HP Deskjet Refill not working

[Digitalis]

I have a HP deskjet 840C printer, a couple of months ago my ink ran out in the colour cartridge (HP 6625A).

A mate has already refilled some cartridges with a kit he bought from a superstore (not HP, as these cartridges are supposedly not refillable). There is no hardware needed for the refill to work (some printers require a flashing unit to refresh the chip on the cartridge).

He has refilled many HP printers such as mine, including his own a few times (HP Deskjet 845C) and there has never been a problem.

But for some reason, only the red ink is working on mine, but sometimes, if I shake the cartridge for ages, then the blue and yellow might work for a bit.

The cartridges are full to the brim, but nothing doing, I don't want to go out and pay HP extortionate amounts of cash just for a cartridge, when you can get a printer for just a few quid more.

A strange thing though, is, after I formatted my pc not so long back, I printed a test page after I installed the printer, and this printed perfectly. (This page is of an Asian woman, some flowers etc.)

Immediatley after that, it stopped working again.

Help Please.

Dig.


__________________
Duron 800, MSI KT7 Turbo 2 (MS-6330), Seagate 40Gb, 512 Mb PC133, Elsa Ge-Force nVidia MX 32Mb, Windows 98se

 

[mudskipper]

Have you tried letting the cartridge sit on a warm, wet towel (not the nice towel if you are married) so that the heads will be freed of any dried ink? If that is not it, then you may have air bubbles in your cartridge.

When filling, it is possible to get air bubbles. These bubbles do not always work their way out of the cartridge themselves just by sitting there. When you shake the cartridge, you could be:
A) causing some ink to shift into a position that is good for printing.
B) create more air bubbles, ensuring that the problem comes back.

When my HP 970 cxi refilled cartridge did this, I was able to work around it. I made sure that the holes I had put in the top of the cartridge were sealed VERY well (of course, I removed the seals when I was done messing with the cartridge). Next, I flipped the cartridge up-side-down (although you are really not supposed to do this) for about 1/2 hour. I then rotated the cartridge (don't remember which way), let it sit. I rotated again so it was upright and let it sit. After that, I ran it through a few good cleanings...everything was fine.

If your color cartridges need to be sealed, then you might not have a good seal on the cartridge (my black is that way, and it was a bit of a pain).

I hope that this helps--but of course I take no responisibility if your cartridge dies or spills ink on the guest towels ;-) Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"