As most reviewers here, I was looking for a way to avoid paying the abusive prices for the original cartridge replacements for my Canon Pixma MP560. When I found this product and saw the reviews, I saw the dark clouds in my printing sky open... really $67 bucks for an original ink refill set, no way!
After some investigation and reading, I ordered this item and had no delivery issues. Well, just one issue: instead of 1 Black Dye bottle and 2 Blk Pigment bottles, I received three Pigment based BLK bottles (***EDIT: from other reviewers: the dye based tank cannot be refilled with pigment ink, it WILL DAMAGE the printing heads. I contacted the supplier and after around two months they sent a black dye based ink bottle, free of charge. Ordered from SOL ***).
I had to overcome some little challenges when I finally decided to give a try to the refilling procedure (there are very helpful videos in You Tube, just type "Canon cartridge refill" or so).
1. First, the small hand drill included in the kit was not very helpful, instead I used the tip of a Leatherman knife to start drilling the wholes on the empty cartridges (it has to be done with extreme care or you will end up bleeding badly). If you have a Dremel tool I guess you can use it to drill the holes in an easier way. My guess is that the smaller the diameter, (you just need to be able to stick the syringe needle into the empty cartridge) the better.
2. Once the refill holes were ready, I closed the tank ink output hole and proceeded to fill the tank with the syringe and needle. No issues here, except getting my fingers dirty (USE latex gloves). I think I put like 7 ml for the big BLK Pigment based tank.
3. The kit just included some metal duct tape pieces (my guess was that they were included to close the drilled holes), but I learned that they did not work very well to seal the drilled holes, once I removed the ink output sealer (the orange lever that seals the tank when the tank is new). Note: IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO PERFECTLY SEAL YOUR DRILLED HOLES.
It took me about three refilling attempts with the same tank to realize that if some air goes into the tank through a defectively sealed drilled hole, your tank will drip, and drip, and drip... until it is empty... Not recommended at all. It will cause a mess inside your printer (or at least on your table and fingers).
Make SURE that you can PERFECTLY SEAL the drilled holes. I ended up using some very small screws along with some teflon tape wound on the top threads of the screws.
4. After refilling and sealing the drilled holes, I made sure that there were no leaks. Refill the tank and check that it does not drip after removing the output seal. I left the tanks sitting on a container for 24 hrs and since I saw no problems I installed them in the printer (Magenta, Blk pigment and Cyan).
4.1) Sorry, I forgot to say that I also purchased the chip resetter for the original tanks. This device allows you to reset the ink level in the tank's chip, which tells the printer that the tank is full or empty. Otherwise, your printer will always tell you that the tank is empty, not sure if some Canon models prevent you from printing under this condition. On my printer I was able to print even with very low ink levels, but I wanted to be able to reset the chips anyway.
5. After installing the refilled tanks, I ran the printing pattern test sheet (look for it in the printer menu) and no issues. However several days later, I saw some printing issues on some color images I was printing. Ran the printing pattern page test and it was not ok, the problem came from the BLK pigment tank. I then ran the deep injectors cleaning cycle and voila! the problem was gone.
6. So far I have printed around 25 pages in black, around 15 in color and a couple pictures and I have not seen important color accuracy issues. However I am not a color expert, beware.
All in all, this is a GREAT money saver if you have some patience to go through the learning curve in the tank refilling process. Not very complicated if done with enough care. Considering that the investment was around 30 bucks including the chip resetter, and assuming that you can refill your tanks a min of 4 times... let's do the math: $67*4 = $268 67 -$15 (tanks and ink investment) = $186 USD of savings assuming a not very optimistic scenario. Really the ink bottles should last at least 8 to 10 refill cycles before getting empty.
Hope this was useful, my apologies for the extension. Peace!
*** UPDATE 1/19/2012 *** I just completed my second refill cycle and it took less than 10 minutes to refill 2 color tanks and the bigger pigment tank. So far, so good, still loving this product so much, I could almost hear the sound of money savings when I was refilling my tanks last night :)
*** UPDATE 5/15/2012 *** Fourth refill cycle for the black pigment tank and third for at least two of the color tanks, all of them still working fine.
*** UPDATE 01/28/2013 *** My Canon printer finally stopped printing, I believe due to printing pads/vacuum system clog (a couple small pads prime the print head by applying some vacuum every time a printing cycle is started). Not sure if refilling the ink cartridges had an influence on this issue, but since I know that fixing the printer is usually more expensive than replacing it, I just moved to an Epson Workforce 545 using a CISS (continuous ink supply system, the one with larger tanks and hoses running into the printer) which is less messy and time demanding than refilling the tanks. I do not regret the tank refilling since with the money saved I could have bought two or three brand new Canon printers... have a good one!
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YOU NEED TO BE AWARE OF WHAT THEY WILL ACTUALLY SEND YOU.
What I received was: 3 bottles of color ink-photo color (UV Dye) C-Y-M
I also received 3 bottles of blank ink-photo color (UV Dye) B
You cannot tell from this advertisement exactly what you will get. I would have preferred the hydro color dye, but the photo color will do. However, my black cartridge is PGI-5BK. While the dye ink is supposed to work in that cartridge, I would prefer to receive pigment ink instead of the dye ink. All 3 black inks that I received were photo color dye ink.
I also did not receive the pressure-izer, steel hook, steel beeds, small sticker, bigger sticker, and burette that the order said would be included. They said that they will send me "the missing item right away", but I would have been more comfortable if they said the "missing items". We will see if I receive them.
I contacted them by email, requesting them to send me 2 pigment black inks, and this is part of the response I received: "We will lost money if we send you two pigment blank ink because the pigment ink is much more expensive than the Dye ink." They did offer to give me a refund if I shipped the product back to them, but the cost to ship the product to me and then back to them would be more than what I paid for the product.
I have read other comments where people received pigment ink instead of dye ink. I guess you never do know what they are going to send you.
BEWARE! The needles that they sent me to inject the ink with are actual "medical needles" with extremely sharp points. I don't advise using them. When I have ordered from other companies in the past, what I got were needles with dull ends, these being more effective and less dangerous to use and clean.
It would be nice if the sites on amazon.com were more specific as to exactly what kind of ink that they are sending you. The description of 3 bottles of black and 3 bottles of color ink is too vague. You should probably just assume that they will send you the cheapest ink possible. Refilling your ink cartridges is a great idea. But there does come a point where cheap ink is just too "cheap". I have ordered from other companies and have received 3 color inks, 3 photo color inks, and the rest in black pigment ink. If you don't care what kind of ink you get (dye vs pigment, hydro color vs photo color), then maybe this site will work for you. If you do care, then I would recommend elsewhere.
I received no satisfaction from customer service. Rest be assured that I will never order from them again.
Best Deals for 20 oz (600 ml) Jumbo Canon Printer Ink Refill Kit Color- Black
These are the correct colors and have enough ink in here for the average fellow to fill his ink for the rest of his live. Since all of these printer people price their ink close to gold, its a great value, and filling the cartridges is very simple and only takes a few minutes on HP ink.
Honest reviews on 20 oz (600 ml) Jumbo Canon Printer Ink Refill Kit Color- Black
This kit is totally (AWESOME)You will love it completely! I just got done refilling both color and black and it was very very easy. I have a Cannon MX-330! And the refill went flawless. I have but just 1 suggestion for refilling. I am a diabetic so I have insulin needles so I thought I would give my injection needles a try and I was right! No need for using the finger drill to drill out the tiny holes that the ink cartridge has! Just use a (Super Thin2 syringes for insulin)I get mine from Walgreens but I am sure CVS or other pharmacies have them too. I have the 0.5ml 30 gauge and they worked perfect. I filled the syringe and inserted the needle on an angle in the really really small hole and injected the ink and it vents through the same hole you put the ink into. It took me more times because I can only suck up 0.5ml at a time but you can buy larger capacity syringes with the same size needle. But the 30 gauge needle works perfect no drilling at all required. Fill time both cartridge 20 min.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for 20 oz (600 ml) Jumbo Canon Printer Ink Refill Kit Color- Black
After quite a bit of research (mainly reading reviews) I ordered this item. It arrived promptly but upon inspection I found I had received the three bottles of dye based color inks but the three bottles of black ink were all pigment based. I thought I would receive two bottles of pigment based black ink for the PGBK cartridge and one dye based black ink for the CLI-221BK cartridge. I'm not sure what will happen if I mix the dye based and pigment based ink. I also received four syringes with needles,four alcohol prep pads and two pairs of gloves. The product description states that I should also have received a manual, a Burette, driller, pressure-izer, steel hook, steel beads, small sticker, bigger sticker. I will have to turn to the internet for instructions on refilling the cartridges and use whatever tools I have available.
