Sometimes when you refill a HP or Lexmark cartridge you get the dreaded message "Cartridge Not Recognized". What does this mean? It recognized the cartridge before I refilled it!
HP and Lexmark have the print heads right on the cartridge and if you'll notice there is some circuitry on the side which also has electrical contacts that connect the print head to the printer. There are many contact points that must be made between the cartridge and the printer. If the connection isn't perfect you will get the error message.
There are a couple of things you can do to rectify this. First try snapping the cartridge in and out a few times. If that doesn't work remove the cartridge and clean off the foil contacts with a Q-Tip dampened with alcohol.
Be careful not to wipe the nozzles, where the ink comes out, or you might contaminate the ink inside the cartridge.
Before you put the cartridge back in use another Q-Tip dampened with alcohol and clean off the contacts inside your printer where the cartridge connects.
Some printers will be difficult and keep giving you the error message, orwill report wrong ink levels in the ink monitor. In this case turn the printer off and unplug it from the wall. Wait about 20 - 30 minutes and try it again.
Also try rotating between 3 different cartridges when refilling. Someprinters remember the last two or three cartridges and can give you problems if you keep installing the same refilled cartridge.
If you have an HP and the printer prints but the ink levels are not right youprobably need to do the "Tape Trick" Follow the links below for the typeof cartridge you are refilling for the correct procedure.
HP cartridges #'s 15, 45, 78http://www.repeatotype.com/instructions/HPReset.pdf
HP cartridges #'s 56, 27http://www.repeatotype.com/instructions/HP56Reset.pdf
HP cartridges #'s 57, 28http://www.repeatotype.com/instructions/HP57Reset.pdf
Having Fun With The Printer Support Techs
Many years ago when I was a copier technician my boss would always tell us to push our companies supplies, paper, toner etc.. Of course they wanted to sell more supplies and make more money but their techniques were very questionable. Just like printers you could go out and purchase generic supplies and some worked better than others naturally. Well the supplies that we sold were also mostly generic, however, they were branded with our companies name and logos. Here's where the sneakiness comes in. When a customer complained about a repair cost estimate we were told to blame it on their inferior generic supplies and to further that the repair would have been much cheaper if they were using our over-priced supplies.
My Printer Died - An Epitaph
My printer just died. My Epson C60 that I've had for almost 2 years was my buddy. I loved that printer. It was there for me through thick and thin. Sure it had it's quirks and idiosyncrasies like not printing when my office temperature dropped to 17 degrees because I forgot to turn the thermostat up one bitterly cold morning. I had to open the lid and point a ceramic space heater inside to thaw it out.
When Is Black Not Black?
Did you notice how many different black inks there are available? At last count we have forty different black inks listed on our web site. You may be wondering how many shades of black can there be? Well there are actually different shades of black which I will explain in a bit.
