HP Z9+ Printheads Life Expectancy

[jimcamel]

I am just back from wintering in the south, and today I re-activated my Z9+ after it had been sitting (powered on) since New Years.  My Black printhead has failed - so it will need replacement.  All my other printheads show a status of "beyond life expectancy".  I fired this print up for the first time in Dec 2018 ... so that's about 14 months of use (less when you consider that some of that was idle).  the printheads all show 32-33 hours of use.

What are your experiences with this ?  32 hours seems very low.

Do you know any procedures that could re-juvinate my black and I could go on for a while .... but my guess is once the printer has flagged itdead ... then it's gonna stay dead !

I have feelers out now for a quote to replace all 5 - because I imagine the others won't be far behind and for the next 2 weeks - well, guess what, I had planned to do some printing since we can't do much of anything else !!!!

[deanwork]

If you left this printer on, plugged in for that long when you were out of town you could easily have had a lightening surge. You are really lucky you didn’t blow the main board or other circuits. Power surge protectors do not protect against lightening surges, only surges when the power comes back on. I learned that  the hard way with a Canon. No your heads shouldn’t need replacing unless image quality is obvious or you see the error message that prevents you from printing. You can get overnight free shipping from HP website..

I am just back from wintering in the south, and today I re-activated my Z9+ after it had been sitting (powered on) since New Years.  My Black printhead has failed - so it will need replacement.  All my other printheads show a status of "beyond life expectancy".  I fired this print up for the first time in Dec 2018 ... so that's about 14 months of use (less when you consider that some of that was idle).  the printheads all show 32-33 hours of use.

What are your experiences with this ?  32 hours seems very low.

Do you know any procedures that could re-juvinate my black and I could go on for a while .... but my guess is once the printer has flagged itdead ... then it's gonna stay dead !

I have feelers out now for a quote to replace all 5 - because I imagine the others won't be far behind and for the next 2 weeks - well, guess what, I had planned to do some printing since we can't do much of anything else !!!!

[jimcamel]

I was more concerned about the low life of the heads.  32 hours is not much.  So I would appreciate some comments on that.

I can tell you the whole house is surge protected and the printer runs behind an APC UPS.  It only has to cover off the printer for a while before the generator auto-kicks on.  So, I don't think a power surge was the issue.

I have a friend loaning me a new head tomorrow - so I'll swap that in and see how it goes until I get a replacement set.

[jimcamel]

ooooook,  lots of views of this post - but not many replies ..... so I will finish it off by posting myself.

I started the process to replace the print head with the new one loaned to me (I've ordered a full replacement set).  I popped mine and put it back in.  The printer cranked away for about 45 minutes and pronounced it okay - so I left it in and did a few test prints.  All the heads show about the same wear and life (32-34) hours ... so I guess we will see how that works out.

So I can return the (un-used loaner and away my ew set (should HP be working this week (!) to ship it).

[Peter McLennan]

ooooook,  lots of views of this post - but not many replies ..... so I will finish it off by posting myself.

I started the process to replace the print head with the new one loaned to me (I've ordered a full replacement set).  I popped mine and put it back in.  The printer cranked away for about 45 minutes and pronounced it okay - so I left it in and did a few test prints.  All the heads show about the same wear and life (32-34) hours ... so I guess we will see how that works out.

So I can return the (un-used loaner and away my ew set (should HP be working this week (!) to ship it).

Hi Jim.  I share your pain. (see my thread "HP Expired Carts") My Z3200 is exhibiting multiple colour channel failures related to either carts or heads.  Like yours, it has near-zero use.  I'm still on the first set of carts after the "starter" carts and the printer is about three years old.  Well and truly out of warranty, yet virtually new.