Cheap printer cartridges! Really.
We have a Lexmark Interact S605 printer in the office and when it shows the “Black Ink Cartridge Low” warning, I can’t help thinking… “cha ching, $25 to Lexmark”. The S605 takes the 100XL line of printer cartridges ($23.49 on Amazon). While reading reviews for the 100XL, I came across one from M. Walters pointing to the 105XL (physically identical to the 100XL but about 1/5th the price at $4.84 on Amazon). He or she claimed there is an RFID tag under the label which identifies the chip. We decided to try it out and, sure enough, M. Walters was right:
The 105XL cartridge fits just fine.
Whoops… we get the “unsupported cartridge” error when loading in the unmodified 105XL
Here are the RFID tags under the labels — we’re swapping the 100XL’s RFID tag with the 105XL’s tag.
Bingo! The cartridge now successfully authenticates to the printer, but it looks like the printer keeps track of each cartridge and its ink level. Still, we were able to print just fine with the new cartridge.
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4 Comments
Was the 105XL a new package? How come it still reads it as low ink?
Yeah, have fun till you print 30 pages and then the screen says “Replace the Black Ink Cartridge to print. A variable amount of ink will remain in the catridge.” Then you can’t print anymore and another 100 chip doesn’t work…
how long did this last? mine lasted about 20 to 30 more pages and it stopped.
I just bought this printer without realizing its ink has RFID in it.
Was this fix of yours able to work in the long term?
I read elsewhere that the RFID chips keep track of how many pages you use, and would stop working regardless of whether there was still ink left