My printer is broken and I still have Epson ink cartridges, can I use them in another printer?

Many printers eventually fail or come to the end of their life and we are often left with a bundle of ink cartridges we bought and no printer to put them in. The first thing most of us do is to try and find a printer that will accept the same ink cartridge and just buy this replacement. This can prove to be very difficult especially if we have had the printer for several years as the likelihood is that the printer is discontinued. People do not realise however, that printer manufacturers such as Epson make many different printer models that work with the same cartridges. This means that we are not just limited to finding the same printer that has failed on us but there may be several other models still currently on the market.

The way to ascertain the models of the other printers that use the same cartridge is to firstly check the packaging of the ink cartridge to see if it lists the models of printers that the cartridges works with. If it does then they may be up to 10 or 15 models that you can start searching for on Amazon or Ebay. It’s possible of course that these models are also discontinued but there may still be some available for sale privately on these auction websites. In the case of HP, they have an ink cartridge range called the HP364 colours and they work with over 50 different HP printer models. So without initially being discouraged, it’s worth researching to find out if any of these printers are available. If you hit a brick wall with this line of enquiry then the next option is to contact your ink supplier and see if they can offer any advice on where to locate a printer that will work with your cartridges. If this is your original supplier of the cartridges you can no longer use, it’s also worth asking them will they take the unused cartridges back and give you a credit against a future purchase when you obtain your new printer. If you can show that you have bought the cartridges within the last 6 months then the supplier may well decide to take the ink cartridges back if they are still in a saleable condition.

Most good quality compatible ink cartridges have a shelf life of up to 2 years and will work without any problems, this also depends on how the cartridges were stored, but its worth asking you supplier as all they can say is sorry, not on this occasion.

First Published at printerinkcartridges.ie