How to refill the HP 61 tricolor ink cartridge

If you purchase a brand new HP 61 tricolor ink cartridge, it will yield up to 220 pages. After refilling them though, you can get up to 150 pages from it. These cartridge use water-based or dyed ink, which you can regularly find in every printer store to refill canon, lexmark and HP cartridges.

These cartridges belong to a new HP cartridge generation, so you shouldn’t be surprised if you can’t print as many pages with them as you would expect to do. Usually, we recommend you add a bit more ink than normal when refilling these cartridges to get a considerable page yield. In this case, you recommend you inject 3ml of every ink color.

You must not confuse these cartridges with the HP 122 ones. Even when they’re compatible with the same printers, they are sold in different regions. To learn more about this situation, please visit the following post. However, this particular ink cartridge is compatible with the following HP printer models: HP deskjet 1050 all-in-one printer j410a; HP deskjet 1055 all-in-one printer j410e, HP deskjet 1000 printer j110a; HP deskjet 1051 all-in-one printer; HP deskjet 2050 all-in-one printer j510a; HP deskjet 3054 all-in-one printer j610a; HP deskjet 3000 printer j310a; HP deskjet 3050 all-in-one printer j610a; HP deskjet 3050a all-in-one printer j611g; HP deskjet 3052a e-all-in-one printer j611g, HP deskjet 3510e all-in-one printer; HP deskjet 2512 all-in-one printer, HP deskjet 2510 all-in-one printer, HP deskjet 2050 all-in-one printer j510e; and HP deskjet 3054Ae all-in-one printer j611j.

Refilling procedure for the HP 61 tricolor ink cartridge:

Before you start refilling any ink cartridge, we recommend you put it somewhere you can clean easily afterwards, whether it’s an actual flat surface or a piece of wood. If you don’t have any of these, you may use a piece of black cloth.
You won’t be able to notice the ink colors you’ve used to refill this cartridge on this piece of fabric.

Step #1:
Remove the label from the cartridge. As you may already know, these cartridges have a label on the very top, which indicated the cartridge color and number. Some people can remove and get rid of it, but we recommend you only take it off and keep it somewhere safe to put it back on the cartridge later. This will keep the ink from drying inside the cartridge, and it will help the sponge in it last longer.

Step #2:
Fill the three syringes with 3ml of ink each. We recommend you only use this amount of ink for this particular cartridge. Also, we suggest you remove the air insde the syringe to avoid adding any of it to the cartridges. Please take a look at the following image.

syringe for refilling cartridge

Step #3:
Now inject all the ink as slowly as possible into the cartridge. The application must always be slow in order to get the sponge inside the cartridge soaked with ink. Take a look at the next picture to learn the proper color combinations on the HP 61 tricolor ink cartridge.

place to put the colors

Step #4:

Once you’ve filled the cartridge completely with the amount of ink we mentioned earlier, we recommend you put the label back on it exactly as it was in the beginning. The label, along with the drains on the top of the cartridge, work together to get the necessary amount of air inside the cartridge so the ink drops.

If you need help wit this procedure, please contact us by leaving a comment in the section below this post. Now you may put the cartridge back in the printer and print several test sheets. To learn how to do this, please visit the following post.

Notes:

Please let the cartridge rest for a few minutes before placing it in the printer, which will help soak the sponge inside it with ink. You could also shake the cartridge, print head facing downwards, to get the ink to drop even more.

If the ink cartridge causes any problems when you put it back on the printer, such as blinking and other issues, please stick to the following steps:

1. Remove the ink cartridge and clean the contacts on it.

2. Clean the contacts on the printer as well, exactly where they come in touch with the ones on the cartridge.

3. If this doesn’t fix the problem, leave the cartridge out of the printer, and turn the printer off for about 2 hours. You may turn the printer on and place the cartridge back in it after this time has passed.

4. If you still can’t reach a solution, please contact us. It’s very easy: all you need to do is post a comment in the section below this post.