An ink cartridge is a part of a printer that contains the ink, it is usually a removable part so that it can either be re-filled if it is to be re-used or can be replaced entirely by a new cartridge. Some more advanced cartridges will also contain the print head. An ink cartridge can contain different coloured inks within it contained within ink reservoirs, again there are different levels in advancement with the higher range of cartridges containing electronic tags and chips that communicate with the printer.

Common practice among printers is that they require two cartridges in order to function correctly. The first will contain black ink required for most standard printing for letters and other typed documents etc. The second contains three ink cake she hits different disposable that contain the three primary colours (red, yellow and blue). Utilising a mix of these reservoirs enables the printing of any colour. Within industrial sized printers the requirement on these reservoirs is significantly increased and so the primary colours may be in cartridges of their own which enables greater print speed and greater colour definition. To understand the cartridge make up of your printer you should simply be able to remove the front cover of the unit in the manner you would if changing the cartridges. It is also imperative to remember that each manufacturer and sometimes even each model of printer requires it's own specific cartridges.

Some manufactures cartridges can be on the expensive side and so there are several vendors that produce compatible substitutes that are marketed as cheaper alternatives. Whether or not these substitutes contain more or less ink levels, print at the same or a lesser quality will depend on the individual manufacturer and thus it can be seen as a risk to purchase compatible substitutes. Mainly it is unknown what the manufactures ability is to duplicate the ink formation and properties of the original cartridge in all required respects. Although compatible substitute cartridges are designed to fix to the printer there are many reported cases where a slight design or production failure has made them of varying size and have caused damage to the printer. For this reason the use of compatible substitutes can leave the printer void of it's sale warranty (dependent on the country of purchase legislation). For this reason we do not advise the purchase of compatible substitute ink cartridges and recommend staying with the printer's own brand.

Some print cartridges also contain the print head such as cartridges manufactured by HP, Dell and Lexmark. These cartridges are generally slightly more expensive because of the precision parts that the print head requires. The flip side of this situation is that the actually printer unit is cheaper as it does not contain the print head. Therefore on purchasing a printer the buyer should consider the volume of printing they will produce, higher volume printing is worth spending more on the print unit in order to enable access to cheaper print cartridges.

Many projects have been initiated at governmental level in order to ensure that print cartridges are recycled. In order to comply with these it is best that an independent recycler is sourced who for a nominal fee can dispose of your cartridges. Some manufactures now request that empty cartridges are returned toAn ink cartridge is a part of a printer that contains the ink, it is usually a removable part so that it can either be re-filled if it is to be re-used or can be replaced entirely by a new cartridge. Some more advanced cartridges will also contain the print head. An ink cartridge can contain different coloured inks within it contained within ink reservoirs, again there are different levels in advancement with the higher range of cartridges containing electronic tags and chips that communicate with the printer.