Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: Endeavour on July 17, 2025, 03:27:13 pm
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I have a working Z3100 (regular model)
I have been given a z3100ps GP for free.
Its super clean inside, looks like it had very limited use. Sadly though, its been sat for a long time and everything is a bit dried up. I can see when removing the printheads the connectors are all gunged up with ink.
Printer keeps moaning about replacing printheads
I cant afford to replace all the print heads, and 5 or 6 of the inks, so I am planning on stripping it down and maybe grabbing any bits from it which are in better condition than my original (thinking particularly the service station, mine's a real mess)
Or is it worth trying to clean it all up. and maybe transferring my printheads over? I am reluctant to introduce gunky ink into my working printheads, potentially leaving me with two non working printers.
How feasible is it to clean out all the lines?
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Hi, if maintaining both isn't an option, I'd switch to the PS model. It enables** quite a few features that the non-PS doesn't, particularly in the Embedded Web Server. Things like onboard job queue and storage, consumables accounting, etc. Plus you get full gigabit ethernet connection instead of only 100 Mbit.
(** I say enables because the non-PS model simply disables those features by firmware, and cloning a PS drive into a non-PS model unlocks them.)
Not sure what you mean by introducing gunky ink into printheads. The ink in printer lines, cartridges, and heads is generally fine -- it's very stable with excellent life (I'm still using 15+ yr old ink!). Ink crud on external surfaces is easily cleaned off. So it's easy to clean the printheads, the printhead contacts in the carriage, and any "dirty" spots on the carriage itself and around the service station (the latter more easily done with the right side cover removed).
To get the "new" PS model going I'd clean it up, and make sure the belt looks okay (replace if not). Then install the fullest ink carts I have (ideally 80%+ for all 12). Use a purge kit syringe to remove any air bubbles from the printer ink tubes. Weigh all the heads to check for air (60g is full) and purge and re-prime them as needed (use the same ink pulled from the printer tubes). Then fire it up, run the usual checks, do a purge plot if you want. May need to run printhead cleaning a few times if they're spotty on the diag plot. Then cal, profile, and start printing!
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thanks, appreciate the response
I took a closer look. And the belt was shredded. So I replaced that yesterday.
I've been purging the ink lines of air, or at least I have successfully been drawing out ink with no airbubbles from the printhead connection point. And cleaned everything up.
Whilst I wait for a new green ink cartridge to turn up, I weighed all the printheads:
the lightest is 52g, heaviest 58g. other 4 are 56g
Does this seem likely to have air? if so, is how are they purged?
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ahh seems I need to buy a kit for priming the printheads after they've been purged
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I saw a company selling purge kits say anything below 57g should be re-primed, but that may be really conservative. The 58g is okay, I'd prime the 52g. The 56g are probably okay for now but might need it eventually so check them maybe 1~2 times a year.
An empty head weighs about 44g so there's only 16g of ink total, about 8g per colour. But we can't see how much of each colour is missing, and sometimes it's mostly just one colour. So when a head gets down to around 52g, it could be a single colour missing all 8g and running dry and having ink delivery issues, and risk of burning out the head.
Yeah LPS and others online sell the priming kits. (LPS includes a cleaning solution but personally I prefer to avoid putting anything other than ink in the heads.) So I just get a kit with the funnel, nozzle cap, and suction syringe, plus the separate syringe to pull ink from the printer tubes (sounds like you already have that). Note there are 2 styles of nozzles cap and the newer/preferred one only pulls from a single colour at a time. Pics here: https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=141083.msg1260281#msg1260281
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Cheers
Getting stuff from LPS is expensive for us up here in Canada
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Yeah I been burned there too. They use UPS but a crappy option that doesn't include brokerage. I buy there sparingly because of that.
I bought mine from this place in Canada https://www.inkowl.com/inkjet/ink-refill-tools/hp/printhead-repair-tool-for-hp-70-72-73-88-91-761-762-771-773-774-940/P5035/
Problem is the nozzle cap is the dual-side version not the single-side, so end up using a lot more ink (at least the version I received in early 2024 was). But there's single-side versions out there, some might be mentioned in this thread:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=141083.40
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thanks for your suggestions, I got the dual side kit, and pretty much have the printer back to life
Printheads are all doing ok - but I noticed when priming, that the MK ink isnt being drawn through to the printhead. The cartridge is full (and I can extract ink directly from the cartridge) but when removing the printhead, I cant draw any blank in through the line.
annoyingly I'd just got the printer all bolted back together again after the belt change
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thanks for your suggestions, I got the dual side kit, and pretty much have the printer back to life
Printheads are all doing ok - but I noticed when priming, that the MK ink isnt being drawn through to the printhead. The cartridge is full (and I can extract ink directly from the cartridge) but when removing the printhead, I cant draw any blank in through the line.
annoyingly I'd just got the printer all bolted back together again after the belt change
Hey congrats on getting it running again!! Now you have 2 and can race 'em ;)
Ok so you mean when you try to draw ink/air from the tubes in the printer, nothing is coming out? I've had similar at times. Sometimes the suction on the syringe feels very high and then something "pops" and the ink starts flowing. So I wondered if we're actually fighting a checkvalve somewhere that is intended to prevent ink flowing when the printer is off. A while back I did some researching about the bongo pump/valve system in the printhead but tbh by now I completely forget what I found... There's a thread on here somewhere discussing it, with some photos showing the inside of the ink cartridges.
Anyhow if you're encountering similar with the high suction and nothing coming into the syringe, it could be similar case and just need to keep trying?
Edit: I also wonder if it could be the syringe tip getting blocked depending on how we hold it. Despite the design with the side hole in the needle tip, if that's pressing against the seal area somehow then maybe it's being blocked. Try rotating the syringe or maybe a slight angle (or not angle) to see if there's a position where it draws easier.
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yeah, there's a lot of suction pressure, and the tiniest amount of ink bubble comes through
I hate taking the printhead carriage out - I always forget about the little height sensor clip and of course it snaps when pushing the carriage back onto the rails
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Why are you taking the carriage out? I mean it's not required for just pulling air from the ink lines. Did something else need repairing? I've only taken it out to replace the belt.
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only because the line feeds into it
I should probably try the other end first eh?
how easy is it to get at the line under the cartridge block? i recall it being a big block of gears and leavers with the lines hidden inside
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Ahhh ok I'm totally lost what you're doing now lol... Probably better to explain from the top again what you're working on. I thought you were just purging air from the ink tubes in the printer and purging/priming the printheads, but it sounds like you're working on other things?
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No, all the printheads were removed, primed and replaced and a calibration/alignment was done - everything was working ok
then I did a diagnostic print, and noticed the black was faint. So I removed the red/black printhead and tested with a syringe getting ink. Whilst I could easily draw red ink from the red printhead port, I couldn't get any black. its a full cartridge so I know thats not the issue
So there is some clog/blockage between the ink cartridge and the printhead port in the supply line
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Ah ok I get ya now. And trying the syringe tip in different positions/angles doesn't help? And making sure the check valve ball under the needle tip is pushed down when drawing?
Well if there is a clog in the line somehow my guess is it would be right at the carriage end where there might have been some air ingress over time. Anything upstream of that should still be completely liquid the whole way back to the ink cartridge. You can probably see some of that tube in the printer, and maybe even squeeze it to see if it changes anything.
At most you could remove the top of the carriage that has the ink tube connections, but I would think no need to remove the entire carriage itself from the printer.
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oh, whats the check valve ball ?
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As I understand it there are check valves in each tube where the printheads insert, basically a spring-loaded ball bearing. The pin in the printhead pushes down on it to allow ink to flow into the head. When the heads are removed the spring pushes the ball up to seal off the line.
So when the syringe is inserted it's pushing down on the ball. That's also why there is a side hole on the needle tip because otherwise the tip would just seal against the ball. So really it's drawing the air/ink in thru that side hole on the needle tip.
Anyhow I'm just speculating that the needle hole might by blocked depending on how we hold it, making it harder to draw anything from the line. Or could still be a legit blockage.
Does that MK-R head work ok in the other printer? Might help narrow down whether it's the head or the ink tube.
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ah so taking the printhead carriage doesnt require removing the whole thing, the supply line part can be lifted out leaving the main carriage assembly left in place
So now I have both ends free for inspection of the lines and connections to the needles/ports. It appears that the are not designed to be removed? I was hoping to disconnect the tube and determine if the blockage (if there is one) is in the tube, the needle or the port. But I dont know if the tubes can come off and be re-attached. For something like this I would imagine trying to heat with hot water on the tube to expand it a little but I dont want to force it.
Looking at replacement supply line parts, its the entire assembly, with tubes, needles/nozzle ports etc all pre-connected
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Yup the top of the carriage is held on with a few screws I think. The belt replacement video on LPS website shows removing it (as one of the steps to eventually remove the entire carriage).
I've never worked on the ink supply tubes, but assume the service manual has something on them. Wouldn't surprise me tho if it's an entire assembly like you said instead of just the tubes.
Silly question, is the MK ink cartridge low?
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well I cleaned up the supply station, reseated all the needles in the caps with springs and put everything back together again - and it started drawing through the MK ink fine.
Did a bunch of printhead cleaning cycles, aligning and diagnostic prints, and everything is now looking pretty good. All my printheads are at 60g or very close to it, and prints seem to be alright.
So I just want to say a huge thank you Kyle, you've been an immense help, and I really appreciate the advice & suggestions
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Hey that's great news! Must've jiggled something loose there somehow.
No worries, I'm happy to accept credit for doing absolutely nothing but backseat-driving lol ;D Cheers!
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Glad to see another Z3100PS user!
Any idea where I can get a MK/R printhead? I have been looking everywhere. I have a show coming up in fall and need to print a LOT.
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Glad to see another Z3100PS user!
Any idea where I can get a MK/R printhead? I have been looking everywhere. I have a show coming up in fall and need to print a LOT.
ebay or sometimes Amazon have printheads at not insane prices
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ebay or sometimes Amazon have printheads at not insane prices
I haven't found though. Any links would be great!
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They pop up occasionally, just have to keep an eye out
All this does re-enforce the point that at some point I need to move on from the Z3100
But what to replace with which meets the following criteria:
1) wide format (at least 24")
2) can sit for weeks without being used and not dry up
3) has readily available supplies
4) capable of printing to a quality for exhibitions / sale
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All this does re-enforce the point that at some point I need to move on from the Z3100
But what to replace with which meets the following criteria:
1) wide format (at least 24")
2) can sit for weeks without being used and not dry up
3) has readily available supplies
4) capable of printing to a quality for exhibitions / sale
I asked similar a while back and got very limited response:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=143484.0
But a lot of people have moved on from this forum, and I guess printing in general. You have to sort of mine the forums to see what people are using and saying about them.
There's obviously a lot of Epson and Canon options to consider. I don't see much mention of HP's successor (Z9+) in recent years. Some said it's ahead of the z3100 / z3200 in many ways, but also that it lost some capability (seemed to generally be summed up as productivity gains with some loss of print quality, at least at the fussy/geeky end of things, especially the B&W crowd).
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yeah it seems hard to get a concise answer. you have to filter out the "well I own xyz printer and I like it" which doesnt progress the discussion
We were spoilt with the z3x00's I think - such a great device, and even look nice in the corner of your office/studio - the epsons look like the equivalent of 1960's concrete apartment blocks
Maybe I can compromise on requirement #2, if I built my own print server which periodically runs an automated generic print job to keep everything flowing. But I would have to remember not to have expensive paper loaded :)
The key here really is knowing how long the newer printers can reasonably sit for without gunking up.
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Thx for your input guys. Sems we are a small club lol. ANy leads on a good mthod to try to clean/restore my existant MK/R head? I did get it 'sort of ' working ok a bit when I ran cleaning a lot. That said...I was only printing Glossy and only really needed the R to work better....not I want to print Matte so want to restore the printhead if possible...
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print the diagnostic image from the maintenance menu, and see what it looks like
next, as kyle advised, weigh the printhead on some kitchen scales. 60g is a full printhead low 50's likely means there is air in there.
an empty printhead is around 48 - 49g so in theory its about 5g of ink (x2 for each colour)
So this means, if your printhead is reading 53g you dont know if thats an equal amount of ink or one chamber could be full and the other side empty.
I got a primer / refill tool from these guys:
https://www.inkowl.com/inkjet/ink-refill-tools/hp/printhead-repair-tool-for-hp-70-72-73-88-91-761-762-771-773-774-940/P5035/
LPS also do one - I dont know where you are located so depends on your closest place.
That will suck the air out of the printhead and draw in fresh ink from a funnel. Works ok, only it draws in both sides at the same time, so dont just fill up one ink.
that what I used to bring my printheads back to life.
One thing to note as Kyle has already said - if its been printing air not ink, then the printhead will likely be shot as that burns it out - but its certainly worth a try.
personally, I think I would just get a compatable printhead and save myself the faff of priming - it can be messy
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print the diagnostic image from the maintenance menu, and see what it looks like
next, as kyle advised, weigh the printhead on some kitchen scales. 60g is a full printhead low 50's likely means there is air in there.
an empty printhead is around 48 - 49g so in theory its about 5g of ink (x2 for each colour)
So this means, if your printhead is reading 53g you dont know if thats an equal amount of ink or one chamber could be full and the other side empty.
I got a primer / refill tool from these guys:
https://www.inkowl.com/inkjet/ink-refill-tools/hp/printhead-repair-tool-for-hp-70-72-73-88-91-761-762-771-773-774-940/P5035/
LPS also do one - I dont know where you are located so depends on your closest place.
That will suck the air out of the printhead and draw in fresh ink from a funnel. Works ok, only it draws in both sides at the same time, so dont just fill up one ink.
that what I used to bring my printheads back to life.
One thing to note as Kyle has already said - if its been printing air not ink, then the printhead will likely be shot as that burns it out - but its certainly worth a try.
personally, I think I would just get a compatable printhead and save myself the faff of priming - it can be messy
I've had empty heads as low as 43g, but yeah either way they don't hold very much ink. (There's also an inflatable air bladder inside them connected to an external port that we believe is used to compensate for atmospheric pressure changes, so that complicates how much usable ink volume there actually is inside.)
Some purge kits have caps that will do one colour/side at a time, like the one pictured here:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=141083.msg1260281#msg1260281
It has a semi-circle hole with a divider down the middle to separate the 2 rows of printhead nozzles. I need to get one these, mine has a round hole and no divider so it pulls both colours at once, which isn't great if one side needs more priming than the other.
The printer stores error/status codes for all printheads and ink cartridges, access from the printer control panel. The numbers can then be looked up in the service manual to see what they mean, and determine whether a head is fried or not. Some info here for ref:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=141083.msg1258667#msg1258667
Re post above about exercising the printer once in a while, if you have a PS model then it stores printjobs internally, so can easily reprint a recent job directly from the front panel. (I forget if the Embedded Web Server also has an automated job scheduler...) But remembering to do it weekly/monthly/whatever is still the weak link lol, I'm rotten at it. Leaving cheap paper loaded helps (I tend to burn matte since MK is the worst for clogs, tho that leaves PK and E neglected).
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going back to the "what would I replace the z3100 with"
I forgot that pretty much only the designjets have the built in spectrophotometer for creating icc profiles natively in the printer. If I switched to an Epson or Canon, I'd also need to buy an external xrite for generating paper profiles - and those are not cheap.
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going back to the "what would I replace the z3100 with"
I forgot that pretty much only the designjets have the built in spectrophotometer for creating icc profiles natively in the printer. If I switched to an Epson or Canon, I'd also need to buy an external xrite for generating paper profiles - and those are not cheap.
Yup, it's definitely a huge perk! Built-in spectro with automatic target printing, paper handling during scanning, and profile integration. HP really did a great job putting all that together.
These are the only wide-format printers I've ever had so I always assumed that all brands had similar, until reading these forums and discovering nope, they have to buy print spectros, software, etc. and scan it all manually unless they go for an ever higher end target scanning rig.
So when browsing around for what I might get as a successor (if I ever do) I hit the same wall you did. For now I've decided it's better for me to keep these ones running as long as I can. For my small-volume / home printing the Z3X00's really are a great fit.
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I love the built in XRite spectro too. I’ve found the 1700 patch profile is as good as my 2000 patch ones I made with my hand created I1 X-Rite Pro 3 spectro. You can also have great ones from the auto ISIS device in Seattle made here - http://www.chromix.com/colorvalet/print/
John
quote author=Kyle D Jackson link=topic=144894.msg1266456#msg1266456 date=1754502824]
Yup, it's definitely a huge perk! Built-in spectro with automatic target printing, paper handling during scanning, and profile integration. HP really did a great job putting all that together.
These are the only wide-format printers I've ever had so I always assumed that all brands had similar, until reading these forums and discovering nope, they have to buy print spectros, software, etc. and scan it all manually unless they go for an ever higher end target scanning rig.
So when browsing around for what I might get as a successor (if I ever do) I hit the same wall you did. For now I've decided it's better for me to keep these ones running as long as I can. For my small-volume / home printing the Z3X00's really are a great fit.
[/quote]
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I love the built in XRite spectro too. I’ve found the 1700 patch profile is as good as my 2000 patch ones I made with my hand created I1 X-Rite Pro 3 spectro. You can also have great ones from the auto ISIS device in Seattle made here - http://www.chromix.com/colorvalet/print/
There's some threads on here about making custom profiling targets for use in the Z3X00 printers. I think up to 10000-patch has been tested. There's different ways to get them "into the printer" and scanned.
I started trialling some 1728-patch targets before some life intervened and I haven't gotten back to it yet. I think the built-in default target is 464 patches.
Some great capability thanks to the built-in spectro...
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Mark and I made a 6000 patch target for my Z3200 with help from his son , an engineer at Microsoft. Mark Mc Cormick made a 1000 path one but that was a little overkill.
That 6000 patch target gave we totally dead neutral awesome black and white on Platine.
You know you can make 1728 patch targets right in the Z spectro software and for me the color is as good as the 6000 patch, except for black and white. The thing is the new bundle Z software firmware package will only do the linearization, and fails on the icc calibration so I use an older Mac Pro which does work.
Don’t know about windows……
John
There's some threads on here about making custom profiling targets for use in the Z3X00 printers. I think up to 10000-patch has been tested. There's different ways to get them "into the printer" and scanned.
I started trialling some 1728-patch targets before some life intervened and I haven't gotten back to it yet. I think the built-in default target is 464 patches.
Some great capability thanks to the built-in spectro...
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Mark and I made a 6000 patch target for my Z3200 with help from his son , an engineer at Microsoft. Mark Mc Cormick made a 1000 path one but that was a little overkill.
That 6000 patch target gave we totally dead neutral awesome black and white on Platine.
You know you can make 1728 patch targets right in the Z spectro software and for me the color is as good as the 6000 patch, except for black and white. The thing is the new bundle Z software firmware package will only do the linearization, and fails on the icc calibration so I use an older Mac Pro which does work.
Don’t know about windows……
John
Yup that's the tests I read about here, and also tried that dropper tool from Mark's son.
Yeah I started off with the 1728-patch included in the HP software, and then went down a separate rabbit on another printer issue and didn't get back to it (which was that my Z3100 was stupidly outclassing the Z3200 gamut volume and black level...). I also briefly tried the old HP APS software which has some different target options. So I didn't get to try out the larger custom targets yet. I think the 1728 would be more than enough for me.
In Windows I use the "original" HP Utility, which has been v.1.17.0.3 since forever... And ~2012 drivers as everything I've seen after that have been "universal" drivers that break features on the Z-series.