How to Refill Printer Cartridges

If you’re considering trying to refill your printer ink cartridges instead of buying new ones, you are absolutely on the right track considering the fact that the ink cartridge market is a complete scam: what the printer companies do is keep the prices on their printers so low that they actually initially lose money on the sale of those printers, which is fine with them because they know that they’ll make more money in the long run by selling you severely overpriced ink cartridges that you HAVE to buy (because they’re proprietary and the only ones that will work in your printer, plus no one can make a cheaper generic alternative because they’re patented) over and over

again–these ink cartridges are HEAVILY marked up, with many of them costing north of $30 and sometimes $40 (how much do you think it really costs to make one of those things in China where they’re manufactured? $3? $5, max?). Things have gotten so bad that people have started

doing this (thanks, reddit). Today I’m going to show you how to easily refill your own printer cartridges quickly, easily, and cheaply (a single refill kit will last for years and costs about as much as a single ink cartridge).

Where to get the refill kit

Amazon has got several available, the two that caught my attention was a universal one: Dataproducts 60390 InkStation Multi-Brand Refilling Kit with Cap Remover (Black), and the HP one (HP is probably the most popular printer brand for personal home use): Automatic Refill System for HP Black Ink Cartridges and the Automatic Refill System for HP Color Ink Cartridges.

What to do

It’s really pretty simple, just follow the directions that come with the kit that you bought, but there are probably a few extra tips you should be aware of that will help you along: