Hey all, necro-ing my own thread here to give an update. The info may be useful to others who find it later...
So when I bought this rescue Z3200 printer in 2022 it was rejecting printheads, and because supply shortages I couldn't get new ones. Then a bunch of life happened, 3 moves, printer sat in storage for 1.5 years until few weeks ago. Fast forward to today and happy to report it's running again and seems to be perfectly fine now! 🥳 (Tho I'll probably give it a new belt soon.)
TL;DR on the "fix" - purge air from ink tubes, 5 brand new heads, added new seals to the heads, used really full cartridges, and done!
So I originally started this thread because I thought the printer had non-HP ink in it and I wanted to remove it. Since the previous owner couldn't get it to run because it rejected every head they tried, I suspect none of the non-HP ink ever got into the machine. (And even if some did, they only tried the grey and gloss enhancer.) So I put all the HP heads and inks back in it, but it kept refusing printheads -- which ones varied, but it was basically all of them, sometimes all at once.
LPS Computer has a great video (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsZ1Dqye_Lo) explaining this could be caused by air in the in inktubes, so I used their purge kit to pull any air from the lines. At least 2 or 3 definitely had quite a bit of air. But it still wouldn't accept the printheads after.
The printer passed every onboard diagnostics / service test / calibration in the service manual that I tried, which was basically all of them.
I then started testing some of the heads in my working Z3100, and vice versa. The Z3100 accepted most of the heads except 1 that it declared faulty. And I could see that the Z3100 heads I tried in the Z3200 were leaving ink on the service station, so I knew ink was flowing thru them from the printer.
This is when I learned
2 great tips for how to assess printhead health!
1)
Weight! A full printhead weighs 60g. Any head significantly less than that has air in it. And air will eventually kill the printhead (thermal head burns up without ink to cool it). So by simply weighing your heads today you can assess your printheads' health. I suggest we should all be doing this 1-2 times per year, especially on low-use printers that need using the "Clean Printheads" function a lot whenever we start using them again (I speculate that this accelerates air admission into the printheads).
2)
Printhead status/error codes! On the printer menu, go to the Info submenu, then Printheads. Each printhead (as well as previous printheads) will have an error code and a last status. These codes are explained in the Service Manual. For example I have an old MK-R head that the printer said was faulty. Its error code says 16402, which = codes 16384 + 16 + 2 in the service manual ( = CS comms failure + extremely high temperature + continuity failure, respectively). And its Last Status is 6, which = codes 4 + 2 in the service manual ( = shutdown, not used + continuity failure). So basically, it's fried!
I speculate that when there is 1 or more heads in the printer that are actually faulty (electrically), it can cause issues that lead to the printer randomly rejecting many/all of the heads, *including the good ones*! Without these error codes it's a guessing game which heads are bad, but with the codes and the service manual you can quickly see which heads are actually faulty!
In my case the combination of weighing, checking error codes, and testing the Z3200's heads in the Z3100, revealed that only 1 head didn't have air in it (that head was MINT actually), the rest all had significant air in them. Two I tested in the Z3100 printed only 1 colour. One was faulty (fried). So I ordered 5 brand new heads. I also ordered some ink cartridges so that I had a full set on hand that was roughly 75% or more full for each colour. See pic -- this is the fullest (and newest) ink set I've ever had since like 2010!
MK the lowest, and only LM, LC, and PK "expired".
Incidentally, the error codes also confirmed for me that the E-G head did NOT have any non-HP ink used in it (because there is a flag code specifically for that, too).
The rest is anti-climatic... Powered up, installed the "full" cartridges when prompted, installed the heads (**with the new seal kit added from LPS Computers that's shown in the video I linked), everything accepted! Printhead alignment plot, diag plot, 2 onboard sample prints, all good! Pic of LPS seals on a head, and first print from the printer attached.
This approach of all new heads + full inks has been suggested countless times here, but what I think is revealed here (at least for me) is better informed insight into what is actually wrong. Once there is air in the heads, things are going downhill. And once there is a failed head in there, the printer can start throwing tantrums. But knowing the weights of the heads, as well as what their error codes/status are saying, will help you find out which heads are actually "good" and which are "bad", so that you're not needlessly replacing *every* head.
And those heads with air are not lost causes. They can be purged and re-primed with ink and probably run well again. (Actual faulty ones are toast, though.) So you can try like I did, all new heads if you want, and set aside the "light" ones for purging / priming to keep as spares. Or you can try purging/priming first to see if that's all it needed.
I tested this on one of my Z3100's old MK-R heads, using the purge kit from InkOwl (video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Xd3w0cK9c , which is actually where I learned about weighing them!). To conserve as much ink as possible and do 2 tasks at once, I used the LPS purge kit to remove any air from the printer ink tube as well as some ink, and then I put that ink into the InkOwl priming funnel. Clean the LPS syringe and repeat for the second colour in the head (even faster if you have 2 syringes!). Then use the InkOwl syringe tool to pull any air out of the head and prime it with ink. My MK-R sucked in a lot of red ink, so red had a lot of air, and brought in very little black ink, so black had little air. Brought the head from about 49g up to 59g, pretty good! Pic shows the setup (the big yellow clamp is just to keep it from tipping over, that open funnel makes me really nervous!! 😬 )
Unfortunately it was only good for practice, because the head I used was a faulty one (I didn't check the code!), so the printer rejected it. But it left 2 nice lines when blotted on paper towel so I know the nozzles were flowing good once I added the ink to them. I'll eventually try this will all my "airheads" to extend their lives.
Anyhow epic post but there's a lot of good info here that will hopefully help you monitor your printhead health proactively *before* things start failing, as well as extend the life of your heads..., which is critical for Z3100 owners now that HP has stopped producing HP 70 Red ink and printheads. (And the day will come too soon when it's the Z3200's time...)
Cheers!