Epson Refillable Print Cartridge Review

Like most people who run a home office, I am sick of paying the high prices for ink jet cartridges that, with some manufacturers, are not even completely filled when brand new. It would cost me over $50 to replace all the cartridges in my Epson Stylus NX300 printer with brand name cartridges!

In some cases, I have actually thrown out good ink jet printers because it was cheaper to purchase a new printer with the cartridges included. What a waste! With most brand name printers, you can easily refill the cartridges using an aftermarket refill kit. No so with the Epson, they include some form of electronic identifier in each cartridge, once it goes empty the printer remembers it was empty and it will prompt you to replace the cartridge even after being refilled.

Luckily for the consumer, there is a growing market of refillable ink that fit perfectly in these printers. The cartridges include electronics that allow you to reuse it over an over, each time you remove the cartridge from the printer it changes an identifier that makes the Epson printer believe it is a new cartridge.

I have to admit, I was a little skeptical, but as these refillable cartridges that came pre-filled with ink, were less than a third of the price of new Epson cartridges, I figured I would give them a try.

Once ordered, Amazon shipped them to me in two days as I am subscribed to Amazon Prime. I was so excited when they arrived, I immediately tore open the package, removed the cartridges from my printer and installed these refillable ones.

Please make sure you follow the instructions and remove the protective cover from the vents of the cartridges. Failing to do so will create a vacuum in each cartridge and they will not deliver ink. My Epson NX300 immediately identified the refillable cartridges as new and was ready to print. The instructions recommend re-seating the cartridges and cycling power if they are not identified the first time. My initial test print was less than stellar, only the black cartridge was working. The instructions that came with the cartridges recommend performing several cleaning operations after the initial install, it is specified how to do this in the Epson manual. Sure enough, after three cleaning cycles the yellow, magenta, and cyan cartridges were working as well.

Each cartridge has a refill hole on the top and because they are made of transparent plastic, it is easy to see how much ink is left once removed from the printer. I have refilled each cartridge at least once using an Epson aftermarket refill kit and so far so good. Just make sure you remove the cartridges from the printer during the refill process so that the electronics in the cartridge can reset and the printer will think these are new cartridges.

According to the manufacturer, these cartridges also fit these models of Epson printers:

Epson NX400 NX100 NX200 NX300 NX305 NX415 NX115 NX215 NX415 NX515 NX105 WORKFORCE 600 610 40 500 CX7400 CX8400 CX9400 Cx5000 CX6000 CX7000

All in all, I was very satisfied with this product.

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