Where to order ink cartriges

[RedHawk]

I need to buy ink cartridges for my printer. I normally refill them, but I let them dry out too much so refilling didn't work. Where do you guys order your ink from?

 

[TromboneAl]

I use Abacus24-7 Printer Ink Cartridges, Toner for Dell, Epson, Canon, HP .

Note that from now on I'll stick to the name brand cartridges (e.g. HP), since I've had reliability problems with the third-party brands.

Note that there are procedures for reviving dried out cartridges, mostly involving holding them against paper towels that have warm water on them, and using the "cleaning" cycle on the printer.

 

[RedHawk]

I ended up buying a new printer. A new version of my Dell All in One was on sale for $50 with free shipping so I went ahead and bought one. The new cartridges from Dell cost $70. Go figure.

 

[rocketdog]

I recently ordered from theprinterinkwarehouse.com. They were cheap, fast delivery, and not a lot of extra packaging. They seem to be lasting OK so far.

 

[packrat44]

I just now refilled my color cartridge. Very messy. The seals on the bottles had leaked.

When I have let my HP cartridges get too dry, I have purchased new on-line from Office Depot. They had the best prices and no-cost delivery within 2 days.

 

[skyline]

I get mine at abcink.com

For my printer, it works out to about $2/cartridge when purchased in 8 packs.

I've gone through about a dozen so far, and they're all good...

 

[Brat]

No complicated process in my household: always have one replacement on the shelf. If the printer is a golden oldie then two on the shelf. We have a Brother lazer that is at least 12 years old and we love it. Cartridges will be an issue next year but gosh how we love this dinosaur.

 

[AzDreamer]

Printers are almost given away and the profit is in the ink refills. I bought a Canon that uses individual ink cartriges and buy ink at ink4art.com. Five years and still no problems

 

[Goonie]

We have a Canon, an Epson, a Lexmark, and a HP. And I usually buy ink wherever I can find it on sale or with coupons and/or discounts. Staples, Amazon, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, and (most often) at our locally owner office supply store. The office supply carries both branded and generic cartridges, and the only difference that I can see between them is the price!

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

We stopped trying to refill long ago. (HP ink was always dear.)

We use Carrot Ink ("Save a bunch!"):
Home Page - Carrot Ink

Fast delivery, no problems ever with our Canons, Brother, HP, etc. We buy so much, they gave us free t-shirts one year.

 

[martyb]

Carrot Ink

I like the looks and prices of the Carrot Ink site, I'll be giving them a try tomorrow. Thanks for the link. My Epson Stylus Color 880 seems to be a bit thirstier than my previous Epson, I wonder if it's designed to be that way on purpose? I guess my conspiracy-theorist side is showing, huh?

 

[RedHawk]

We use Carrot Ink ("Save a bunch!"):
Home Page - Carrot Ink

Ed, do you order new cartridges or use the mail system where they refill your old cartridge for you?

 

[ERD50]

I like the looks and prices of the Carrot Ink site, I'll be giving them a try tomorrow. Thanks for the link. My Epson Stylus Color 880 seems to be a bit thirstier than my previous Epson, I wonder if it's designed to be that way on purpose? I guess my conspiracy-theorist side is showing, huh?

Often, a newer printer prints in a finer mode than the old and uses much more ink in the process.

Try setting the 'quality' a step or two lower for non-critical stuff. Much faster, too.

I've bought ink carts from various places, most recently inkandbeyond.com and inkjetmadness.com.

I'm trying to buy some more of these old canon printers that take the BCI21/24 carts. The carts are $1.50 each, I get about 200-300 pages from a pair of 'em. And, you can swap out a print head on these canons for $45, no tools.

They don't make printers like that anymore, as far as I can tell. But they go for big bucks on ebay now, because they are cheap to use if you know about the cheap ink and printheads.

I paid ~ $70 for my iP2000 a couple years ago, I see them go for $200 now .

I sure wish someone would make a cheap, workhorse printer for documents (I send photos out) with un-chipped, cheap carts and that is serviceable. Lasers are too big/heavy still.

-ERD50

 

[BUM]

Like everyone else, I was spending way too much on ink. I tried Ebay seller "yes-embiz" based in Holmdel, NJ.
Fine product
Fast service
Excellent pricing for my HP needs

I compared Carrot ink...these guys are cheaper.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

rjpatt,

Sorry, I didn't say.

We just order them and they come. No exchanges necessary.

They also used to post a study on their web site rating printers. We used that when shopping. Haven't looked for a while, though.

 

[ERD50]

carrot wants about 4x what I've paid at inkandbeyond and inkjetmadness for ink for canon printers (BCI-24 and BCI-21 carts).

-ERD50

 

[mathjak107]

i tried a refilled ink cartride from an internet supplier and the damn thing clogged the epson printer hoplessly. i only use manufacturers ink now regardless of how cheap refills are. i tried the staples ones too and had a failure out of the box.

 

[jazz4cash]

i tried a refilled ink cartride from an internet supplier and the damn thing clogged the epson printer hoplessly. i only use manufacturers ink now regardless of how cheap refills are. i tried the staples ones too and had a failure out of the box.

Yeah, we have 2 hps and I have tried refilled cartridges from Office Depot a few times, but they seem to quit working before all the ink is gone. They offer $3 core credit or a free ream of paper, but I usually forget to bring the empty along. I just found out how liberal thier core credit program is....they will offer the credit even if you are not purchasing a new cartridge at that time and even provide a store credit for upto 3 or 4 cartridges at a time.

I also wanna check out the Walgreen's program which is refill while you wait and I think its 10 for black or 15 for color.

 

[ERD50]

i tried a refilled ink cartride from an internet supplier and the damn thing clogged the epson printer hoplessly. i only use manufacturers ink now regardless of how cheap refills are. i tried the staples ones too and had a failure out of the box.

I my experience, and many others, I don't see anything that points to these 3rd party cartridges as a a problem.

I just looked at my canon, iP2000 - i jot down the date inside the cover every time I change a cartridge. Over 2.5 years, 20 carts used. On average, replacing the pair (one color, one black) every 3 months. According to the notes on my box of paper, I average about 80 printed pages a month.

These are the cheapest of the cheap that I find from what appear to be reputable places. About $1.50-$2.00 a cart. Never a major clog on this machine. Have run the cleaning cycle a few times to clear some minor clogs.

My mom has had a canon bubble jet for seven (!) years. MY SIL replaced the print head for her after the first 2 years - this had apparently clogged after using only canon carts. For years now, I've been buying the cheap carts for her, no problems.

Clogs happen. I'm not convinced the cheap carts are a factor.

-ERD50

PS: I have no financial interest in these cheap ink sellers - I just like to save money!

 

[ERD50]

I ended up buying a new printer. A new version of my Dell All in One was on sale for $50 with free shipping so I went ahead and bought one. The new cartridges from Dell cost $70. Go figure.

Read the fine print.

Often, those printers come with 'starter' cartridges with much lower capacity than the refills. You may not be getting $70 worth of ink in that $50 printer.

I'm not a fan of Greenpeace, but I kind of wish they would put some pressure on the consumer printer manufacturers. There sure are an awful lot of printers getting thrown out (recycled hopefully - but still a lot of waste in that process) when they could be perfectly serviceable. The printers could easily be designed for a longer useful life, and with replaceable components (like the print heads in the older canon printers).

-ERD50

PS: I just went to dell and saw that their cheapest current printer is $69.

The all-in-one cart (Black and color in one - stupid, I do a lot of black-only text printing, esp at tax time) is .... $22 !!!!! And no where on their site can I find an estimate of how many pages per cart you can expect. The reviewers on their site talk about it 'drinking ink', but don't give a page figure.

I can buy more than five pairs of color/black carts for my canon for that price!

 

[mickeyd]

I have been using Inkjet and toner cartridges / printer ink refills - InkSell.com for about 4-5 years. Since they have a local store near us, I have yet to order online.

My cost for a single inkjet b/w Cannon BJ (BC-02)cartridge at OfficeMax was about $25. My cost for my last visit it inksell was about $9, however that provided me with 9 refills. My per unit cost is around $1 each. This a damn-site better than $25, but I still ask them about discounts and sales etc that they always have (i.e. military discounts) to try to save even more $.

 

[VoyT]

Do you have an Office Max nearby? They will take up to 5 used cartridges (any brand) at $3 credit per cartridge...

I've also used 123inkjets.com, though I notice they now have a $55 minimum order before you get free shipping.

 

[martyb]

Follow Up

I'm sold on Carrot Ink now. Good prices, fast service and the product seems high quality. So far, so good!

 

[TromboneAl]

though I notice they now have a $55 minimum order before you get free shipping.

And be careful about ordering extra cartridges to meet this -- they have a limited shelf life (1-2 years).

 

[perinova]

Steer clear from Omnipro. You may wait more than a month to get delivered a refurb. cartridge. The cartridge in turn will not work that good and you will have to throw it away.
Happened to me last year I had to file a complaint to get my cartridges after I got several "It's in the mail" customer service answers..
PN