OK, so first I bought some aftermarket ink cartridges to see if I would be happy with non-OEM ink. I have been very happy with it and decided to try this. It's hard to tell from the pictures how big these things are. They are supposed to refill an individual cartridge about 10-11 times. Just from first observations I would say that's about right. Is it an altogether easy process? No, not really. First of all, if you haven't already replaced your cartridges with clear non-OEM ones, do that first. Canon figured there were too many people refilling so they made the OEM cartridges black so you can't tell when they are empty or full. You can't tell when they're empty so they can tell you when to replace them based on their software. But it's also hard to refill them when you can't see when the refill is close to the top. You're supposed to leave a little gap at the top and that's hard to do when you can't see it. So, again, get after market cartridges first, for two reasons: 1) to see if you'll be happy with the colors, and 2) once you confirm you like the aftermarket stuff, so you'll be able to see what's happening when you refill them. Make sure you get cartridges with the electronic chips in them. Some come without them, so you have to cut the chips off the old cartridges and glue them to the new ones. I'm not kidding.
More caveats: They include a little thumb-drill so you can drill little holes in the top of the cartridge so you can add the ink. I tried the thumb-drill and truthfully, if you're the kind of person that will go thru the trouble of refilling your own ink then you probably have a power drill of one sort or another. Use it; the thumb drill is too much trouble.
The actual refilling is messy. When you remove the cap from the accordion-type refill tanks, it doesn't matter how you hold them, some ink is going to come out. Do yourself a favor and hold them with the tip up, grab the cap with a paper towel, and pull while twisting gently. When the cap comes off the ink will release harmlessly into the paper towel. They are apparently under a small amount of pressure and even though you see air at the top of the tank and you are holding it vertically some WILL come out.
Oh, yes, you are supposed to keep the ink cartridge exit hole, the big one on the bottom where the ink goes into the print head, plugged while refilling. It keeps the ink from running out the bottom. This is an important step. Even with it plugged it can be messy. You can use the orange factory bracket that came with the cartridge for this, or use a piece of vinyl tape.
Once the hole is drilled in the cartridge and the top is off the tank, you gently tip the refill tank over to insert the needle into the hole. This is where it's good to have another paper towel under everything because ink starts running out before you can get it into the hole. Quickly get the needle into the hole and start squeezing ink into the cartridge. When it gets close to the top more ink will come out, so just expect it (keep the paper towel under everything). Once it is about 1/4 inch from the top, stop, remove the needle and put the silicon plug firmly into the hole.
OK, when you pull the cap or tape off the cartridge bottom to put it back into the printer it will leak a bit, at least several drops. Again, paper towel. Quickly insert the cartridge back into the printer and snap it down to keep things from getting messy (er).
Did I mention it's messy? If you have vinyl gloves, wear them. I didn't, and it takes days for the ink to grow out from under your fingernails.
OK, am I happy with aftermarket ink? Yes and no. Photos printed with non-OEM ink still look great to me. Maybe even better than OEM. Black text, however is another story. If you print small text you can't tell, but if you print anything larger than 16 you start to see that the text is dark gray rather than black. For the savings I can live with that. Another positive note, there doesn't appear to be any bleeding around the edges of the text. Also, so far I have not had any problems with non-OEM ink clogging the print heads.
You should be aware that you void your warranty when you use non-OEM inks. Who cares, right? If you pay $100 for a printer and spend that much on factory ink every couple months, the biggest expense is in the ink. If non-OEM ink makes a printer last four years instead of five you have saved a couple thousand dollars. Throw it out and buy a new one.
I should also say that I have also tried a couple CISS's (Continuous Ink Supply Systems), one on a Canon printer and one on an HP 8500. I can't say that I was happy with either. When they worked they worked OK, However, I had clogging problems (No, not the dancing kind of clogging) with both of them. So bad, in fact, that I had to throw both printers out. New print heads are almost as expensive as a new printer, especially when you can find the printers discounted online.
I am still experimenting so I will update this review if I find any more gotchas.
Update 9-15-2011: I saw a suggestion somewhere that one should use the high quality settings for darker prints. I tried it with this ink and it appears much darker. Black enough where one would not question if it was black.
Also; look at the price of this stuff! It's just over the cost of ONE color cartridge! And this is for what, 10 refills of all the ink? That's 50 refills? So, if you do the math, isn't 1/50th the cost worth a little ink on your fingers?
Update 9-15-2011: OK, here's the deal; the silicon plug they provide does not provide a sufficient seal. The back tank of the cartridge apparently must be air-tight when you are done refilling it. I figured this out the hard way; The cyan ink leaked into the magenta and contaminated it causing some strange blue printouts!
This means you must do one of two things; use the provided plug but use a piece of tape to seal it tight against the hole. Or, use hot-glue to seal the hole and put a piece of tape over it; that is probably your best bet. It's what the pro refill shops do. If you get the seal right then you won't have ink flowing out the bottom like I did in my review above.
Update 10-1-2011: OK, I have refilled all the cartridges and reset the chips using a chip resetter. Printing photos; all photos have a blue tint to them so it's not usable for that unless I can calibrate it somehow. It prints graphics just fine though. I have a Canon mg6120 all-purpose printer that I can use for photos when I need them now and don't want to send them to Costco.
UPDATE 6-2012:
I have stopped using this ink because of the little issues that all add up. It does not refill the tanks as many times as you would think. Maybe a few. This makes it close enough to the cost of non-OEM cartridges that I have begun buying them instead and I am very happy with them. The cost is still much less than factory and I can get a full set of six colors for my canon's for less than $10, so I get three of them and get free shipping for less than $30.
Update 8-30-2012: I am buying non-oem replacement cartridges at $1 a pop and they have improved so drastically in quality in the last year that I can heartily recommend them for everything, including photo printing. Like I recently told my brother, they only thing they don't have is a 25 year photo fade warranty. But really, who would be able to prove what ink was used on a photo 25 years from now? So the factory photo warranties are useless. Try the cheap ink; you'll be glad you did!
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I bought this a while back and didn't realize at the time, that it was missing the GRAY ink.Anyhow, i used a small drill vs. the enclosed drill bit as that bit was slipping under the cap. So it didn't work. A regular cordless drill though, did the trick.
I then refilled each cartridge (except for the gray) and put them back in the printer.
The printer didn't recognize that the cartridges were filled and i thought... now what?
So i contacted the seller and they told me that i ALSO NEED a chip resetter. BLAH AGAIN! I didn't see that listed in the product description anywhere, and if i did... i missed it.
Either way, the seller wrote back very quickly, told me what was going on and why... made the recommendation on how to correct and a few days later, i was up and running.
Therefore... NOTE TO OTHERS... if you buy this refill kit (and i recommend it as i've used it several times now)... remember that you need to have the CHIP RESETTER tool also. It's truly simple to use. Plug in via a USB Printer cable, rest your cartridge inside of it, when the green light comes on... you're done. Stick the cartridge back in the printer and you're done.
I just now completed this, refilled 4 cartridges, reset them and the whole thing took 3 minutes.
Now... if only i can find the GRAY...
I do recommend to the seller, if they read this, to make it more noticeable, that a chip resetter is needed, if one is not already owned.
Thanks
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That is about all I can say about the refill. Drilling a hole in an existing cartridge is nearly impossible with the little drill provided.Once there is a hole in the cartridge, ink will flow out as quick as one can put it in. Don't start without rubber gloves and be sure you are standing over a container to catch the spilled inks. The ink containers provided look like a lot of ink, but most will spill and in the end one will throw all of it in the trash.
Save grief and just buy the inexpensive cartridges. They work fine.
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