Always refill your cartridge(black or color immediately upon the cartridge running out of ink.It is better yet to refill when your cartridge gets low. Cartridges that start to sit empty in your printer for a week, a month or more will dry out,causing clogging,streaking or leaking when refilled. Cartridges that have print heads built onto the cartridge begin drying within 30-45 minutes after being removed from the printer.

Use high quality inks that are specifically formulated for your cartridge model. Hewlett Packard uses different inks in their DeskJet 500 Series printers than in their 600 Series printers;and yet a different ink in their 800 Series printers. Likewise,Canon uses different inks in their BJC-200 Series,BJC-600 Series and BJC-4000 Series printers. Using the wrong ink in your cartridge can cause degraded performance or damage to your cartridge or printer.

Refill the same cartridge (the one you are currently using)over and over again.Avoid refilling a spare and storing it outside your printer ( this will cause the problem in #1 above) Keep a brand new sealed cartridge as a spare until you wear out your current cartridge.

Most cartridges that have print heads built onto them(HP,Lexmark,some Canon)can successfully be refilled 5-10 times before they should or need to be replaced. Cartridges that do not have built-on print heads can generally be refilled 15-30 times before they should be replaced. The internal sponge will eventually wear out.