By way, Dell printers are getting really popular but be warned, even though they are made by Lexmark, they will not accept a Lexmark cartridge. And I don't know of any company that is remanufacturing Dell cartridges. A Lexmark refill kit will work with Dell cartridges though.

All newer Epson cartridges need a reset tool if you refill them. If you don't reset chip on cartridge they simply will not work.

HP cartridges can be reset by selectively taping over certain contacts on cartridge foil strip. I tip my hat to whoever figured that out.

Lexmark does not need a reset procedure but they are a little fussy to refill sometimes.

Canon ink tanks contain NO technology. They are simply a plastic shell. The hardest thing about refilling Canon cartridges is getting a good seal over refill hole. If you don't get a 100% airtight seal they will leak.

So what printer do I use? I use an Epson C60....It was on sale! ;-)

You can reset Epson cartridges after they run out and get a whole lot more pages out of them. Of course you need an Epson universal resetter to do that.

Things can happen to throw off this counter and you may get erroneous readings from your ink level indicator, so don't put a whole lot of trust in it. It's just a guide.

It goes both ways too. Sometimes your levels will be good but your ink cartridge runs out of ink. It could be that cartridge was not filled properly at factory but it most likely is caused by faulty ink level data.

The data can get corrupt by things like power loss from lightning storms, a virus, hard drive crashes, Spyware, corrupt printer drivers etc, etc.

So when you think you have a tough job just be glad you don't have to keep track of 12,000,000 drops of ink per second all day long!