Many of us have printers attached to our computers; they're one of the most useful peripherals we can have for it, enabling us to get our ideas off of the screen and into our hands. This can take the form of creating a professional looking document or CV through to printing family photos or our computer-generated artwork; printers are wonderful things, but many of us find ourselves using them far less than we would like because of the prohibitive costs of ink cartridges.

Though they cost far less now than they did several years ago when it was noticeably cheaper to buy a new printer than replace the cartridges, they can still be a fairly large outlay. There are a variety of options on the market to help save money when the time comes to replace them, including buying compatible units which are made to the same specification as the manufacturer-endorsed brand but often costing less due to the lack of branding. There is also the option of buying recycled units or simply refilling the ink yourself.

Home refill kits are an excellent investment if you want to really save money on replacing your ink cartridges - they are the cheapest option on the market and are kind to the environment as there is less waste generated by re-using your cartridge than buying a new one. However, they can be difficult to use cleanly if the user is new to the idea of replacing the ink.

The most important tip when refilling your ink cartridges is to always ensure that you are carrying out the operation over some newspaper or old towels - if something goes wrong, they can make a lot of mess and ink is very difficult to get out of carpet. If you get some on your hands, wash them with soap first to remove any oils, and then use a mild mix of bleach and water to remove the remnants of it.

Though most printers will complain about their cartridges running low a fair while before they actually run out, this is a good thing if you plan on refilling them yourself as if a printer cartridge is allowed to run completely empty, the resistors which govern each jet can burn out, making your cartridge useless.

Although ink cartridges only have a finite lifespan and will only last for so many refills before a new unit must be purchased, refilling your printer cartridges is an excellent way of saving money and saving the environment by cutting down on waste.

Thomas Pretty is a computer peripherals expert with many years of experience dealing with printers. Find out more about ink cartridges at http://www.inksave.co.uk/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.