Oh I cheated for three years folks!!. I have a Brother printer, old one. The set of cartridges were so expensive for me. So, one day I needed urgent printing. Black was too low. A bottle of writing ink squeezed into the cartridge with a sringe I had used for my sick dog’s medicine, simply would not work. I was desperate, it was 1 a.m. and I needed copies for an early appointment.
Desperately I took a tea bag, placed it into a mug, added one tablespoon of boiling water. Mixed it up until the water was black. Squeezed my full sringe into the black cartridge hole. Bingo, It printed green at first (wasn’t green tea), but after about 7 pages, it printed black. Very well! When other colours got short, I used the same method, boiling black tea into the cartridge. After maybe 15 copies, colour was off, but it worked. After several months, no colour came, but I fooled the printer to print only black words for three years! Haha.
After not using my printer in a centrally heated room for two months, it simply prints blank pages. I guess I will risk buying a set of cartridges, blowing the refill holes in the heads and start over. Hopefully I have not blown the printer altogether. Will try to let you know next week.