Online Ink Refill

You may have heard of kits to refill your color or black and white printers.  Whether it is an inkjet printer ink refill, or a more specific request such as a Dell printer ink refill or an HP printer ink refill, many websites you can visit will offer you discounted rates on your inkjet printer ink refill.

What are Ink Refills?

Ink refills can save you a lot of money

Everybody loves their printers, and why not?  These days, printers can do more than just basic black and white copies--they can copy in full color almost as quickly as black and white; they can print photos, t-shirt iron-on transfers, greeting cards, invitations, mailing labels, and much more.  The amount of things you can do with your printer is astounding, but with that comes a cost.

The cost in this case is the price of the ink cartridges that are needed in order to do all this printing.  HP printer ink cartridges can be pricey to keep replacing, especially if you use your printer a lot.  Dell printer ink refill cartridges are even more expensive, because you can't buy them at www.bestbuy.com or another retail website--you must buy them only from www.dell.com, and that can become very pricey.

Ink refills allow you to economically refill or replace your used printer cartridges.  There are a couple of ways to go about it, and both will be discussed in depth in the next two sections.

Kits to Refill Your Printer at Home

One kit can refill your dry cartridges several times

The first type of printer cartridge ink jet printer refill is an actual kit you can order online or buy in a retail store.  This kit comes with bottles of ink, plus an applicator that enables you to refill your dry inkjet printer cartridges, so they can be used again.

There are two kits--one for color cartridges and one for black and white cartridges.  The color ink jet printer refill kit will have three bottles in it--magenta, cyan, and yellow.  You would follow the directions in the package, which usually instruct you to fill each of the three chambers on the cartridge with ink using a syringe or other applicator.

While this can be messy (especially for first-time users), it is a quick and inexpensive way to get lots of use out of the same cartridge repeatedly without buying a new one.  Depending on the size of the ink jet printer refill kit, one can refill the cartridges dozens of times--saving you a lot of money in the long run.

Most of the kits out on the market today can refill almost any type of cartridge, though HP printer ink refill kits and Epson printer ink refill kits seem to be the most popular.  HP and Epson have a huge market share on printers, so this makes sense.  If you have another type of printer such as a Canon or Lexmark, chances are you will easily find an inkjet printer ink refill kit, as well.  Owners who need a Dell printer ink refill kit may be out of luck--most refill kits are not meant to refill a Dell printer.

Dell and other printer owners are not completely out of luck, though.  There is still one more type of cheap inkjet printer cartridge out there that is compatible—a refurbished cartridge.

Recycled and Refurbished Printer Cartridges

Recycled cartridges are reliable and cheaper than brand new ones

The words “recycled” and “refurbished” are not interchangeable, as some think.  A recycled inkjet cartridge is one that was used and disposed of, only to be recycled and refilled.  The newly refilled cartridge is then offered to the public at deep discounts.

A refurbished cartridge usually means that the cartridge was damaged or did not work properly (the ink did not flow, wrong colors, didn't fit the printer properly, etc).  Like most damaged items, it was returned or disposed of, to be fixed and then offered to the general public at deep discounts.

In both cases, the new product is generally just as reliable as a brand new (and much more expensive) cartridge.  The other good news is that no matter what type of printer you own, there is most likely a recycled or refurbished inkjet printer cartridge for you.  From a Dell printer ink cartridge to an HP printer ink cartridge, there is usually one for you.

Major retailers like Office Depot www.officedepot.com and others will sell recycled and refurbished cartridges.  Or, you can go to websites that specialize in them such as www.inkjetcartridge.com or www.4inkjets.com to find a wide selection of replacements-- most of them with cheap or free shipping, too!  There are some that also offer programs where shipments are auto-sent to you at specified times, while others offer bulk discounts, if you own a business and wish to purchase larger orders of replacement cartridges.