If you’re receiving a warning from your printer that it’s out of ink or running dangerously low, go ahead and ignore it. In PC World’s article “How Much Ink is Left in That Dead Cartridge?,” a test revealed that most ink cartridges still hold anywhere from 8 to 45% of their ink when the message appears. So how do you get the remaining ink from your cartridge? There are a couple of ways:
Printhead Cleaning: You may sometimes think you’re running low on ink when you start getting streaky prints, but it may only be because your printhead needs cleaning. There are a few ways to remedy this but the easiest way is to run your printers printhead cleaning feature to get rid of dried ink in the print head. This specially happens when your printer hasn’t been used for awhile.
Shake it: When your prints start to look faded, it’s not always because your cartridges are running empty. Sometimes it could be because some of the ink has dried up and is clogging the nozzles. Apart from the hair dryer method, you could also try flipping the cartridge upside down and then gently shake it. Easy on the shaking though, we only want to get the ink unstuck, not break the cartridge.
Hair Dryer Method: Another way to get every last bit of ink from your cartridge is to make sure your cartridge nozzles are clear. Blowing the nozzles with hot air thins out whatever ink blockage is there and enables the rest of your ink to come out.
Paper Towel method: Similar to the hair dryer method, the paper towel method also aims to clear out dried ink from the nozzles to help the rest of the ink come out.
Cover the Sensor: Some ink cartridges come with a chip which detects ink levels. And more often than not, this chip sends out an empty cartridge warning too early. When it does, it sometimes won’t let you print unless you change cartridges. To address this issue, cover up the chip sensor with dark electrical tape. Take that, you chip!
