Topic: Z3200 Help (Read 2554 times)

PaulStL · « **on:** December 18, 2018, 12:42:31 am »

I picked up a HP Z3200 (not PS) for next to nothing. I wasn't able to test it when I got it because the MK-R printhead needed to be replaced but I thought I'd take a chance. Once I installed a new one, I printed the print diagnostic image. I had a few channels that weren't complete or not there at all so I did a printhead cleaning then another diagnostic image. Again various channels weren't complete or not there at all. After a few pair cleaning attempts, I then moved on to physically cleaning the problematic printheads per instructions at Z3200.com (thanks for the site, Mark). Channels that weren't there before reappeared and were almost complete so I thought I'd try a machine cleaning. No luck, new channels disappeared. After a multitude of attempts of machine cleanings and manual cleanings various channels would come and go with only LM-LC and MK-R being consistently complete (top blocks, small breaks in bottom lines). One of the things I noticed when doing manual cleanings is a huge amount of ink gunk around the area of the capping station. I took the right cover off and cleaned the area around the capping station thinking maybe the heads were running across old, thick ink. As it turned out, most of the ink was on the capping station cover but I cleaned that also.

OK, long story short, after all of that, I still can't get a clean diagnostic print. I've attached the last run of diagnostic prints but since I'm limited to 4 attachments, the final run (#5) which has no E-G, a weak B-GN, M but no Y, good LM-LC, PK but no LG and a good MK-R is not attached.

Any of the Z3200 experts have any ideas or suggestions? Is it just a matter of replacing the printheads? I don't really want to fall into a money pit but if I can put a little bit of money into it, I'd be good with that. BTW, most of the printheads expired in 2013/2014 and have between 150ml and 230ml of ink run through them. All of my ink cartridges expired/went out of warranty between 10/17 and 5/18.

Thanks for the help.

mfrohman · « **Reply #1 on:** December 18, 2018, 04:35:53 pm »

I would definitely suggest new printheads which may be all you need. You can see the MK/R that you replaced is good in every diagnostic. In my experience, first step would be to replace the heads that aren't printing. 200ml isn't much ink to pass through them but if they're that all old or sitting for a long time - don't know the history of your machine - that would be enough for those heads to go bad.

Peter McLennan · « **Reply #2 on:** December 18, 2018, 04:42:21 pm »

Paul, I can't offer much advice beyond the knowledge that, when channels or groups of nozzles come and go between cleanings, it's usually a sign of ink debris moving around on the head surface, sometimes passing ink, sometimes blocking it.

I'd agree with the advice to buy new heads. This is a superb printer, worth investing some time and money to get it running.

deanwork · « **Reply #3 on:** December 18, 2018, 06:04:50 pm »

Yea, it’s probably been sitting there forever with ink totally dried in the nozzles. If the printer isn’t been used for a long time and it’s not plugged in ( a bad idea ) the heads should be removed and sealed n baggies.

Having said all that, my Hp tech told me that he has revived heads by soaking the nozzle surface overnight in a solution of distilled water with a little pure ammonia. He said you could see the ink lifting out of the dried nozzles. Not windex or some ammonia cleaning formula, but a little pure ammonia ( he didn’t say how much ) . It’s worth trying it won’t cost you anything.

But ultimately if it were me I’d replace all the heads. You might check eBay for out of warranty heads.The main beauty of this system is the inexpensive durable heads. But you can’t leave it unplugged like that for more than a month or so with the heads in it.

John

Quote from: mfrohman on December 18, 2018, 04:35:53 pm

I would definitely suggest new printheads which may be all you need. You can see the MK/R that you replaced is good in every diagnostic. In my experience, first step would be to replace the heads that aren't printing. 200ml isn't much ink to pass through them but if they're that all old or sitting for a long time - don't know the history of your machine - that would be enough for those heads to go bad.

Mark Lindquist · « **Reply #4 on:** December 18, 2018, 06:43:12 pm »

Congrats on finding a good used printer for cheap $.

Save yourself a lot of aggravation and snag all used carts off of eBay as others have suggested. You can screw around with those things forever and while you may get them going again, ultimately you will still end up buying new ones (or new in box expired ones). The only way to make one of those toasted printheads work is to fully strip it down to the component pieces, and what a mess it makes, then clean the crap out of them then manually prime them and put them back together. You can do it, but if you got the printer for a song, like I said, do yourself and your prints a favor and bite the bullet and pony up the $ for new ones.

Good luck.

Mark

And by the way, welcome to the forum.

PaulStL · « **Reply #5 on:** December 19, 2018, 01:23:52 am »

Peter: Debris: That's kinda of what I thought which is why I did manual cleanings of the heads (per Z3200.com) and took off the right cover and gave everything in sight a thorough cleaning including the bottom of the printhead carriage, the docking station cover, and everything else around the docking station. BTW, the fan was so thick with ink gunk I'm sure it's RPMs were cut in half from the weight.

MFrohman (do you mind if I call you Abe, you know, the sausage king?), Peter, Dean, Mark: My suspicion was that I should just replace the printheads but I didn't want to throw good money after bad without seeking the sage advice of the experts on LuLa. I already did that with an Epson 7890 (it only had 40' of paper printed when I got it) and it's been a PIA since then, definitely a money/time pit. I've purchased a couple of expired printheads (E-G and B-GN) off of Ebay (arrive Friday) but there were only a couple of M-Y and PK-LG printheads and they were close to new prices so I passed. I'm going to see if new/expired printheads (E-G and B-GN) fix those channels and then either buy new M-Y and PK-LG or hope something pops up on Ebay.

Abe/Dean: Yes, I think it had been sitting forever, maybe not idle, but certainly not enough use. The company I bought it from was a construction/remodeling company and I think they were only using it to print line drawings/blueprints. As such, I'm sure it was a situation where it just wasn't pumping enough ink. When you look at the printhead expirations and the amount of ink that went through them, it adds up to low use.

Dean: The "manual" cleanings are what has made this so frustrating. When I did the manual cleanings, I used slightly warmed distilled water and yes, you'd see ink floating out of the nozzles. A few blots on the paper towel would show ink coming out of both channels/channel pairs and a diagnostic print would be perfect or near perfect and your hopes would get up. Then a channel or two would drop and the frustration would begin. Wash, rinse, repeat (then finally come here).

Mark: Thanks, I'm excited about the printer and hope I can get it working. I've only heard great things about it and the idea of being able to print big, without ink swaps, with built-in calibration, low ink usage, blah, blah, blah, is a awesome. If it's just printheads, I'll be thrilled!!!

Mark (2): Thanks for the welcome. As they say, looonnnggg time lurker, first time poster (almost, see questions about my 7890). Nonetheless, LuLa and this/these forum(s) is/are a great resource.

Thanks for everyone's help (and please chime in if anyone has anything else to add).

I'll keep you informed (nothing drives me crazier than a poster that asks a question, gets answers but doesn't follow up).

Ernst Dinkla · « **Reply #6 on:** December 19, 2018, 04:32:14 am »

Check the content of the cartridges as well. If they are near empty the ink pumps tend to have a hard time to pump ink to the buffers in the heads. Printing a larger area in normal printing mode and listening to the sounds the printer makes can be rewarding. Last week I had a Chromatic Red cart that was at about 19 ML, lots of pumping sounds, MK ink flowing into the red head at rest etc. Cleaned the station and put in a new cart and the issue was gone. I see in one of your print samples that Grey ink went into the Gloss enhancer head ...... Shake the cartridges well. Their empty weight is 50 grams anything above is ink. ML is gr. in practice.

The sieves in the heads can be an issue. Pigment particles may agglomerate and block the filters. A good shake of the heads might work to free the sieves for some time, most often heads start to fail when the sieves get blocked too much. There are some instructions on the web that show head repair steps (I think Mark hinted at that) but I have tried that route and failed.

See what the behavior of the heads is when a larger print is made and clean the heads that fail while still on that job, can be done per two ink hues. The test prints you made are small and available ink in the head may be enough to do that job but not a wider area.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

deanwork · « **Reply #7 on:** December 19, 2018, 09:18:16 am »

You know if the inks are old you need to shake each one gently. All pigments beome suspended from the base eventually. If they are really old that could be the problem too.

Quote from: Ernst Dinkla on December 19, 2018, 04:32:14 am

Check the content of the cartridges as well. If they are near empty the ink pumps tend to have a hard time to pump ink to the buffers in the heads. Printing a larger area in normal printing mode and listening to the sounds the printer makes can be rewarding. Last week I had a Chromatic Red cart that was at about 19 ML, lots of pumping sounds, MK ink flowing into the red head at rest etc. Cleaned the station and put in a new cart and the issue was gone. I see in one of your print samples that Grey ink went into the Gloss enhancer head ...... Shake the cartridges well. Their empty weight is 50 grams anything above is ink. ML is gr. in practice.

The sieves in the heads can be an issue. Pigment particles may agglomerate and block the filters. A good shake of the heads might work to free the sieves for some time, most often heads start to fail when the sieves get blocked too much. There are some instructions on the web that show head repair steps (I think Mark hinted at that) but I have tried that route and failed.

See what the behavior of the heads is when a larger print is made and clean the heads that fail while still on that job, can be done per two ink hues. The test prints you made are small and available ink in the head may be enough to do that job but not a wider area.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

Mark Lindquist · « **Reply #8 on:** December 19, 2018, 12:20:11 pm »

If you're going to try to bring back old heads, a final step would be to fill good quality freezer bags (the heavier ones) with HOT water, put the print head in and seal it.
Then go outside, hold at arms length and toss the pouch from right hand to left hand. Do this until the water begins to cool, thendump out the water, then rinse off the printhead.
In some cases this has worked.

Another thing you can do is to try exercising the printheads by printing letter size sheets with solid primary colors several times - it forces ink.

Additionally, you can do a head alignment and that may help.

Cleaning the contacts inside the carriage and on the printheads using a Q-tip soaked in isopropyl rubbing alcohol sometimes helps. Some use coffee filter paper to do this cleaning stuff and say ONLY distilled water. But I think when trying to bring a printhead back to life, anything goes. Mostly, like Ernst and John have said, out people end up just getting a new one.

It really can't be compared to any other printer because in one printhead, you get two colors (i.e. Red and black, green/blue, etc.) and each printhead costs less than one cartridge, so replacing just the worst to begin with is a good idea.
On all other printers it means changing out an entire printhead of all colors. No thanks.

Continuous head cleaning will fill up the capping/parking stations, so be careful how much of that you do.

Mark

PaulStL · « **Reply #9 on:** December 20, 2018, 02:03:24 am »

Ernst: I checked the contents via the menu (not weight) when I picked it up. The lowest was 58% full. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the E-G sample is supposed to be gray in both blocks with an overspray of GE. That's what it shows when it actually does print. Regarding larger prints, I did try that with the idea of pushing more ink. It hasn't made a difference.

Dean/Ernst: Regarding shaking, I shook all of the cartridges after I picked up the unit and before any tests. I did the same with the printheads when I changed the MK-R. I have a vibratory deburring machine that provides a gentle shaking and I've placed my 7890 cartridges on it (upside down) to hopefully distribute any settled pigment. I'll probably do that with my Z3200 cartridges before I put in the new printheads.

Mark: Are you saying it's OK to submerge the printheads? When I've manually cleaned them, I've warmed a cup of distilled water and submerged the "head" part about 1/8-1/4". I've tried to avoid other areas of the printhead because I wasn't sure about how sealed the electronics were. I did clean the contacts of the carriage and printheads with an isopropyl soaked Q-tip. There wasn't any noticeable dirt or other contaminates and no difference in performance.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Ernst Dinkla · « **Reply #10 on:** December 20, 2018, 03:03:52 am »

Quote from: PaulStL on December 20, 2018, 02:03:24 am

Ernst: I checked the contents via the menu (not weight) when I picked it up. The lowest was 58% full. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the E-G sample is supposed to be gray in both blocks with an overspray of GE. That's what it shows when it actually does print. Regarding larger prints, I did try that with the idea of pushing more ink. It hasn't made a difference.

My mistake on the Grey/GE printed patches. You are right.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

neil snape · « **Reply #11 on:** December 20, 2018, 07:03:50 am »

Most of what could be said was. You can submerse the heads if needed. Most of what is in the inks is water and glycol. Problem often is the pick up, ink tubes and further into the heads. Supply tubes on the Z printers are good for a while, surprisingly not as long as the heads without some prints going through. When I sold my Z3200 the GE tube was becoming somewhat blocked. The buyer said he never uses glossy papers so he was fine with that. Cleaning the tubes is easier than replacing, there you don't want to go. MAke ultra sure there is no aerosol deposits on the contacts of the heads or carriage.

Ernst Dinkla · « **Reply #12 on:** December 20, 2018, 07:52:27 am »

Quote from: neil snape on December 20, 2018, 07:03:50 am

Most of what could be said was. You can submerse the heads if needed. Most of what is in the inks is water and glycol. Problem often is the pick up, ink tubes and further into the heads. Supply tubes on the Z printers are good for a while, surprisingly not as long as the heads without some prints going through. When I sold my Z3200 the GE tube was becoming somewhat blocked. The buyer said he never uses glossy papers so he was fine with that. Cleaning the tubes is easier than replacing, there you don't want to go. MAke ultra sure there is no aerosol deposits on the contacts of the heads or carriage.

Hello Neil,

Long time ago I saw a message from you. No Z3200 anymore in the studio?

Though not used on the Z3100 or Z3200 as far as I can recall, I made a small pump to check the flow in tubes of HP printers with the same head connections as the Z's have. Some ink is lost and if it is really blocked a fluid could be pumped from a tweaked cartridge filled with cleaning fluid. Mainly used to convert a color printer to quad monochrome inks. The part that connects is taken from an old head, the rest is Glassex spray bottle left overs. Sucks on one ink tube, pump tube can be switched for the other ink tube.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

PaulStL · « **Reply #13 on:** January 03, 2019, 12:26:49 am »

A quick update. First thanks to everyone that helped. The reassuring words allowed me to open my wallet without worrying about the Z being a money pit.

Here's an update on the continuing saga. From the advice I received, I soaked some of my bad heads in warm water for an extended period, put them in ziplock bags and shook them vigorously for a considerable amount of time. After replacing all of the printheads, the calibration process failed so I knew I still had problems. However, a diagnostic print showed all of the printheads working except for yellow. Progress was being made. This was on Friday, 12/21. I went home for the weekend and on Monday decided to try another diagnostic print. All colors were perfect! Yay, early Christmas present! I grabbed a test image and sent it to the printer. It looked amazing especially considering it wasn't printed with the proper paper profile (Epson luster with HP quick dry satin selected), but, unfortunately, it looked like the yellow and light gray failed 3/4 of the way through the print. Another diagnostic print confirmed they weren't firing.

No worries, at least I knew the printer was functioning even if all of the printheads weren't. I ordered the printheads that I could off of eBay and the others from ItSupplies. All of the heads are here but I'm waiting on one off of eBay. When it gets here, I'll update the post again.

Thanks again.

plasakow · « **Reply #14 on:** January 05, 2019, 03:41:25 pm »

Just chiming in here: 2 years ago, I purchased a Z3200 from a schoolbook publisher in Indiana off of eBay for $250 then had it shipped here to Virginia for an additional $500. The seller claimed that "all I should have to do is clean the printheads." I'm old enough and cynical enough that I didn't believe him but took the risk anyway. It needed mostly new printheads but otherwise worked great. Since then, I've replaced the carriage belt, the carriage head, the PSU, the sensor strip, one ink supply station, the right service station, the aerosol fan and converted it to aftermarket bulk ink (please, no flames- this works for me in my particular situation). Admittedly, some of this work was a product of learning how to work on the thing and making all kinds of mistakes, but the result is an awesome printer that I've got about $2000 invested in and a very nice new skillset. Since my business is growing, I've added a second identical printer purchased from an authorized HP service center for $1500 and a trip to Maryland to fetch it in the back of my Prius. If you've got any technical aptitude at all these things are quite friendly to work on and, while there's no substitute for experience, there's literally everything you need to know online to troubleshoot and repair them.

plasakow · « **Reply #15 on:** January 05, 2019, 05:43:22 pm »

If I'm reading this right, I do the same thing with a needle (the kind that you inflate footballs with) screwed into a big syringe and sealed with silicone. The needle goes into the ink port either at the head or supply end. I've never used cleaning fluid, although that sounds like a good idea if it's really clogged. I just fill another syringe assembly with a little ink and stick it into the opposite port so there's something to draw through the tube.

Quote from: Ernst Dinkla on December 20, 2018, 07:52:27 am

if it is really blocked a fluid could be pumped from a tweaked cartridge filled with cleaning fluid. Mainly used to convert a color printer to quad monochrome inks. The part that connects is taken from an old head, the rest is Glassex spray bottle left overs.

PaulStL · « **Reply #16 on:** January 11, 2019, 07:12:47 pm »

Final update. As previously posted, I ordered five printheads (plus the MK/R that I had already purchased) and finally had time to install them. After an extremely long time to do it's new printhead routine (almost an hour), the calibration process completed (yay!) and I ran a diagnostic print. All colors were perfect so I calibrated and profiled Epson Premium Luster (I had some prints Epson P800 Luster prints for comparison so I thought this would be a good place to start). After calibration and profiling, I printed the prints for comparison. All I can say is "Wow!!!". I'm very impressed. Amongst other things, I noticed truer blues and deeper blacks. Perhaps it's due to the profiles (created v Epson canned) but whatever it is, the prints look great.

Since then, I've calibrated and profiled about five papers and run some test prints. All of the prints have been awesome and having profiling capabilities built in is incredible. Needless to say, I'm very happy that I took a chance (and spent some money) on this printer. Thanks to all of those who helped. Now for some help with the older version of the HP Utility (see new post).

Ernst Dinkla · « **Reply #17 on:** January 12, 2019, 06:52:09 am »

Quote from: PaulStL on January 11, 2019, 07:12:47 pm

Final update. As previously posted, I ordered five printheads (plus the MK/R that I had already purchased) and finally had time to install them. After an extremely long time to do it's new printhead routine (almost an hour), the calibration process completed (yay!) and I ran a diagnostic print. All colors were perfect so I calibrated and profiled Epson Premium Luster (I had some prints Epson P800 Luster prints for comparison so I thought this would be a good place to start). After calibration and profiling, I printed the prints for comparison. All I can say is "Wow!!!". I'm very impressed. Amongst other things, I noticed truer blues and deeper blacks. Perhaps it's due to the profiles (created v Epson canned) but whatever it is, the prints look great.

Since then, I've calibrated and profiled about five papers and run some test prints. All of the prints have been awesome and having profiling capabilities built in is incredible. Needless to say, I'm very happy that I took a chance (and spent some money) on this printer. Thanks to all of those who helped. Now for some help with the older version of the HP Utility (see new post).

Congratulations on joining the club. For the alternative profiling route read Mark's article on the use of ArgyllCMS and where to find the separate steps of printing the target, measuring and exporting the CSV file to ArgyllCMS. The larger target sizes should be available that way. Be aware that the default ArgyllCMS profiling aims at Relative Colormetric rendering and for Perceptual rendering more specific settings for assigned color spaces are needed. Other profile creators are less specific for either rendering choice but probably compromise the profiles somewhat that way. For reproduction work I could use the RC route very well.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

PaulStL · « **Reply #18 on:** January 13, 2019, 11:35:01 pm »

Ernst, I like the club. The club is good, real good. Regarding Mark's article, I assume you're referring to the article "Making Profiles for HP-Z3200" on his website Z3200.com. I've read it and it's actually one of the reasons I started another post regarding the HP Utility (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=128533.0) which BTW, hasn't had any responses (yet).

Anyway, the current version of the HP Utility doesn't have the "Color Measurement" drop down menu, apparently it was removed in some version post 5.29 and older versions of the Utility are only accessible through the OS. I've run a couple of older versions of OS X (10.4, 10.6 and 10.9) in an attempt to get access to older versions of the HP Utility. 10.4 and 10.6 both download versions of the utility that have the "Color Measurement" drop down menu (10.9 doesn't) but fail when you try to "Print a color chart for later measurement" or "Export a color chart as a TIFF for external printing". In the case of 10.4, it says the color tables are not available and in 10.6 it freezes on "retrieving color tables". I'm not sure if HP has disabled the older downloads or whether the version that the OS has downloaded is just incompatible with that particular OS X. The version in Mark's article is 5.29 and I know both of my versions were less than that (sorry, I can't tell you the exact versions, my notes are at work). When I get a chance, I'm going to load 10.7 and 10.8 onto some spare hard drives and see if I can get a working HP Utility.

As I've mentioned, I'm so impressed with he capabilities of the Z3200, I'm hoping I can find a version of the utility that will work so I can take advantage of the extended capabilities.

Mark Lindquist · « **Reply #19 on:** January 13, 2019, 11:57:29 pm »

Just try this Paul,
Upgrade the firmware to the latest you can find on HP’s drivers site. Use the HP Utility uninstall feature to delete your printers and drivers. This will also delete your HP Utility.
Then reinstall the printer, allowing the add button to choose the mac driver rather than downloading anything. Open print Queue, then open Utility from the print Queue (it opens it without reinstalling). Right click> Options> keep in dock.
That driver and that utility freshly installed should work.
No guarantees, but another avenue for you to explore.
Best,
Mark

Author Topic: Z3200 Help (Read 2554 times)