z3200 Drop Detector Error 52:10

[William Chitham]

My printer has thrown up this error a couple of times in the past fortnight. I've followed the HP instruction (https://tinyurl.com/y7ocnmng) of wiping the top of the unit and been able to carry on printing but being a pessimist I'm bracing myself for more drastic action. Has anyone any advice on replacement - can it be done without removing the service station? Is it worth splitting and cleaning the thing or is it best just to replace with new? It does at least seem to be a readily available component and not too expensive.

Thanks,

William.

[Mark Lindquist]

It's not a huge job William, but is fairly involved.
Since the Drop Detector is  an integral part of the service station, you have to remove the service station to take the drop detector off of it.
There's just not enough room to unscrew it and pull it up off of the machine if left inside.  Not enough access.
Additionally, you have to unroute the drop detector cable first.

Basically you remove the right cover
Remove the service station
Remove/replace the Drop Detector
Calibrate the Drop Detector.

(See page 6-60 of the service manual) for instructions on how to remove the Service Station.

So it's basically minor/major surgery, but not as bad as a belt replacement.

Mark

[William Chitham]

Thanks Mark, I thought as much, just hoping for a shortcut. Lucky me though, I think I have dodged the bullet. The DD error became frequent and I started getting "86.01 paper jam" errors as well (which was associated with failure to pick up the cutter) and finally a "21.13 failed to move service station". The first time I cleaned the DD it did look pretty hairy, the second time it looked ok but I blew it out with canned air anyway. I believe the other errors were down to dirt (ie ink) on the encoder strip - it was absolutely black. It always surprises me how much ink mist seems to float around the working parts and a recent batch of prints consisting of about 150 sq feet of solid MK probably didn't help. After cleaning all seems back to normal, touch wood.

Thanks,

William.