Ink cartridges in printers

An ink cartridge is the consumable part of the inkjet printer. You need to change them as per your usage. An ink cartridge is a component of an ink jet printer that contains the ink that is deposited onto the paper during printing. Each cartridge contains one or more of the ink reservoir. These cartridges hold black ink for monochrome printers and for colour printers they normally hold a set of three colours of cyan, magenta and yellow, along with the standard black. The cartridges can also contain electronic contacts and a chip that communicates with the printer.

The difference between Ink cartridges and toners:

Both these type of printers serve the same purpose of transferring your digital files onto paper. But the mechanics of printing with toner against the ink are very different. The ink used in inkjet printers is a liquid tinted with pigment of dyes, whereas, in the toner it is a fine powder that is used in laser printers. Generally the ink jet cartridges are much more expensive than the toner.

Types of Inkjet cartridges

There are basically two types of inkjet cartridges Thermal and Piezoelectric, depending on the way the ink is dispensed onto the paper.

Thermal –  In this method the tiny heating elements on the nozzle is used to heat a portion of the ink and this expands to tiny steam bubble forcing the ink out of the nozzle onto the paper.

Piezoelectric – Here instead of a heating element a piezoelectric crystal is use in the nozzle that that changes shape and size thus forcing a tiny droplet of ink from the nozzle on to the paper.

Pricing of Ink cartridges

The pricing of ink cartridges is very high. This is a pricing policy as the manufacturers make no money on the printer and all their profits stem from the sale of cartridges. They employ several means of preventing other cartridges from being used by embedding chips and proprietary rights.

Refilling of cartridges

As the cartridges from the original manufacturer is very expensive, people look for alternate like refilling of cartridges either by using a cartridge kit or refilled cartridges by a factory made machine. However, refill cartridges supplier sometimes sells spurious goods that can permanently harm your printer. It is wise to go follow reputed supplier of cartridges and even refill suppliers like 123ink.ca.