Would you use refilled/remanufactured printer cartridges?
 

A friend of mine is an OEM for compatable/recycled inkjet and laser toner cartridges and is asking me to take up agency rights. Being one who always use original consumables myself, wonder if this is a viable business? Would you risk damage to your printer to save a few dollars? In Western countries, recycling is the in thing, but I doubt this would extend to using the recycled cartridges. Probably just recycling the plastic instead of ending up in landfill. Or have I been too brainwashed by printer companies into believing that non-original cartridge is a no-no? The economics is rather compelling from the prices quoted to me though.

We used to use them at work (a company called Greencare) but they were useless. They may have been cheaper, but they lasted about one third the time of an official one. Print quality ranged from average to abysmal, with one in three unusable. The contract was abandoned.


M

i bought a load from ebay for my home printer
worked fine
never had a problem with them

I have visited the factory recently. If it is a remanufactured toner cartridge, practically every thing is new except for the original casing, so in theory it should work as new. If it is inkjet refill, there is a lot of quality variation among the various outfits, and if the pressure is not reset back to factory specs, it may not work properly. If it is a compatable cartridge, then should be ok. I have seen the quality control and the end-product is on par with the original. Just worried that if they are too successful, the big manufacturers like HP and Epson will find variousl ways to put them out of business, since the money is in the supplies, not the printers.

I use them all the time, occasionally have to rinse them in hot water and turn them around in your hands to move air bubbles,but apart from that no problems.Very good quality,even for photos.

We use re-maufactured cartridges. Some of the mail-order stuff was pretty unreliable. But we have found a local company that does the remanufacturing and they been fine so far. And if they were faulty they take it back no-quibbles :)

Always used to send off empty genuine HP cartridges back in the bag which gives money to the "Toms" baby charity.

At home I alway use genuine stuff. Mainly because I use the printer for photo printing and I need accurate base ink colours.

Mach1, I need to soak my original HP cartridges in hot water every now and then too to get the ink to flow properly again, so it is not specific to third party products. Maybe I don't use my printer often enough, allow the nozzles to dry up.
Ali-B, if you do photo printing most of the time, won't it make sense to source a reliable compatable brand than to pay through the nose for original inks.

I use these in my R200 and have printed out loads of photos. The colour repreduction is very good and no fading.
They last well and I havent had a bad one in the LOADS I have used.

I order from choice stationary, get 14 cartridges for about 35 quid instead of my local PC worlds price of 11.99-13.99 a cartridge.

Never have a problem unless I don't use the printer for a long period, a simple head clean usually cures the problem, or removing and reinserting the cartridge.

The cartridges tend to last the same amount of time or even longer and the print quality is just as good even at photo level for my eyes.

Well the printer being a cannon that uses 6 ink tanks rather than head/cartridge combos means that most of the ink is stored in the non-disposable print head as opposed to the actual tank.

If I get a "compatible" refill that alledges to be correct, all I have is their word. Once it's in the head and mixed up inside it's too late and the only way of going back is replacing the printhead which is not cheap.

I'd rather pay the £6.50 per ink tank and know I get the right colour match :) Plus I doubt non-genuine ink would be that much cheaper anyway.