We all know printer ink is crazy expensive for the amount of ink in a cartridge. So I went to my local shopping centre and a girl there refilled the black ink cartridge. But the printer doesn't recognize it, says there is no cartridge. This must be related to what looks like a chip on the cartridge. I couldn't get into a big conversation with the girl as she only speaks Chinese, and my Chinese is very basic.

This is an HP 1050 Deskjet. Is there a way to reset the chip? Or get the printer working with the refilled cartridge?

I heard in some printers that it will "default" to use the cartridge if you pull the chip off.

**DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK - I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY**

That, didn't work! But the girlfriend is checking out the internet, here we use taobao.com a lot to buy things. If we send them the old cartridge, they will send us a new 'old one' ie refilled, and modified so that it can be refilled again and again.

If I just buy the new cartridge, the inks turns out to cost around $600 a litre!! Liquid gold!

The only real solution is to reduce your printing. The second best solution is to get a dot matrix. The ink for them is like $5 but the printer costs a lot.

Yeah, you're right. And I really don't print much. But now and again I have to, and I am not organized enough to prepare everything a week in advance and send it to the central printing office. Anyway, the girlfriend found a company on taobao.com. We sent them the empty cartridges, and they will send us refillable cartridges and ink. 125 RMB for b/w and colour plus I think 120ml of ink. Last time I bought a b/w cartridge it was 95 RMB!

What is wrong with google??

Dot Matrix???!!!!---You have got to be kidding.

If you are doing routine B&W printing, then you want a laser printer. Ink jets are for color printing (but color lasers are getting VERY good). For me, the only really good reason for ink jet is photo-quality printing---for that they are one of the best possible choices. In printing photos, you either live with cost of ink or you learn to refill cartridges----Or you get a continuous-feed system.

http://www.jrinkjet.co.uk/download-instructions.html

Basically it says that each cartridge has a serial number, and the printer reads it and keeps it in memory. It will allow the cartridge to run for 2 years, and then it will stop recognizing it. They suggest that you rotate 4 cartridges as the printer can only keep 3 in memory at once. I have no idea if this works.

Ink is the most expensive liquid. However, I will not get a laser printer. The toner vaporizes and is toxic ... you can smell it.

For B&W, I think it's just carbon---color Laser, I don't know. OTOH, ink for an inkjet printer I am quite sure is toxic. This said, I've never heard any kind of health concern for either type of printing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_...y_health_risks

I don't know of any health risks of inkjet printers ... except of course if you drink the ink.

Interesting---given the proliferation of Laser printers, I wonder why we don't hear more about this?

The modification is just hacking the chip on the ink wells.

Yeah, its insane these days with printers....the pruinters are sold at low/zero/negative profit levels, the manufacturers plan on making the money on ink refills. Which is one reason why they started putting chips onto the ink wells.

BTW, this is a cute idea-

http://wordswithmeaning.org/review-r...#axzz1r31ccZLB

Various reasons.

Laser printer fumes are not healthy:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4122050AAxbw5o

But unless you do vast amounts of printing in a small room, I wouldn't worry. Our homes are full of toxins these days. There was a case earlier this year of a woman who put her budgerigar's cage in the kitchen and it died: fumes from hot non-stick pans, of all things!

Yes, the teflon pans. Well, I don't have any teflon pans, only ceramic and stainless steel. Come on now, are you just gonna give up and let them poison you ? I will never give up the fight, not till I'm dead. Research everything in your home and throw away all that is toxic to you in its use, and of course only buy non-toxic items. I don't consider inkjet printers toxic, because I have not seen any articles on it, and I don't contact the ink, and it doesn't vaporize like the laser printer dust. However, that doesn't mean they are completely safe until they are well tested. They seem to be the safest option so far.

The micro chips on the ink cartridges do seem to be a bit of a scam. Rip off the customer. Can't be entirely legal.

Did you read about the Epson printers which had an obsolescence chip in them? A Russian guy wondered what the chip was doing, and found out how to reset it, then your 'broken' printer worked again! Now that really can't be legal! This was a while ago, maybe they stopped that now. As someone above said, a simple printer is so dirt cheap, the companies must have just said 'we'll make 'em pay through the nose for the ink.' If I buy 8 black ink cartridges say in the supermarket here in China, I have paid as much as I paid for the printer. Seems disproportionate!

Here the local printing shops all use the system mentioned above, Rihac, with tubes going to large reservoirs of ink. They do all seem to use Epson printers too, maybe they are easier to modify.

Well, is it legal to sell a computer without a choice of OS? Is it legal to sell cars without giving the customer full access to the computer diagnostics?
Yes--all these things are legal...

With printers at least, there is good competition and there are choices. But it's no secret that they make their money on ink and toner.