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Author Topic: A good guide to replacing the carriage belt on a Z3100  (Read 2733 times)

tektrader

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A good guide to replacing the carriage belt on a Z3100
« on: June 30, 2015, 06:20:56 am »

The video guides I found so far are less than helpful. Anyone got an ultimate guide to doing this?

I have already bought a genuine belt and tensioner.

Thanks
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Mark Lindquist

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Re: A good guide to replacing the carriage belt on a Z3100
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2015, 10:52:03 am »

The video guides I found so far are less than helpful. Anyone got an ultimate guide to doing this?

I have already bought a genuine belt and tensioner.

Thanks

There is no ultimate guide for this procedure.  You can search this site for tips.
If you are having trouble with the video guides, you may want to consider getting a pro in to do the work for you.

Here is a link to something that may help you in some way:

REPAIRING Z SERIES PRINTERS

Good luck.

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Mark Lindquist
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picman

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Re: A good guide to replacing the carriage belt on a Z3100
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2015, 08:42:20 am »

The service manual is pretty good and can be found online.
When I was taking the printer apart, I put the parts, screws, etc into containers and labeled them with the step #.
Take your time, it is a long process that requires a lot of disassembly.

There is another part you will probably need - it is a plastic bearing that rides at the top of the carriage. The little arms on it will break off.
Also, on the left side of the printer, check the gear assembly that raise and lower the star wheels. Mine were covered with excess ink overspray that looked like red grease. Caused excess friction and broken gears.
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azmike

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Re: A good guide to replacing the carriage belt on a Z3100
« Reply #3 on: July 01, 2015, 07:35:44 pm »

I just finished replacing the belt on my 24" Z3200.  Some observations that might help:

I second Mark's posted advice (thanks for the effort to share so much detail).

Would really recommend you get your belt from LPS Computer.  Quality is excellent and Bob Wert knows his polymer science.  Suspect it will outlast the OEM version by a lot.  Bob was quite helpful on the phone answering a question I had.

Service Manual suggests a more extensive disassembly than shown in the LPS Computer how-to video (the Manual has you remove most of the top assemblies, while Bob's method is to leave these in place).  Saved me a good deal of time, but you need to handle the carriage and cables etc. with care.  Start to finish was less than 8 hours.

If your printer is still running, I'd suggest performing the specified (post-replacement) diagnostic tests before you replace the belt. This could be helpful as the post-replacement tests and calibrations are fraught with confusion and may have you chasing errors that are misleading (eg the 58:11 that we all seem to get).

In my case the printer seems to print perfectly (to my eye and to the available HP calibrations/alignments) but has considerable aliasing on Bart Vanderwolf's resolution test.....and I have yet to find a definitive scan axis calibration in the HP menus.

Mike Coffey
Prescott, AZ

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sbay

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Re: A good guide to replacing the carriage belt on a Z3100
« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2015, 09:56:03 am »

I replaced the belt in my Z3200 using the hour long youtube video by cigarobsession. I found the video very helpful, but I spent a whole day (probably ~8 hours) replacing my belt (and watched various segments of the video multiple times). In retrospect, I probably should have tried harder to find a tech to do this for me. I'm not very mechanically inclined so perhaps some folks have done this much faster?

Although I got my belt from LPS, I don't think they had a video out at the time of my repair. If they have a faster method, that's good to know.

tektrader

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Re: A good guide to replacing the carriage belt on a Z3100
« Reply #5 on: July 04, 2015, 05:54:09 am »

Thanks for the replies. I intend to have a go at this next weekend. Wish me luck.  :P
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