| Is it just me or is everything getting smaller in | | | | quite a difference from 4.5ml's don't you think? |
| life? From the latest nano-gadget to the humble | | | | Physically filling a cartridge with ink is one thing, |
| Mars bar smaller seems to be better these | | | | making it work in the printer is another, pleased |
| days...or is it? One thing that has got smaller, and | | | | with the progress so far we then took the |
| not for the better is the HP printer cartridge and | | | | cartridge to our test bed of printers, the printer |
| the level of ink that is in it. We are constantly | | | | we chose to test it on was the HP Photosmart |
| looking to add value for our customers so we | | | | C4480. After a quick clean of the circuitry we |
| decided to run some tests on the ink levels of | | | | popped it in the printer and waited it for it to |
| original ink cartridges and how they stand against | | | | finishing whirring, whilst we waited the |
| our own remanufactured cartridges. We will be | | | | conversations between our technicians were "will |
| running more tests on other printer cartridges but | | | | it actually print so heavy with ink?" "Can the |
| on this occasion we are looking at the HP 350 | | | | sponge hold the extra ink without a flood of ink |
| CB335EE standard ink level cartridge. | | | | on the page?" The printer was ready so it's time |
| Here is how we did it | | | | to find out. We ran off pages of our black test |
| We started by removing the top of an empty | | | | sheet on DRAFT, NORMAL and HIGH dpi setting |
| HP350 genuine ink cartridge. After removing the | | | | and the result was good news, the cartridge didn't |
| top we found a single chamber filled with a square | | | | leak on the page and it showed no problems |
| shaped hydrophobic sponge. The sponge is used | | | | carrying the extra ink. The print was just as crisp |
| to hold the ink until the print head calls for it when | | | | and sharp as the same cartridge filled with HP's |
| printing. When removing the sponge and | | | | recommended 4.5ml. Hp guide lines on actual |
| examining it the first thing we noticed was that | | | | pages per cartridge are based on 5% coverage |
| the ink level where the OEM ink had been only | | | | with the printer set on Default or Normal mode. |
| covered less than a quarter of the sponge from | | | | To test this HP 350 we used our specially |
| the bottom upwards, the top ¾ of the | | | | designed test page that has coverage of around |
| sponge was totally ink free and clean. HP spec's | | | | 80% to check the cartridge at high level output, |
| state that the HP 350 cartridge has 4.5ml of ink | | | | the print was clean and consistent without any |
| inside, we have a hunch that this is more related | | | | lines. |
| to price than the physical cartridge capabilities and | | | | Now that we had discovered that the cartridge |
| to prove our point we decided to see just how | | | | can physically hold more ink the question is how |
| much ink we could get into the hp 350 without | | | | long our maxi filled HP 350 will last compared to |
| flooding the sponge and affecting its hydrophobic | | | | the original? We continued to run tests but this |
| properties. | | | | time we adjusted our Photosmart printer to |
| We started with a bunch of empty original HP 350 | | | | match the settings quoted in HP's guidelines and |
| CB335EE cartridges that had been used only once, | | | | Suprise! Suprise! we found that our |
| using one of our vacuum filling machines we set | | | | remanufactured/refilled cartridge lasted on |
| about filling cartridges at different levels of ink and | | | | average 3 to 4 times longer than the HP original |
| vacuum rates, we steadily increased the ink levels | | | | ink cartridge. Our conclusion was that just as we |
| until we overfilled cartridges and then worked | | | | thought the HP's 4.5ml of ink in the HP 350 is |
| backwards until we found the optimum limits | | | | more about money! We found that recently |
| without compromising the ink cartridges | | | | emptied HP 350 when filled with the correct ink |
| functionality. Our test showed that between 18 | | | | formula under the correct vacuum conditions |
| and 20ml of ink, yes 18 to 20ml! (Depending on | | | | produces unrivalled quality equal to the (OEM) |
| the vacuum and vent rate) could be safely added, | | | | original brand. |