So there you are. It’s three in the morning and the project that you’re working on is due at 8:30 AM – just three hours from now. It’s finished, perfect! You click on PRINT… and then it happens. The big box opens on your monitor with its flashing ‘Printer Out of Ink’ message. Lucky for you, you decided to pick up one of those ink cartridge refill kits out of curiosity the other day.

With manufacturers selling printers practically at a loss these days, it’s almost less expensive to throw away your printer and pick up a new one when it runs out of ink. The reason they’re priced so low, of course, is so that they can sell you ink cartridges and supplies indefinitely. Industry experts estimate that as much as 60% of the profit made in the imaging market is made on the sale of inkjet and toner cartridges. With that much at stake, the big printer companies obviously have a stake in the success or failure of the ink cartridge refill market.

And several of them have spoken out in no uncertain terms. Lexmark, for instance, has brought suit against a company that sells refilled and remanufactured Lexmark ink cartridge refills, claiming that the company violates its intellectual property rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Their contention has been struck down in two separate courts, but the case isn’t over yet.

Hewlett Packard has brought suit against two companies that sell remanufactured ink cartridge refill cartridges. Their contention is that one company, InkCycle, refills cartridges with ink that violates three patents held by HP. The other company, they say, uses deceptive labeling on their packages. Rhinotek sells recycled and refilled HP ink cartridges, and they want the words USED and REFILLED prominently displayed on the packages. Currently, the only hint of that fact on the Rhinotek packaging is a sentence in small print on the box that states that Rhinotek ‘supports recycling’ and uses recycled parts for its products whenever possible.

Despite the suits, Hewlett Packard insists that they support the right of customers to refill ink cartridges on their own, and that the company will continue to make their ink cartridges refillable. They do, however, use software on some cartridges that makes them unusable either 4 1/2 years after the expiration date, or 2 1/2 years after the original installation dates.

Using an ink cartridge refill kit to refill your ink cartridges will not void the manufacturers’ warranty, according to most major companies. They do, of course, make the point that their own proprietary inks – many of which are developed for use with one specific cartridge style – are higher quality than the far less expensive inks used in most ink cartridge refills.

OEM Canon inkjet cartridges are original equipment manufacturers cartridges or genuine cartridges that are manufactured by Canon. A company like Canon make a great proportion of their profits from their printer ink cartridges. Although OEM Canon inkjet cartridges are manufactured specifically for your brand of printer they can be expensive – sometimes more so than the printer itself – but there are alternatives.

One way of reducing the costs of your Canon inkjet cartridges is to purchase compatible cartridges. Compatible cartridges are new cartridges that have been manufactured to meet the same specifications as OEM Canon ink cartridges. They are cartridges that are manufactured by a company other than Canon.

Remanufactured Canon inkjet cartridges are another alternative to OEM cartridges. Remanufactured cartridges are recycled OEM cartridges. They are disassembled to check for faults, then cleaned and refilled with fresh printer ink. They are then tested and repackaged ready for sale.

Another even cheaper alternative to OEM Canon inkjet cartridges is a refill kit. Refill kits are a way of refilling your empty cartridge. There are a number of different refill kits on the market but in general they come with a bottle of printer ink, a syringe and a set of instructions to make the process easy. Cartridges can be refilled a number of times which really saves money.

Click Here to shop for  Remanufactured Canon Inkjet Cartridges

Can Lexmark printer cartridges be recycled? The answer to this is yes but at this stage Lexmark only recycle toner cartridges. Lexmark have been recycling their toner printer cartridges for approximately twelve years and pride themselves on providing work for handicapped and disadvantaged adults who sort the Lexmark printer cartridges for recycling and remanufacture.

Recycling your Lexmark printer cartridges is free which is a great bonus. Lexmark call their recycling program the Lexmark Cartridge Collection Program and the process is quite simple.

Step 1: Always ensure that you keep the original packaging for your Lexmark printer cartridges. This is what you will use to return the empty cartridge. Once you have placed the cartridge in the packaging seal it up with a good packing tape.

Step 2: Inside the packaging of all Lexmark printer cartridges is a prepaid shipping label. Attach the label to the packaging. If you can’t find the label, you can print a copy which can be downloaded from the Lexmark website. Ensure that you complete the return address on the label.

Step 3: Now you are ready to mail the package off to Lexmark.

Once you have mailed off your Lexmark toner cartridge you probably want to purchase a new one. Well don’t look any further.

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Bread, milk, orange juice, salt, printer ink – printer ink? These days, printer ink is just as likely to end up on my grocery staples list as bread, milk and eggs. If I run out of printer ink in the middle of printing out a school project that’s due tomorrow and it’s 2 AM, I can actually run down to the 24 hour supermarket and buy a new printer ink cartridge.

As a writer, I have an intimate relationship with my printer, and hence, so is the printer ink, without which it is useless. My very first printer was an old dot matrix style with a ribbon cartridge that produced letters on paper in the same way that a typewriter does – by striking a shape against an ink-coated ribbon. The shape of the letters is formed by 9 pins (in most standard dot matrix printers). By pushing the right pins forward to strike the paper, the printer can form a wide variety of letter shapes and fonts. Just think of the way that an LED clock forms numbers with lines and you’ll have an idea of how dot matrix actually makes letters using dots. It was noisy, changing the ribbon was messy, and the print quality was terrible.

The advent of ink jet printers in the mid-1980s completely revolutionized the world of desktop publishing and home printing. Ink jet printing uses the same sort of dot matrix as dot matrix printers – only the pins are replaced by tiny nozzles that dispense a drop of ink. Instead of delivering printer ink to the paper by impact, ink jet printers form letters by pushing out drops of ink in a precise pattern and spraying or pressing it onto the paper. The ink is then heated to dry it and ‘fix’ it to the paper. The result is nearly always a clean, sharp printout with near-photographic quality.

Printer ink is the single most expensive part of maintaining your printer. A standard ink cartridge costs between $20 and $50, depending on the make and model of your printer. Most home printers use a cartridge of ink every 2-3 months. If you print more extensively, however, buying printer ink can become quite costly.

Shopping around online is a great way to find discount sources of printer ink – but it does require planning ahead to keep one or two cartridges on hand so you don’t end up running out to the all-night supermarket for printer ink at three in the morning.

Click Here to put Printer Ink on your shopping list

Are you looking for the cheapest printer cartridges possible? Well you can find them on the internet. Printer ink cartridges are expensive and in some cases you can find that the cost of a printer cartridge is as much as the cost of your printer. So you want to be able to buy the cheapest printer cartridges possible and in order to do this you should always shop online.

When we say “buy the cheapest printer cartridges possible” we don’t mean you should buy inferior quality – far from it! You can buy cheap printer cartridges online from high standing merchants who only sell quality products. Many of the merchants you see on the internet have been online for many years and have built up a reputation of excellent customer service.

The reason you can purchase the cheapest printer cartridges online as opposed to buying from a regular store front is that running costs for most online merchants is greatly reduced. They don’t have huge rents to pay and other associated costs that would normally increase the cost of printer cartridges. In other words, you win by getting printer ink at discount prices.

Many printer ink merchants can offer you the cheapest printer cartridges with discounts of up to 80%. This is a huge saving. For even bigger savings, try purchasing more than one printer ink cartridge. Many merchants will provide further discounts if you buy in bulk.

Click Here to shop for the Cheapest  Printer Ink Cartridges

If you are fed up paying high prices for your printer ink cartridges and have decided to look for a discount cartridge replacement then you have come to the right place. Discount cartridges are available online at unbelievable prices.

Like most of us you have probably been paying high prices for ink cartridges in the past. Well you can make the change today and purchase a discount cartridge replacement. Ink cartridges can be expensive. In some cases printer cartridges have been known to be more expensive than the printer itself. By purchasing your ink cartridges online you can save money.

Discount cartridges come in a variety of formats. You can purchase a remanufactured cartridge which is essentially an original OEM cartridge that has been cleaned, refilled and then tested to ensure it meets the same standards as an OEM cartridge.

Another way to purchase a discount cartridge is to purchase a compatible cartridge. Compatible cartridges are new cartridges that are specific to your brand of printer but are not manufactured by your printer supplier. In other words, they are generic brands. They are however much cheaper than OEM cartridges.

Click Here to shop for Discount Printer Ink Cartridges