HP Z3100 Belt beginning to go?

[brianrybolt]

Over the last couple of weeks I have been getting small bits of crud on my prints that prevents the ink from full coverage.  These are seen as various size specks.  After checking the innards (just opening the window) I can see small flecks of a brown/greyish material that seems to be more or less the same color as the belt.  To my eyes the belt is in pretty good shape (relatively small output since I’ve had the printer).  No cracks or signs of wear.  I’ve vacuumed the area that the material falls upon and have wiped it with isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol).

This seems to solve the problem more or less for a few days and then I need to do the ‘clean’ again.  Can I assume the belt is deteriorating and it needs to be changed?  If not, what do you think the problem is.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Brian

[namartinnz]

The belt looks like it is indeed on it's way out. I haven't had a chance to replace mine yet, but I have discovered a temporary solution that reduces the specks. First, I made a strip of paper with adhesive backing and put over the roller feed where the paper comes out (but not the rollers) This prevents a large amount of the particles falling on the paper before the ink goes down.

As things got worse with the belt I decided to spray it with Clearjet AFA Fine art aerosol solvent - semi-gloss. Seems to have stopped the particles coming off altogether and has been working fine for about a month. I would have changed the belt but I'm in my busiest part of the printing season and can't risk having something else fail during the replacement process.

However, if it's easier to change the belt then do that. Naturally with the spraying only do the belt - and do this at your own risk.

[gfsymon]

It's the belt.  I've been through this recently, on a z3100 that had printed maybe 300 LF prints.  Pretty disappointing seeing as HP say it will last about 1000 times that long.

Anyway ... there's a great video on youtube that walks you through the process.  Took me a day.  Be careful removing the carriage, as it's easy to break a little clip (which I did ... but a replacement was only a few euros).  Also ... my printer failed on the calibration tests after it was all back together, but I believe this is due to out of date ink cartridges.  The prints are fine and I have no errors since.

[kaelaria]

Yes that's exactly how it goes.  See ymy video for the fix.

[equiason]

It sounds like the belt.  I live in a tropical country and already changed the belt twice.  The technician at HP said that they consider the belts as consumables. 

[Mark Potter]

Ditto on the watch the small clip on the top of the carriage - carriage bushing I think, it's very easy to break (I did) either tape it down or unclip it and set it aside if your going to turn the carriage upside down for cleaning/handling.