I recently cracked open 10 ink cartridges I had laying around, and took a look at the remaining ink. Here is what I have discovered, based solely on these 10 carts:
- A new Brother ink cartridge (250ml) weighs approximately 520 grams (only had a gram scale on hand for mail, so its not 100% accurate).
- A truly empty cart (the plastic casing, as well as the empty plastic bladder inside) weighs approximately 225 grams.
- A cart that the Brother machine reads as "empty" can often have between 40-
90 grams of ink left in the bladder, based on weight!
Henry removing the ink from the "empty" cartridges; that was the third syringe full of ink from the
same "empty" cartridge.
This is what an empty cartridge is
supposed to look like!
Empty ink cartridges, galore!
Based on rough calculations (520 g - 225 g = 295 g / 250 cc = 1.18 g per cc), the weight per cc works out to around 1.18 g....... So by extension, it can be calculated that, out of the 10 cartridges we opened up, yesterday,
we found anywhere between 34-76 cc of ink left in each cart! Now, keep the following bits in mind:
a. We were using a standard mail meter... These tests are repeatable; if you've got one lying around, double check some of these numbers for me.
b. ALL the cartridges weighed out to approx. 225 grams, once we REALLY emptied them. This means the only inconsistency is in the amount of remaining ink when the Brother printer reads "empty".
c. My machine is refurbished, so "maybe" that has something to do with the machine not pulling all the ink out (or at least down to 30 cc's).... More people should be monitoring these numbers, I think.
d. If I am right, then on some cartridges of Brother ink, you are actually getting as little as 175 cc's of usable ink (before taking extended measures to recover the ink that is trapped inside), out of a 250 cc cartridge! For those of you who are counting, that works out to be $1.14 per cc, as opposed to the .80 (or whatever the number Brother throws around), when only counting the ink that the machine pulls out of the bags.
e. We manually pulled the ink out of each cartridge, about 10 cc's at a time, using a small medical syringe and needle. Due to the viscosity of the ink, the process is long and slooooow. You cannot use too much pressure when extracting or injecting the ink, or the needle tip would fly off and you would spill ink everywhere. Next time around, we are using a larger diameter needle.
f. Whether you are a doctor administering a vaccination, a digital printer refilling ink cartridges, or a heroin addict looking for a fix, we all have one thing in common; WE DON'T WANT AIR IN THE SYRINGE / NEEDLE TO MAKE IT INTO THE INTENDED INJECTION POINT! Therefore, Henry took great precaution in tapping / squeezing the needle (just like you see them do it on TV before making an injection - there is an actual point to that procedure) to eliminate any air between transfers.
Just to be clear, I am posting this information to give people a starting point, not necessarily to offer concrete, definitive numbers. I would love to have other Brother owners double check some of these figures, and see what kind of leftover ink you are finding. I am sure we would all be pretty surprised to find out how much we are wasting! Of course, maybe my scale is off, and none of these numbers will be near the mark.... Who knows???
34-76 cc's of ink left in each Brother cartridge, when empty! 
