Universal Refill Kits, The Risks and the Rewards

Everyone would like to shave a few dollars off certain expenses, not the least of which would be printing and printer maintenance. Let's face it, if we look at our list of priorities, printer maintenance will not be at the top of it. This means that we are most likely to grab savings in this area over, let's say, choosing a premium kind of steak for dinner.

But we have to be very aware of the different ways to save that are presented to us, at least as far as printing is concerned. In this post, we will talk about one example – the Universal Refill Kit.

As a concept, the Universal Refill Kit is laudable. As a long-time inkjet printer user, we know only too well how expensive replacing printer cartridges could be. Before we knew better, we were among those who simply replaced cartridges with new ones purchased only from the manufacturer. At one point, we owned an inkjet printer where the cost of the initial replacement of the black and tri-color cartridges cost more than what the entire printer cost us. This is why the fact that you can actually do the refilling yourself for a fraction of the cost in the comfort of your home is an attractive prospect for most people.

Universal refill kits can be purchased in office supply and computer stores, both off the shelf and over the internet. These are mostly said to work for HP, Brother and Dell printers since the cartridges for these brands are generally easier to refill.

The refill process, however, can be tricky. If you do not do it right, you might actually end up damaging your cartridge or your printer, aside from the fact that since the ink that will be provided to you will be of the generic kind, you might not see the same print quality that you used to get. Bottom line is you might end up spending more than what you save.

There is a way to get around this, though, if you are not one of those DIY-types and you are not confident about refilling on your own. You can choose to have your cartridges refilled professionally, which will still cost less than purchasing brand new cartridges. You can also choose to buy refill kits that are made specifically for your printer, so that you are sure that you are doing the right refill process.

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