On 4/28/2018 11:36 AM, none wrote:
Back in November, I posted the following:

"I've run out of black refill ink. The situation's been looming for a
while; there's a Micro Center store in town that used to sell small ink
bottles but they quit a while back (glad I stocked up to get myself this
far). And as everyone knows, you can't find a refill kit these days for
love or money except maybe online.

So...I see where Epson is now selling printers (the Ecotank line) with
bottle-filled tanks as well as the aforementioned bottles. Which piques
my curiosity-has anyone tried using that ink to fill another brand of
cartridge?. I can't imagine no one has. If so, how'd it work out?
Anything I should know beforehand? Does black work better than color or
vice versa, etc.?

Yeah, I know- Ecotank ink is "designed" only to be used in Epsons and
using it in anything else is a cardinal sin for which I shall be
punished by being condemned to live four years in a country where Donald
Trump is president...oh, wait, I'm already there. Anyway, if my
superannuated (i. e., LONG out of warranty) printers truly have nothing
to fear from this stuff I'll plunge ahead. Just want to know now if for
any reason that's not the case."

Anyway, a bunch has happened since then-not the least of which is that a
couple of those superannuated printers have for all intents and purposes
bitten the big one. A belt broke in my HP Officejet 150 and I figured
that after four and a half years it wasn't worth getting fixed even if
HP would have (which it appears they wouldn't). Add to that the fact
that my old reliable Canon BJC-50 has simply stopped putting ink on
paper even with dripping-wet-full cartridges in new printheads,
indicating to me that something electronic has gone south and won't ever
come back north again. Oh, well-18 years was more than my money's
worth, and who really needs to print from Windows 95 or on a computer
with a parallel port anymore?

So...off to the nearest store offering the HP Officejet 150's successor,
the 250, on sale. No problems for the first couple of months but
finally the black "setup" cartridge supplied with it gave out. No
better time to see what happens when you try Epson ink in an HP, I
guessed. Afraid I got off to a false start, injecting it into the wrong
hole (use one at the FRONT of the cartridge if you try this; the back
ones don't go anywhere but the ink will spill back out and make messes
all over) but after a decent interval she's printin' again, captain, and
looks pretty good, quality-wise. Naturally HP will try to claim this as
a cause if another belt breaks, but at $80 for a set of 62XL black and
color cartridges, I'll take my chances.

Any issues with cartridge chips.

I just bought a Brother laser because those were the only ones I found
without chips and with cheap Chinese toner cartridges. At $7.50 for toner
carts, not much need to refill 'em.

I got a free Brother MFC-J475DW. I had planned to try ink from
an ancient Epson Stylus Color IIs, but a whole set of ink carts costs
about $6 from China. Maybe I'll revisit the ink compatibility issue.
Since the cartridges don't have the print head, I'm worried that this
experiment is a one-way trip.

I really don't need color often enough to keep the heads clean.

I swore I'd never buy a printer that had jets separate from ink carts,
but I've done it twice.