Sunday, March 28, 2010

Inject water into your printer to get that page printed.

I found an HP Deskjet D2460 that one of my neighbors threw out. I hooked it up to my Ubuntu computer and waited the few seconds for the printer to be recognized. I then threw some paper in the printer and printed a test page. It came out mostly white with a few colored lines here and there. HP 21 and 22 cartridges can be refilled but I was too lazy to go out and get some. I'm also too cheap as I don't want to spend $40 on a piece of trash I found than might not work at all. I went to the kitchen and got a glass of filtered water and went to my toolbox to get a syringe.

I always have a syringe in my toolbox as they come in handy from time to time.

I sucked up about 2cc of water and gently injected it deep into the the sponge in the cartridges.
Once the cartridges were back in the printer I tried printing to see how it did.

Success! The printer prints well enough to do my homework on till it goes dry. Then when I'm feeling not so lazy I can go pick up some more ink.

The inks in these printers are miscible with water and I don't really need all that photo quality I just want to print something sometimes.

6 comments:

  1. I tried this once and it didn't work.

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  2. Success probably depends on ink amount before filling water.

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  3. I wonder if it can work with other liquid like alcohol or another one.

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  4. Would this work for the printer I have? I have black ink in the printer but the color cartridges are empty. The printer keeps complaining that it needs ink in the color cartridges to print in black.

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  5. RE: AC post at August 16, 2010 11:01 AM

    >>The printer keeps complaining that it needs ink in the color cartridges to print in black.

    A lot factors into it. Some printers have computer chips which limit the amount of prints. Some printers have physical sensors to check the ink levels. Some use a page counter.

    It really depends on the make and model of your printer.

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  6. I have tried extending all the colors with water and they all work. Sometimes you have to print a couple of blank pages to get the heads to clear. Also some ink cartridges give up based on the number of pages printed.

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