TO REFILL OR NOT

Often while talking to customers or responding to readers I am in a dilemma whether to suggest a refill or a new printer cartridge. Well, this week I will list the options and tell you how to go refill safely. But please note, these are my comments and parts of this article have been sourced from leading manufacturers of printers.

Life was simple in the days of the dot-matrix printer. The dots were printed like a typewriter using a similar ribbon. You could go to any third-party manufacturer and they would change the ribbon inside your cartridge for a tenth of the cost of a new one. Then came along laser and inkjet printers which sucked the ink out, along with a lot of money from our wallets. This was when the trouble started.

Most of us have some time or the other fallen prey to refilling gangs who charge anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 800, depending on the cartridge, but leave us with spoilt printers that no one would repair. Service centres would tell you your printer was dead because you used refilled cartridges and that the repair could not be covered under warranty.

As my friend and business acquaintance who runs a chain of cartridge refill and remanufacturing franchises across the country advises, the chemistry of inks is very different. The same ink can’t work for 600 dpi and 1200 dpi printers. Similarly, between two models of colour laser printers from the same manufacturer, the inks would differ. But the refill guys just use the same set of inks—a concoction of chemical, colour, and water—to fill your cartridges. These would eventually leak and kill the printer.

So, the next time you buy a printer, I suggest you check the manufacturer website, and not the dealer about warranty information. I found this following quote on the HP website: “For HP printer products, the use of a non-HP ink cartridge or a refilled ink cartridge does not affect either the warranty to the customer or any HP support contract with the customer. However, if printer failure or damage is attributable to the use of a non-HP or refilled ink cartridge, HP will charge its standard time and materials charges to service the printer for the particular failure or damage.”
This is what the FAQ section of the Epson website says: “Epson does not recommend refilling or using third-party ink cartridges. If these third party products cause a failure, the repair of that failure will not be covered under warranty.”

There wasn’t much on the Canon or Samsung websites, but industry sources say no printer manufacturer (though their service centres might) would refuse to service a printer just because you have used a third party cartridge.

Though one has to be fully aware of the bad practices in the industry, the market is gradually getting structured. Leading players like Cartridge World, Laser Tech and others are making it a better market. Some remanufactured and compatible cartridge suppliers like Inktec sell compatible cartridges for roughly half the price of the original cartridge and run the same length without damaging your printer.

On the other hand the large printer manufacturers are trying to keep you away from refilled cartridges by putting in chips that count the number of prints. These have a flipside though. Your cartridge designed for 2,000 prints would stop printing if you have printed as many pages, though covering just 2 per cent of the paper and even with ink still left inside the cartridge. Cartridge World and Laser Tech have started offering chip resets, but not for all cartridges.

Cartridge refilling, if done carefully and through proper channels, is a benefit to the environment. If you want to go for a replacement, just make sure your empty cartridge does not land in the hands of refillers.

--
The above article appeared in the Indian Express, dated Sunday September 28, 2008