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Shake your printer cartridge for maximum value

As you probably know, Clark hates to waste things. He had been using the same pair of headphones in the studio since the '90s. Even though they were old and ratty, he used them until the end of their life. Now he has a new pair, so don't be surprised if he's able to hear you callers a little bit better! Likewise, he holds onto clothes long after they should be thrown away or given to charity. In fact, his wife has to periodically purge their closet and make the old threads "disappear."

Clark read a TechWorld.com report about how manufacturers of the cartridges we all use in our printers give you a notice that your cartridge in empty when nearly 60 percent of the ink is still left. If you throw it out at that point, more than half the ink you pay for goes unused! So when your computer tells you replace to the cartridge, instead just pull it out and shake it. You'll probably get several weeks more use out of it. After all, manufacturers have a clear financial incentive to shortchange you and make you buy more of their product. What you pay to print per page skyrockets if you throw that cartridge out or recycle it too early. Multi-ink cartridges are the worst because they have individual ink banks for up to three or four colors. Any one of them can run out before the others do. Another way to save money on ink cartridges is to get them refilled. Manufacturers hate it when you do this. Studies haven't yet shown decisively if the refilled ink is good quality or not. So just shake it up, baby! Samsung is one of the few companies that makes printers with a toner saver button that can reduce the amount of ink you use per page by 40 percent. Over time, that becomes a great savings.

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What others are saying

  • refill cartridges
    wallgreens refills black ink cartidges for $10.00 and color for $15.00 and if you check there sales papers they often offer free refills have been using them for about a year now and no problens.
  • I Know of a great place to get refill cartridges.
    There is a refill store called cartridge world that refills cartridges including laser cartridges. They are great and im not saying this just because I work there. Im saying it because it helps the pocketbook and the enviroment. If your not 100% happy then you get your money back.
    Don't take my word for it! look up your local cartridge world and call to see what they offer.
    There are many Metro Atlanta locations.
  • INK
    A printing preference you can choose on your computer is to print in gray scale, so it does not print it as dark as it normally would. This is perfectly adequate for all printing, by the way.
  • INK
    HP has recently done two things, one good, one bad. The Good: First, HP now offers XL carts in 74/75 series and the 88 series. These xl's cost 2x as much but offer 3x to 4x more ink. More Good: All printers HP sells now come with full carts whereas other brands come only with starter carts. The Bad: Hp has microchips in the carts that disable the carts after they have been empty. This makes it so people cannot refill the carts. Staples has stopped refilling Hp carts because they dont work alot of the time. Lexmark has a dirty secret also. When you insert a lexmark cart into the printer, it breaks a seal not present in any other brand of printer. This seal makes lexmark ink dry out in a few months. Lexmark makes their money like this. walk into a retail store, look for a lexmark on display. Lexmarks are in stacks to give away free with computers.
  • ink cartridge
    Buy only printers with seperate black cartridge. Print everything you can with only black and use a refill kit for the black - first weight a full one then when low, refill it to the same weight. Never let the cartridge run out, because it will dry up.
  • Shake the ink cartridge
    I bought a hp multipass from goodwill. machine works ok, but cartridges has dates embedded and will stop working if cartridge is not used up before date embedded. do not like this.
  • shake the ink cartridge
    Not sure if Clark is the moron or me -- (got a feeling it's me), but be sure to put your finger over the ink opening before you shake. Yeah -- you can imagine what happened. LOL!

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