How to restore HP 60 ink cartridges by using duct tape

With time, we’ve come to find many solutions for a variety of issues that have shown up in our own  printer workshop. This is why we‘ve chosen to create this post with a relatively vague solution, but one we can assure works 100% of the time: restoring your HP ink cartridges with duct tape.

This particular solution can isolate some of the contacts on your printer and get it confused about the type of ink cartridge we’re installing on it, and for how long it has been used. As you already know, printers have page counting programs that keep track of every page printed with each ink cartridge that has been installed in it.

The printer will know an ink cartridge has reached its maximum printing potential and send out error messages if we have them refilled and reinstalled in it. This is how Canon guarantees its earnings.

However, we can keep this from happening if we choose to install the basic set of drivers instead of the full package, as is indicated in the following post: I’ve refilled my ink cartridges but my printer says they’re empty.

Now that we know what the problem is, we need to find a solution for it. In our case, we’ll explain the one we’ve already used: restoring the HP 60 ink cartridges.

These are the materials we will need: You will need duct tape, preferably  thick, to keep the electricity from going back and forth. The printer and ink cartridge contacts will try to reach each other, so we must get in the middle of this in order to restore them.

Step #1:
Locate the contacts on your ink cartridges: they can be found on the front side. Please avoid touching them since they’re very sensitive to touch and could easily lose this trait.

hp cartridge connectors 60 for restoring

Step #2:

Cover two (2) of these contacts on your HP 60 ink cartridge, specifically the #3 and #4 ones. Do this before you place the ink cartridge back in the printer, and remember to use resistant duct tape in order to blow the electricity from passing from one contact to the other and isolate the ink cartridge completely.

You can see this in the next picture.

covering ribbon connectors hp 60 cartridge

Step #3:

You must cover these same contacts on the Colored ink cartridge as well before putting them back in the printer, just to make sure this process works. If this procedure doesn’t work out for you, remember we’re here to help, and you must only leave your question in a comment in the section below this post so we can get back to you.

tri-color ink cartridge covering three connectors

Step #4:

Once both sets of contacts are covered in the Colored and Black ink cartridges, we recommend you set them back in the printer at the same time. Do not install one after the other, but do it simultaneously, and certainly do not close the printer’s lid in the process. You can close it after they’ve both been installed in the printer.

Step #5:

Now that you’ve put the cartridges back and closed the printer’s lid, wait a few moments. The printer will send out an error message saying both ink cartridges are faulty, Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal and expected. It actually means the restoring process is working, so just continue with step #6.

Step #6:

Turn your HP printer off.

Step #7:

Move the ink cartridge carriage until the very center of the printer. Remember you must do this while the printer is on, and do not turn it on until this tutorial tells you to. You can now remove the ink cartridges from the printer. Please keep the duct tape on both contacts, we will be needing it again.

Step #8:

Add more duct tape to the ink cartridge contacts, this time to contacts #3, #4 and #5, the ones found on the right side of the cartridge starting from the bottom up. Their exact location can be found in the following picture.

connectors plugging their points

Step #9:

You can now set the ink cartridges back in the printer. Wait a little until the same error message as in step #5 is displayed on screen. Like we said before, these errors are perfectly normal and only mean the restore method is working.

Step #10:

Turn your printer off again, move the ink cartridge carriage to the center and extract them once more. You must now go back to the pieces of duct tape that were covering the 2 contacts mentioned in step #3. Put it back on the cartridges, covering the same contacts it was covering before, and set them back in the printer. The same error message will appear.

Step #11:

Turn the printer off and move the ink cartridge carriage back to the center. Take them out while the printer’s still off and remove all the duct tape from the ink cartridges.

Step #12:

Install both duct-tape free ink cartridges on the printer and turn it on. The printer must be  working normally and you should be able to use the cartridges on a regular basis from now on.

If you have any problems repeating the steps found in this blog post, or it simply doesn’t work out for you, please post a comment in the section below this post and we will get back to you with other possible solutions and the necessary clarifications.