.

In my earlier post I mentioned my printer was not printing in green only (after just purchasing two new heads, it only has two). On closer inspection I noticed the black ink had only travelled half way along the tube up to the head, I put it down to an air lock possibly, I pulled the tube off the head, topped it and the head itself up with ink by means of a injection needle. Didn't make a blind bit of difference.....still green. To add to my frustration the tube now won't fit tightly back into the hole I pulled it from, I think a jacked piece has dropped off the end of the tube,,,,it's tiny so no chance of locating it. When I used to be a drinker my solution to problems such as this was to throw the thing through the window. My tolerance has improved since those days but sometimes I think it was the right solution. Ha! Ha! Ha! (555)

Happy printing to all.

I have two HP wifi 3in one printers. One in Spain, one here. They both use different cartridges because the model is unique to each country. When I refilled the first time it worked for a while, then told me there was no ink, but there was. Then it printed but missed a lot of it in such a way that it looked like the print head has faulty.

I did the head cleaning routine and realignment and it worked again. Then it asked me if the cartridges were sold as original or not, I said not. It warned me there was no warranty, this routine was repeated a few times and it worked again each time.

Now it seems to have accepted that I will refill the ink as I wish and only needs realignment if I have filled with ink.

Note that there was a class action in the States regarding the ability of the owner having the right to refill!

In some printers it is easy to remove the print head carrier, then run it under the tap to clean dry ink and restore the printer to as new condition.

My printers are not easy to get at the heads. One guy suggested that it is easy to use tin snips and cut part of the overhead strut away so the heads carriage is easy to remove.

We leave the printer unused for half the year. I leave the cartridges in and perform a head clean after refill when we arrive. If you remove the cartridges, the ink in the heads will dry and then you will have serious problems to resolve. I have read that the cartridges should be replaced within ten mins to avoid blocking the heads.

A simple head clean is to remove the cartridges and use a damp paper towel, one for each colour, and dab the gauze for each colour until it is clean. Running them under the tap does a better job, if you can easily get them out.

If your tap water I'd full of lime, better to rinse with distilled water. Touch wood, since I persevered with the HP 5510 here, it no no longer complains after a refill and I am very happy with it.

Mind you, next time I buy new, it will have easy access to the heads!

Good luck and successful printing.