How to Manually Refill an HP Printer Cartridge
- 1). Locate or open a refill hole in the cartridge. On most cartridges, the hole is under a label or sealed with a plastic plug or ball bearing that you must push into the cartridge with a pen. On older black ink cartridges, the hole is on the bottom, covered with a thin plastic film. Otherwise, you must drill or melt a hole in the top lid.
- 2). Fill a clean plastic syringe bottle about halfway full with the color ink you need. A black ink cartridge will only need this color, while a color cartridge requires magenta, cyan and yellow. Refill one color at a time.
- 3). Insert the syringe needle into the fill hole (pointing it toward the cartridge's print head works best). Inject the ink slowly, watching it carefully to see when it is full. Seeing ink seeping out the top or through the print head is a sign for you to stop. Any extra ink can go back into its original container.
- 4). Let the ink settle in the cartridge for at least 1 hour. Lay it on or near a paper towel, but make sure the print head doesn't touch the towel, or it could damage the head.
- 5). Squeeze the sides of the older cartridges (the tall ones with the rounded edges and flat sides). This further helps send the ink down to the bottom, while contracting the cartridge so it will fit back into the printer.
