Take a look at inkgrabber.com to see if they have a generic replacement fir your printer.

I have a couple Epson and a HP color printers and the generic replacements seem very close in quality to the name replacement brands. You can save 50% or more. Give them a try. There's all kinds of companies on the web. There are NOT the inject ink (refill) variety. They are replacement cartridges.

You didn't mention the number of cartridges it takes, but this link is $16.50 Au for each color.

http://www.directaccess.com.au/da/consumables/ink/bci3series.asp?cid=0405080107160534406

Which sounds like alot less.

I have a Canon i450 which uses 2 cartridges. Canon brand is $27 for color and $9 for black. But I buy the generic for $10 for the pair.

EDIT OK the third time I read your post I noticed the "five cartridges".

What about bulk ink systems like these?

http://printonit.zoovy.com/category/bulkinksystems/

Are they worthwhile?

You have to use a lot of ink in a short amount of time to make continuous inking attractive (many, many pages per day). They do not take well to being filled then used gradually over months of time.

Check out www.dpreview.com, this has been discussed many times there.

Also, a quirky but interesting site is:

http://www.neilslade.com/papers/inkjetstuff.html

I use a refill kit from SAM's for 6 ink by Stratitec. cost $20.00. Refills mine about 5 times. Thats about 1 /18th the cost of new. Instructions werent great. Have to drill holes for some cartridges. One hole for needle, and another hole to vent air as you fill so you dont force ink out the ink outlets. When im done I just cover my holes with a piece of electrical tape. It works. The kit came with plugs but they didnt fit the holes made by the drill bit I had. I lay some newspaper on the table cause it can be messy. Was the first time for sure untill I figured how to deal with the things the instructions left out. the instructions do mention some device or option to reset Smart Chips on Epson cartridges. I dont have any experience with that. Im sure Epson doesnt want us to refill, when the ink cost half as much as the printer. I dont see why ink costs as much as perfume. One day they will make us register the ink. Untill then Im happy with my bootlegs.

Here in our home we have inkjet printers from HP, Epson, and Canon. I love the Epson for the ink permanence, but the cartridges have a chip and the ink is a special pigment formulation, so no refilling.

The Canon is my everyday workhorse (primarily text output) and the smallish 4 cartridges can be easily refilled with generic ink; I purchased a refill kit from the local Costco that had very explicit instructions and have been very happy with the results.

The HP printer uses the square #56-type cartridges and they, too, can apparently be refilled with no problems. One caveat--the people at Wilhelm Research state that aftermarket inks are generally horrible when it comes to color print durability. There's a reason HP and the others spend many tens of millions of dollars on ink R&D.

One final note--I just read an article that stated the printer manufacturers are beginning to program their ink cartridge chips for country. In other words, you won't be able to buy an Epson cartridge in Mexico and use it in a U.S. printer. I have full confidence, however, that some enterprising hackers will find a way around that obstacle, too.

Epson chip resetters go for $13.95 and up online, just Yahoo or Google it.

If these didn't exist, I would not have bought an Epson again, ever.

Third party cartridges and ink are OK for printing things like packaging and brochures, etc. Savings of 75% are common, so it really pays off. I have used ink4art.com and supermediastore.com with good success.

these definitely do not have the same color rendition as original ink, so not great for photos (unless you recalibrate, and even then I'd be concerned about durability).

Hadn't heard about the region control for ink cartridges. If this happens, you may have to accept a license agreement for the printer where you acknowledge that if the printer manufacturer discovers through remote sensing that you are using 3rd party cartridges or ink, they are allowed to destroy the printer electronics and print head by Internet command.

Over the top? Don't hold your breath.

The only thing we can do then is to boycott such manufacturers 100%.

Lexmark is the worst, I Have an X5150 and its gonna cost me around $80 to refill the color and black ink and I have yet to find any third party ink for that printer; I am better off buying a new printer/scanner/copier for $100 or just go for broke and get a decent HP laserjet. LOL

I have used generics (from either Merit line or Supermedia store I forget) in my epson R200. Quality is similar to manufacturer ink and at half the price is adequate for printing on disks.

I actually use lower end printers for my day to day work - the $50 ones on sale. When it comes time to buy ink, it is more than the printer often. Buy a new printer and give the old one away to charity -write it off. Do this probably twice a year

Never have had any luck with refills, but would do it if I could ever find one that works.

Hey Arks00. The 82 black and 83 color cartridges for your Lexmark are listed as refillable in my Stratitec kit I wrote about earlier. The newer kit instructionsand tools have improved.

Peter. I buy my re-fill ink from a guy just round the corner from where I live. However, the B3E cartridge is apparently somewhat special, so I stick to replacement cartridges. These cost $22.50 for brand name, or $17.50 for generic at the Carousel. Never had any problem and I honestly can't see any difference in quality. Cheers, Alf.

I'm on my 2nd Epson R300. I really like it. However I hate paying for expensive Epson Ink so I went generic and that lasted about 1 complete cart. set then carts were not getting recognized and when they were the heads were so clogged that I wasted 2/3rds of ink for all 6 carts. cleaning the heads. And they never fully recovered. By that time the printer was showing age and I had a butload of discs to print so I bought my new one.

Now I buy my R300 Ink at Sams Club and save about 25%.

Jack