Ink Cartridge Refilling Troubleshooting
Find some good advice and information when you have refilled the ink in your printer cartridge and have got the odd issue when you want to print.
PLEASE NOTE: Successful refilling and printing is simply down to the reliability of your own existing cartridge, we are just supplying the equipment to refill YOUR cartridge with ink. We can take no responsibility to the cartridge condition unless this is sold by us.
Most common issues when refilling HP and Canon inkjet cartridges
1 – Poor or No print on the page
2 – Missing Print or colours
3 – Cartridge Not detected
4 – Dirty Coloured Print
5 – Ink shows low or empty
6 – Ink Leaking from the cartridge into the printer
We will look at these issues one by one and explain why these problems will and can occur.
POOR PRINT, MISSING PRINT or MISSING COLOURS (Points 1 and 2)
If your existing ink cartridge has been left empty for a period of time, the ink left on print head will dry up and will also dry further into the print head holes stopping ink from travelling from inside the chamber of the cartridge. As the print head holes are extremely small (see image below) it is very easy for this to occur which can happen even quicker if you have your printer stored in a warm environment or near a radiator.
If you perform a print head test page, you will be able to see which colour is blocked.
CARTRIDGE NOT DETECTED or NOR RECOGNISED (Point 3)
When you reinstall your printer cartridge after refilling and you see the message “Ink cartridge not detected” or “Ink Cartridge not recognised” the usual reasons are:
1 – Poor connection between the printer cartridge and the printer connection
This can usually be cured by cleaning the contacts on the cartridge using a lint free cloth to clear dirt from the contact pads. If this doesn’t work, you will find that the cartridge may have deeper indents which are causing issues to connect the printer to the cartridge, this is not something that can be easily fixed unless you have access to solder paste equipment and are fully competent and experienced in repairing contact pads.
2 – Cartridge chip is corrupt / damaged / passed its useable life
If you still receive the same problem after cleaning the contacts, then this could be down to a fault within the cartridge chip inside, if this is the case there is nothing you will be able to do. The chips are programmed for single use however they do work when refilling and isn’t common that they will fail, but they can fail depending upon the chip reliability.
Adventurous tip…..there is another option. You can purchase new chip overlays which look similar to these contacts, you simply stick and apply them to the existing ink cartridge contacts and you are then able to use the cartridge which will also show ink levels. These are available online.
DIRTY COLOURED PRINT
If you experience a dirty colour print on your paper after refilling your ink cartridge, the chances are that you have either:
1 – Refilled ink into the incorrect hole
2 – Overfilled and ink has over flowed into the other coloured chambers
If either of these has happened, there is no easy fix, you will need to discard your cartridge and send for recycling where it can be cleaned and brought back into life.
Adventurous tip…..If you are feeling adventurous then it is possible (with all the correct tools) to remove the cap on the top of the cartridge, remove all internal sponges and discard correctly, internally clean all chambers ensuring that all the print head is fully cleaned. Purchase new internal sponges and you can either use the same cap and glue, or refit an aftermarket cap. This should get you back up and running, but it is a lot of work and you will need to make sure this is done 100% correctly.
INK SHOWS LOW OR EMPTY
When refilling an old ink cartridge with a chip, it will always show empty as the chip is only programmed for single use. You can simply follow the steps below for HP ink cartridges:
Adventurous tip…..there is another option. You can purchase new chip overlays which look similar to these contacts, you simply stick and apply them to the existing ink cartridge contacts and you are then able to use the cartridge which will also show ink levels. These are available online.
INK LEAKING OUT OF THE CARTRIDGE INTO THE PRINTER
Ink will only leak out of the cartridge if it has been overfilled, as we mention in the instructions you should always air on the side of caution when adding ink into your cartridge. The simple reason is no one will actually know the full exact amount of ink that may be left inside the cartridge and so this is why you should always take care when refilling the ink.
As per instructions, we always advise to leave the ink cartridge out of the printer for a few hours prior to reinserting. This gives time for any overfilled ink to drain clear of the cartridge and not cause any damage to your printer.
If this happens then, there is unfortunately no quick solution other than simply clean it up!