The half-price remanufactured inkjet cartridges are very tempting to try, since I go through about 1 set of cartriges every month, and the $18 compared to $30 would be great savings better spent elsewhere! Just wondered if anybody ever tried these, and how they work.

Photo prints are what I am especially worried about, since I need excellent quality.

Glock,
I, too am interested.  I just spent $38.00 on a black ink replacement cartridge for my HP PSC 500.  Far too much $$$$$$$$$$$
Mike, NY

poll added

I have used the ink re-fills, but never heard of remanufactured ones. Would like to know myself.

Haven't tried reman inkjet cartridges, but
I've tried doing refills on an epson inkjet. The first one worked ok, but the ones after that didn't work right and screwed up the printer.

Stay away from remanufactured laserjet cartridges though. I tried 2 different brands and both were screwed up. One of them had a scratch on the transfer roller and leaked toner.

btt

I bought two remanufactured color cartridges for my Lexmark Z52. Total waste of money, the red on one cartridge was all dried up, and the other didn't work at all. YMMV

Been using the refill it yourself kit on my Canon printer for nearly a year.  Took me a couple of go rounds to get the hang of how much to use, but it works fine now.

Cost me about $2.50 to refill the cartridge, compared to $12-18, for preloaded jobs.  

I don't care how much I save, I'm too lazy to screw around with refurbed, refilled or otherwise remanufactured ones, much less the refill kits.

If they truly "remanufactered" the ink cartridges they would cost as much as new ones. What they are actually selling are "refilled" items. They can pressure check the ink bladders inside the cartridges to make sure they are not leaking, but thats all they do. Air trapped inside the nozzle plate at the bottom of the cartridge causes "dry firing" which damages or kills the cartridge. Depending on which technology is used, most small throw away inkjet printers have a cartridge that uses a crystal to fire the ink drops and it is easily damaged by dry firing. Most manufacturers sell the inkjet printers at no profit, they make their money on selling the OEM supplies for them. While the printers can be repaired, the labor rate and parts will cost as much or more as the printer itself. Most die from no surge protection. Laser cartriges are a coin toss too, most local guys "drill and fill" and will call it a remanufactured. The drill and fills are just that, they do not replace seals, cleaning blades or drums. A quality remanufactured laser cartridge done properly will cost almost as much as OEM. Most will reuse seals and cleaning blades which can fail and dump toner into the print engine. The toner can migrate to the fusing unit and contaminate the fuser which will need to be replaced. Sometimes they bind up and because the printer drive gears are plastic, they break. This can be expensive and can easily eat up the "savings" on using the local drill and fills or the cheaply remanufactured laser cartridges. If you demand high quality from your inkjet go OEM, if quality is not a concern, most refills will work fine. If you are using a high dollar inkjet plotter I would not use refills, if the contacts are damaged you can easily damage a carrier PCB. The repairs and price of a new carrier will be very high. If you blow the carrier on your small inkjet printer, you will be shopping for a new printer. Like anything else in life, you get what you pay for.

I've tried reman cartridges from a few different makers. On every one, color sucked by comparison to factory and they needed constant nozzle cleaning. No more for me.

If you have an ink jet I do not recommend refilling, or refurb cartridges, they just don't work well and it's worth causing problems on your printer.  If you print enough that the price is an issue, then you print enough to need good quality new cartridges.

When talking lasers.....don't ever use refurb cartridges.  Lasers are much more expensive printers and are definitely worth not causing problems with.  I have seen nothing but problems with refurb cartridges in laserjets.  BTW, if you use an HP laserjet, they make their cartridges with a patented toner that no refurb will have.  Not that other toner won't work, but it's not the HP toner, that's for sure.

Mike

Does Dillon have a machine for this??
Seriously, at work they bought remanufactured laserjet cartridges, and they weren't worth a shit.  The green roller, even just out of the box, would have places where it was indented and there were lines of ink imbedded, which meant you got lines on the paper, too.  And it didn't go away, so somehow it kept  picking up toner.

I'm with Kar98, it just ain't worth the hassle, and I'm a do-it-yourself junkie.