How to Refill an HP Ink Cartridge 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 21 59... and more

Today we're going to refill an HP Cartridge. We're going to use this HP PhotoSmart C4795, which uses the HP60 cartridge. We're going to use a minimum of tools, and we're going to show you how to refill it and how to clog it and troubleshoot it. The same method can be used on 61, 62, 63, 65, and other integrated cartridges.

We don't know anything about this printer. We know it has been in luggage for at least- in a suitcase for at least two, three months. Before that, it probably has been in storage for like a year or so. So let's print a page. This is as good as new. For the first-time refill, we suggest this kit, EZ30-T. It can be found at bchtechnologies.com and the refill kit for HP. You can see the EZ30-T.

Some of you might buy at the ID30-KCMY, which is the same as EZ-T but without the priming clip. Don't panic. This video will also show you how to use ID30 and ID30-KCMY without a priming clip. The ID30 can be bought from BCH Technologies. Then, you go to refill ink instead of a refill kit. You go to refill ink for HP. The quickest way you can select the total ink volume is 120 mil. Which bring you-- You'll either can do ID30-KKK, which is three-- K means black. It means three black ink or an ID30-KCMY, which is black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. It's black plus colors. Those don't have a clip again, but you need a clip to do this.

Let's unpack a complete kit EZ30-T. You'll have a black clip called a priming clip; then, you have two silicon pads. The blue pads, one is for color, one is for black. Then you have a syringe. Because you have spring bottles. You don't need a syringe to add ink. This syringe is for the clip. Then you have four bottles of ink. The ink is precisely what you would have got if you get an ID30 kit, like ID30-KKK or ID30-KCMY. There are also some toothpicks on the equipment. The toothpicks are not for your dental hygienes. Those for poking in the cartridge and seeing what color is in the cartridge.

Now let's take a look at the cartridge. At home, you can use your smartphone to zoom in. This is the best way to check the printer head. On the bottom is the printer head. You can see the blue is leaking, and it has been dried for years. Probably, the blue will give us the most problems. We need to soften the dried ink. We'll fill a bowl with about a quarter to a half-inch of water, and then we put a printer head on it. If you want something more powerful than water, you can go to bchtechnologies.com and go-to accessories. You'll go to the anti-clogging agent. Then we have two kinds of cleaning solutions. One is green, which is a little bit more robust. Another is the transparent color, and it's a little bit cheaper.

The black one is clean, and I don't see any scratching, so that's good. You can use the warm water, or you can heat it with a microwave, I mean, heat the water with a microwave, or you can heat the cleaning solution too. Make it more powerful. There's no set rule how long you need to soak it in. Just soak it and make some prints, see if it works. If it doesn't, come back and soak it up a little more and do more un-clogging. I usually soak about 20 minutes for the first time.

Let me show you the top of the cartridge. You're going to find that there's a dent right on the top for the black in the middle of the cartridge. You're trying to need to poke a hole and add ink from there. Let me show you why. On the inside of the cartridge, here's the sponge which holds the ink. Then, those holes are air-holes. Then, you can see a series of a long chamber that connects the air-hole to outside, which allows the printer cartridge to breathe.

You don't need to get it airtight. We need to add ink to the sponge, and we can use any tape or anything to seal the top. We use the drill bit to punch a hole in the middle. When we insert the needle, we don't want to go too deep. Just penetrate the sponge a little bit. Then we squeeze the bottle seven times. If you see the ink comes out, you can stop and let the sponge soak in a little bit, then do it again.

All right, you can see the black cartridge is completely dried. Even when we add ink, no ink comes out. Here's when we're going to use the priming syringe to unclog it. However, let me show you how to do it without a priming syringe. You get a piece of paper towel and fold it three times. Then, add some water to it. Next, get your hose vacuum cleaner and set it to a hose set. Put the cartridge on the paper towel, wrap it around and use the vacuum hose to suck underneath. Doing it until you see lots of black colors comes out. If you see no color, soak more, and suck more, and repeat.

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Then we'll add a little more ink to compensate for what's been sucking out. Now we work on the color one. I'm going to take the label off, show you, but you can do it over the label. You don't need to peel that off. There are five holes. The top one is one color. The left two holes are one color. The suitable two holes are one color. This is yellow. We get another one to poke in. This one is magenta. We'll do three squeezes for each color. We try to get four contractions in, but three contractions are all it takes in most cases. The ink may come out as soon as you remove the black cap. Just prepare for--

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In this case, we have a piece of tape, cover it, and make sure that you don't seal it airtight. Leave some air space. If you're paranoid as I am, you'll probably want to poke a tiny hole in each one.

Now, let's use the priming clip to illustrate how to unclog with the priming kit. We have two silicon pads. One pad has a more extended slot than the other one. The longer one is for the black cartridge, and the shorter one is for color. We installed the silicon pad on the stand. Some people complain that the rack doesn't fit, "It's too short." It's not too short. It is built our way so that we can have an airtight fit. Put down the stand, push down and press in—press in hard. You will hear a click, and it's in. Use the syringe to create suction from the bottom. The ink should flow out if it's not clogged. Now, you can see that there is a complete clog. There's no ink coming out. Magenta is unclogged.

We're going to soak more and suck a little bit more. We're going to steam it a little bit to open the pores. We're going to use a steamer. If you do not have a steamer, have a steam iron for ironing clothes or have a bowl of boiling water. Just wave it on top of the boiling water, wave it in the steam to open its pores. If your wife or girlfriend has that facial steamer, those can be used too. Just don't tell them about it. We'll put it back to the clip. You can see a little bit the yellow. That's good. We've got magenta and yellow working. Just add a little bit more ink.

We put it back to the printer and see what's the current progress. We already unclogged the magenta and the yellow. You can see we still have a problem with cyan. Because the cyan was leaking, we suspect maybe it's dried inside too. We left the cartridge in the printer for a day to have the inside soften. We took it out, and we're putting the priming clip again and drawing it out. You can see the ink got darker, blacker. That means the cyan starts working.

The refilled cartridge will not show the actual ink levels. They will always show "low ink" or "Ink depleted." When you see the warning say, "The original cartridge has been depleted," click "OK," and the printer will keep printing. Pay attention to the printout. If a color is missing, add more ink. If you have straps, do the unclogging as we did earlier. After we clicked "OK," you can see the ink level of black becomes a question mark. That means the printer will no longer track the ink level so that we can print forever. Just pay attention to the printout quality and add ink as needed.