Do printer ink/toner refill kits work and are they safe?

Solution 1:

Its a good idea to your homework before getting a printer - some brands are easier than others (canon has been reliable for us, tho we eventually worked out how to do it with dells too) - generally refilling the ink will void your warranty (but in many cases, that's easy to work around - swap in a non refilled cartridge if needed). There is also supposed to be some risk of print head clogging.

In my experience i haven't had too many issues with refilling printer inks. Apparently the formulation differs based on the ink type (pigment based ink vs Dye based ink) - which is why there's brand specific inks.

Dumb cartridges refill better - IE, the cartridge itself dosen't have the print head built in, and as such there's no 'intelligence' in the cartridge. Some printers also have RFID chips to monitor if a cart is genuine (dell does this. You can sort of tell the printer to ignore an empty cart and print anyway, so its an anti 3rd party ink rather than an anti refill measure. Ideally cartridges should have NO logic whatsoever in them, or minimal logic. We've never had print head clogging, so far, but in general deep cleaning should fix it (or in many cases they are user replaceable - I haven't worked out how expensive that is yet)

Not all ink carts need you to drill a hole - with canons, we punched a hole in with a special tool, and with some others (dell), you inject the ink with a hypodermic needle into one of the holes already on the printer.

Finally, most printers will NOT detect ink levels on refilled cartridges, so you'll need to monitor ink levels yourself. Its fairly easy on printers with ink tanks, as opposed to having the ink soaked in a sponge, but its something to keep in mind.

Laser printer toners.. eh, don't do it yourself. that dust is NASTY. I've seen some office printers use big bottles of toner which might be more sensible. For regular printers... its probably not practical.

Solution 2:

I use the toner refills and I am happy to report they work fine. The refilling does need to be done with care because toner dust is an irritant, so you don't want it spilling all over the place. Fortunately toner refills usually come with plastic gloves, a funnel and full instructions.

Through the use of toner cartridges, and forcing your printer to keep going until the toner really is empty (cover the sensor holes with tape: until printing quality noticeably diminishes, don't waste your money on a refill), you can reduce your printing costs considerably. I run a sports sunglasses supply business and we use our little Brother printer a lot so keeping the cost of these consumables down is vital.