HP Z9+ Pro

[Lessbones]

For all you HP fans in here, just saw this pop up on LFR:

https://www.largeformatreview.com/hardware/wide-format-print/new-hp-designjet-z-pro-boasts-26-increase-in-colour-gamut

Not sure if anybody knows anything more than the opaque marketing wank describes, but I for one had thought HP was exiting the aqueous printer market for sure after the Z9.  Personally only used a Z6800 and it was.... passable...

[arobinson7547]

Wow. That was a surprise. HP has my attention with that Z9+ Pro (It's 64"!) and they have [the nerve] to pit it against the ImagePrograf Pro 6100

Z9+ Pro vs 6100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ib5W5pP2RM

update:

They went after the P2000, also. HP has really come out swinging.

[GST]

Wow, I hope HP is really back in the game, lets hope some of this technology will find a way to the smaller sized models.
Really curious how much of the Z9 is in the Z9 pro. Inks probably?

cu

[MfAlab]

official site: https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/large-format/designjet-z9-plus-pro-plotter.html
official press: https://press.hp.com/us/en/press-releases/2021/hp-gives-users-power-meet-tighter-deadlines.html

Looks like ink set and droplet is the same with Z9. But print heads are different, Z9+ Pro has a new head with 3136 nozzles/color. Z9 is 2112 nozzles/color. Printing speed will be a great improvement. Plus semi-auto paper feed-in and large 1L ink pack, this printer is probably focusing on production market.

[Lessbones]

honestly.... it's really exciting...  I'd take one in a heartbeat over the p20000.  The Epson is a great printer... when it's not cleaning, which is about 90% of the time.

[mearussi]

I want one. Only $15,000.

https://www.itsupplies.com/HP-Designjet-Z9-Plus-Pro-64-Inch-Printer-p/2rm82a.htm

[neil snape]

Yes I saw this on my Youtube suggestions.

Again innovative stuff. Yet I really wonder about follow up.
Many users of the Z9 have asked me about the embedded i1 profiler not working. Mine doesn't on the shipping model, and didn't on the prototype.
Glad to see they finally made a new load system more in line what the others do.
I do think the Z9 is already a production printer, so this must be at the top level. The regular Z9 is already fast, and the dual roll system is a great feature for production. Take up reels are also a plus for production (I haven't need, nor have I tried them).
Above the post saying cleanings: Well the Z9 is nothing like the Z3200 where you didn't need cleanings. My Z9 has to be left on, I found out the hard way. Everyday  a few ml are fired through the heads to keep them in expected life. Not the same as power forced cleanings yet necessary.
I don't have space for mine. I know that if I do mount a roll of Hahnemuhle PhotoRag Baryta and print I'll have to justify keeping it!
The Z9 Pro looks very good. Just don't expect user reviews, no one will have on to try>

[Mark Lindquist]

I was under an NDA (expired over a year ago) and HP was planning to send one to me, then the pandemic hit, Photokina was canceled for good and the rest is history.

The Z9+ Pro does indeed look very good. HP should be sending a few out to their ambassadors for testing and evaluation, but that's a hefty chunk to just send off.  I don't understand HP's marketing strategies - seems like they just get a product going and there's a shake-up in executives and turnover.

For some of us who end up serving as ad-hoc support for their printers, you would think they'd be more on the ball.

They're making printers they hope will please all the people all the time for all applications. Oddly enough, they seem to be accomplishing it fairly well, accept when they have problems and gloss over them.

I wish them well with the Z9+ Pro 64" - it looks like one heck of a printer.

-Mark

[Lessbones]

digging up this thread--

has anybody had any hands on experience with this printer?

[neil snape]

Not seen one at anywhere. Paris's biggest and oldest lab Picto still use HP Z9+ as they also had one in prototype, but have not had a Pro model.

The Z9 is NOT a printer for individuals. Only those who have a 5 year site service guarantee as they are capricious.
Still fighting with mine.
The Pro model is a serious piece of kit for labs!

[deanwork]

You know for a long time it seems that HP has had a bigger and more responsive presence in Europe than North America. I knew a guy in Mexico who always talked about how good his HP reps were there too, but that’s been a long time.

Not seen one at anywhere. Paris's biggest and oldest lab Picto still use HP Z9+ as they also had one in prototype, but have not had a Pro model.

The Z9 is NOT a printer for individuals. Only those who have a 5 year site service guarantee as they are capricious.
Still fighting with mine.
The Pro model is a serious piece of kit for labs!

[Lessbones]

The use case I'm interested in would very much be in a high-production lab environment, but it would be for fine-art, not for banging out posters and whatever else they seem to be touting as super fast on their promo videos.

The main thing I'm interested in is whether or not the lack of light inks is an issue for graininess.  I would imagine it uses the same heads & inks as the regular 44" Z9+, but their claims about speed are kind of wild-- I've seen a Z9+ one time in person, tucked away in a corner of SGIA a few years back, with no promo material and no reps with any knowledge of it anywhere in sight.

I fully believe in the possibility of getting away without light inks in theory, but the dots would have to be pretty damn small (under 1.5pl?) to be on par with anything Epson has been doing in the last 10+ years.

The state of current "professional" inkjet printers is so pathetic right now I really have no faith in any of them in any way.  The p20000 was a great idea on paper, but an insane time/ink waster in practice, and the Canon PRO series is just so poorly built that some other plastic part would start shedding practically every few days, and now 5+ years in the main PRO 6000 machine has had to have so much repaired on it that it's really in bad shape.  A serious case of over-engineering on those machines.  I'd rather have an ipf 9400/9100/9000 any day of the week.  The one thing that really started to drive me crazy towards the end of my time working with it was how small and pathetic the main feed roller is.  The PRO series feed roller is about half the diameter of the ones that were used on the previous gen ipfs, which causes so many issues with feed adjustments.  That compared to the feed roller on a Mutoh, which is already about twice the diameter of the ipfs in the first place.

I feel like I'm THIS CLOSE to starting my own OEMing business of buying inexpensive chassis from chinese manufacturers with no chip lock-in, picking them based on head type, and distributing them here in the US.... 
The only problem there would be that users would have to be pretty damn proficient at color management if they wanted to have any chance of using anything besides CMYK (and light inks)--  multicolor profiling is pretttttyyy damn harrowing.  I'd love to know more about the black-box systems these companies build into their machines to achieve these seamless RGB-> CcMmYKkkRGB conversions...  the ink-limiting alone must be an incredibly daunting task.

[deanwork]

I had prints from bw and color files made on the Z9,P9570, P2000,  and Canon 4100.

I was shocked at how good the bw was on the Z9 with no light gray on matte and fiber gloss. The 4100 was mediocre at best and a step back from the 8300. I had been using a Z3200 with 6000 patches and the Z9 matched that in regard to tonal range and clean neutrality and was way faster. I don’t know why they dropped the ball on finishing the software and the performance of the gloss enhancer channel. It could have been the best thing out there.

Epson had a slightly better dither but with mechanical or ink waste headaches that don’t seem to ever be resolved on those two printers. You are right, it’s a horrible time to buy anything. The p9000 / p8000 seem to be the only option currently.

Hp was so close with the Z9 and Epson with the 9570 . I think eventually Epson will figure out the 9570 but I don't think HP has any interest in the high-end photo market at all. At best they have taken the excellent dual drop tech and  put it in what is a fast poster printer. Totally overkill. And in all these years they never came up with a photo desktop unit using those high stability inks. Makes no sense.

John

[Lessbones]

On paper the Z9+ Pro really does tick all the boxes-- if nothing else, the large HP machines have always been considerably more robust feeling than anything else in the aqueous market (thinking of the z6800 here) but I never could understand who was buying them and for what reason.  It seemed like once they started making latex printers there would have been no particularly good reason to use an aqueous printer... unless you didn't have access to a 220v outlet.  The z6800 was passable, but it was absurdly slow for doing quality work, and the gamut was inferior to the p20000, even with their inclusion of the chromatic red.  The paper loading system was also incredibly fickle--  why the hell can't someone just make a machine that just lets you do whatever you want whenever you want?  I don't care if the paper already has a print on it, stop trying to detect the size of the print and just let me throw some ink down!  If I accidentally flood the platen with ink, that's my fault, and i'm fine with that.

[neil snape]

The Z9 pro model is likely a good performer. Already the Z9+ is quick after the spool file is created.
You can look at https://www.pictoonline.fr/en/ to see that they only do fine art printing using either the Epson 20000 or the Z9+. The offer a ton of media choices, and the results are really good.
I've never had any luck on mine, nor the prototype I had before it for colour. That said I have been using their profiles on my machine and it works out alright.

And you're right writing screening for multi channel inks is beyond the "average" users abilities.