The gloves are on for this video because it's going to be quite messy. I'm going to be using a syringe to suck the ink out of genuine, brand new apps and ink cartridges. They're just a random selection that I've bought online and the reason for this is because I've been using a continuous well I've started off using a continuousync system and indeed, refillable cartridges and apps and printers and then moved on to the Epson Eagle tank, which is much more generous. You peel a lot more for the printer, but then you pay a lot less for the ink ultimately in the long run.

So the way I'm going to do this: I'm really just going to break the seal here, probably with a screwdriver, so it's going to make a mess, stuff the syringe, and then just suck the ink. I Really don't know how well this is going to work. Certainly, ink is coming out. I Chose Cyan for all these for no particular reason.

It's just quite a nice color. so I don't know if there's a limit to how fast the ink can actually be sucked out of these. Now there is a circular thing here. You may see that in the cartridge that is apparently a one-way valve to stop you squirting back in through the the outlet hole.

Or is it purely for that? or is it for other reasons? It's coming out in bursts. Um, it might be part of the operation of the cartridge, or it might just be to prevent people doing that. Now is there? also because they're just pulling a vacuum back and see lots of bubbles? The ink is coming out, but is there an air in there that also gets punctured when you put this into a printer? I Do see, uh, seals under here, but I don't know if that's where they fill it I shall keep trying to suck ink out of this and see at what point the ink ceases to suck out. I'll also Purge the syringe of bubbles every so often.

So this is going to be massive because I can see I've already sucked lots of bubbles out here, right? So at the moment it's looking fairly generous. This one looks as though it's pretty much hard 10 milliliters of ink in it. That's not bad. That's more than I was expecting because certainly some of the previous cartridges have been pretty ungenous, right too.

I'm going to pause while I get rid of this ink and then I'm going to try sucking more out and see if anything else comes out one moment. please. Measurement complete. I Measured 15 milliliters of ink out.

This and a bit of research online suggests that its capacity is 16 milliliters. its cost of one of these cartridges apparently online it varies wildly. I Found one at 25 pounds plus 20 vat. Not cheap, particularly when you consider that if you go to the refillable options.

uh, a bottle of ink like this, perhaps compatible ink is just a few pounds if that. And that's 70 milliliters, which is considerably more than the 15 or 16 pound in that. Okay, let's go into the next cartridge. this is a T0482 and my apologies if you have a printer that uses one of these cartridges and you're just watching me just suck all the ink out of them willy-nilly It probably is quite traumatic seeing such a waste of money.

but I did not pay a lot of money for these because I think these are older cartridges, so let's pull a vacuum in that and wiggle about. This ink looks different. It was kind of. maybe it's not.

maybe I'm just because I've been looking at pigmenting as well recently and it always tends to look a bit cloudier and more matte going to the fact is pigment based. these are just, uh, dye inks. I think in these, the pigment inks are more prone to cloning printers. I think because they do contain sort of fine particulate as opposed to the dye which is super fine.

particular. I guess not really sure. So here's the first dose I think brought out this one I May I don't know where the air goes in these I don't know if when you put it into the printer it punches an air Inlet to actually help with the sort of breathing so to speak because I do see these little membranes and diaphragms under here, right? Tell you what? I'll go and squirt this ink into the container and put in the scales. Then I'll suck somewhere out and I'll be back in a moment One moment, please.

So apparently the official capacity of this cartridge is 13 milliliters. I actually measured 14, but I was going by one gram per milliliter in wing and precision skills. and maybe just a little bit of Tolerance of the ink or the ink will be a bit more denser than the mortar. There was a time that the ink was more expensive than gold.

Is it still more expensive than gold? I'm not really sure about that. This cartridge promises because I looked up the specs in this one to be 17 milliliters. Let's see how we go on here. So I'm going to punch that again, stuff the syringe, and then just start sucking the ink out of it.

These things are also chipped. I mean Epson used to be one of the worst, most aggressively protective of their ink systems apparently is just a memory chip with a very low capacity. and uh, you do, of course, get the chip resetters. That can, actually because the printer itself writes to the memory chip to tell it how much ink its thinks is left.

It roughly estimates the a amount used for each print job and then deducts it from the total, which is why sometimes it will tell you the card exempt when it really isn't, but then they're not really transparent so you can't really tell that, but you can potentially reset the chips without refilling them. I Don't recommend letting your printer run dry. it's not great. it can cause problems.

So this this syringes. the syringe absolutely full I would expect to be if it does claim to have about 17 milliliters right today or art. I'm going to I'm going to do the the usual thing I'm going to get the little container and uh, and I'll show you actually I shall bring the scales through and we'll I'll squirt the ink in. And by squirt I mean get it everywhere.

The kitchen is a complete mess now and we'll we'll take a look of that together one moment, please. The experiment is more or less complete. Let's Zoom down on this set of drug skills and we'll put an empty container on and we'll tear it out so that's showing zero. Now it's showing negative value because I've taken that off.

We'll put the tub of Ink on and it's showing 16.5 grams. which is about right. Well, for say the 17 grams, it might still be a spot in there or it might be tolerance. So now I'm gonna have to, uh, get rid of that in a controlled manner that doesn't basically make my sink Loop worse than it is at the moment.

So other things you can get uh, officially refilled. Well, officially it's not official. You can get refilled cartridges for the basically they rewrite the chip that it is full and they uh fill it with ink and then you put a little bun in. This is clearly where they fill it and they've got a clamp that goes over like this with a foam pad that when they put it over the end here and it will basically seal that up until you're ready to use it.

This as I say is clearly where they basically I don't know if they've drilled a hole or if there's a already a hole there. Well there we've got a cartridge. what version is this and this hole here? So I guess maybe they just yeah, there is a hole there. maybe they've just punctured through, filled it would think and then put the bun in and then put this thing over to seal the output so it doesn't leak in the postage.

Interesting. Uh, the other option you have is uh, the refillable cartridge. as I mentioned, this one has a 10 little battery in the back of it, a little lithium cell I think and it's got a little microcontroller I'd guess and I think this is the type that if the printer's on and you unplug it from the printer while it's on and then plug it back in again. it can detect that and it will automatically revert itself to zero.

And uh I don't know if it has a separate memory chip that it writes to ex separate or if it's all done by the microcontroller just pretending it's the memory chip. but in this case, you've got a little airbung that comes out here and you've got a fill Port here that you can squirt the ink in to fill it up to your desired level and it's transparent. well, translucent to let you see that and then uh, you can put it I'm trying to remember now I think you put it into the printer and then removed the air bung. this was just for basically storage and uh, when you were actually filling it.

Um, but the one I use now I Switched to a continuous sync system which is a big huge set of tanks that were external to the printer initially, but then switched to the Epson equal tank system which basically is like a continuous sync system. It's got big reservoirs that you pour your refill bottles of inking Epson would prefer you to use the original links, and certainly the photo aficionados would also want to use the official proper matched Epson inks and uh papers if they wanted the the full Epson experience. but um, certainly. I I Like equal tank, that one is printed an awful lot of well, big glossy pictures like this one that's currently in reverse engineering and uh, it's still going strong.

It's not cost a lot to run at home, a bit more upfront, but uh, much cheaper in the long run, so that is it. Epson cartridges are Sunder and they're suck in the ink out of them to see what's inside. It was uh, worthy and entertaining. Well and very messy experiment.