Ok, this works, its what I do. I have a canon printer and it uses up the ink so fast! The last two times the magenta color ran out, I dripped water on the hole where you can see the sponge and stuck it back in the printer and it continued to work. When the same color ran out again, I did it again and it worked again. Don't know if it will work for the 3rd time! I figured if I can still see color in the cartridge there still must be ink left, so far so good! Works for me, hope it works for you. Lace