Refilling you own printer ink cartridges is an economical and environmentally conscious way of interacting with technology. While it can be tricky at first, with practice it can become a messless and hassle-free activity that will save you money and eliminate a source of waste in your home office. If you want to refill a Dell cartridge, all you need is a refill kit, some paper towels and a butter knife.

Refilling the cartridge

Because it will most likely be messy, especially the first time, lay out a thick layer of paper towels. If you're afraid the ink will bleed all the way through, lay the paper towels on a sheet of cardboard. Also have a few wet paper towels on hand in case of a spill. It's much easier to clean up when it's wet,, but be careful not to smear when cleaning. Dab it with a dry paper towel and then a wet one. Place the empty ink cartridge on the towels and pry the lid off with the butter knife. It just takes a little bit of pressure; the knife is mostly so your hands don't get covered in ink. Feel free to wear latex gloves. Fill the syringe from the refill kit with between 3 and 5 ml of ink. If you overfill a cartridge, you will have a mess on your hands, and underfilling will cause your printer to misread the ink capacity. Insert the syringe all the way into the sponge in the bottom of the cartridge and squeeze it slowly. There will be multiple chambers; fill them each until the sponge absorbs the ink. When done filling, snap the top back on, wipe the cartridge clean of any excess ink and allow it to sit overnight on the paper towel in case there are any major drips. For different color cartridges, repeat these steps using the different syringes. The chambers of the cartridge should show the different colors you need to fill them, but if you can't identify the color, dip a long needle into the chamber and see what color comes out.

Source:

AtlasCopy.com: The Dell syndrome

More Information:

Printerfillingstation.com: Printer ink refills