Should z3100 PSU fan run while sleeping? (Plus Z3200 loud fan fix)

[Kyle Jackson]

Hey all, just getting reacquainted with my Z3100ps after year and half of storage/moving/"life happens". When the printer is sleeping I hear the fan running on the power supply side (left, not the aerosol fan on the right). I honestly can't remember if this was normal before. I always thought the fan turned off after it went to sleep. But maybe I'm mistaken, and just didn't notice as much before (previous place was larger). Hoping some other Z3100 "fans" on here (groan) can confirm for me.

(I may have a related question later about a new-to-me z3200ps I'm working on, which seems to run fans loud all the time, but I need to finish working on its malfunctions to get it back to a normal operating state before I can make a fair assessment.)

Thanks so much, cheers

[sportmaster]

z3200 runs all the time.  You eventually get used to the noise.

[Kyle Jackson]

z3200 runs all the time.  You eventually get used to the noise.

Ugh, well that's not what I wanted to hear! Might toss the Z3200 if that's the case.

Can anybody answer re Z3100? Still can't recall if its fan always ran while sleeping or not.

[kers]

You can replace teh fans with less louder types as many have done:
HP decided to put in a 3$ fan...

[Kyle Jackson]

So the z3200 I rescued is still being worked on, but I managed to get it to a state where now the fan goes down to a quiet slow speed mode while sleeping, just like my z3100 does. Before that the z3200 fan was running max speed all the time even when "asleep". So I guess it'll be okay (assuming I can ever get it working again...).

Since nobody answered about z3100, I'll just assume that this low fan speed while sleeping is normal and my memory that the fan shuts off completely when asleep was incorrect.

Not likely to replace fans tho, especially not in the z3100 given HP has now killed that printer by discontinuing the red ink and printheads (see other thread).

Anyhow thanks everyone.

[CharlesGast]

I put a double ball  bearing fan in my recently purchased z3100 44 inch.
I wish I had put in one of the so-called liquid bearing fans since the ball bearing fan although relatively quiet, is louder than the larger liquid bearing fans in the new PC build I'm now using.
Getting the power supply out and changing the fan is not as big a deal as I had expected to be.

[Kyle Jackson]

I put a double ball  bearing fan in my recently purchased z3100 44 inch.
I wish I had put in one of the so-called liquid bearing fans since the ball bearing fan although relatively quiet, is louder than the larger liquid bearing fans in the new PC build I'm now using.
Getting the power supply out and changing the fan is not as big a deal as I had expected to be.

I wonder if the noise you got isn't so much the bearings as the fan speed (and shape). If for some reason the new fan is running at higher speed, or has a noisier shape, than the other one then it could be quite a bit noisier.

[Kyle Jackson]

Okay so I finally got the rescued Z3200 running and wow is the fan loud when it's sleeping! Like it doesn't "idle" at all, just runs full speed all the time. My Z3100 goes relatively quiet by comparison when it's sleeping. So this is normal for the Z3200? 

[Alistair]

Can't speak for the 3200, but if its any help the fan on the 6200 is quite loud when asleep.

[Kyle Jackson]

Thanks Alistair, I suspect the two printers have that in common. I've since seen many comments that the Z3200 is quite loud all the time. Near as I can tell the Z3200 does not slow the fan speed when the printer is idle/asleep, which my Z3100 does.

So for whatever reason, it seems that HP decided to change how the fan speed controller operates when they created the Z3200 from the Z3100. The service model shows different part numbers for the PSU in the Z3200 vs the Z3100 / Z2100, and of course the mainboard PCA was changed too. The difference could be in either/both.

Next time I have it opened I'll take a look to see what changes I could make. I mean controlling DC fans isn't rocket science, so if I can't find a way to change its behaviour then I could always add my own bolt-on fan speed controller solution.

[GST]

I simply swapped the psu fan to a silent one, there are plenty of options out there.
You need to solder it to the old cable as far as I remember.

[Kyle Jackson]

Hi, thanks I might try this option too. I'm hoping tho I can make it run like the Z3100 which slows the fan while idle or asleep.

[Kyle Jackson]

I'm hoping tho I can make it run like the Z3100 which slows the fan while idle or asleep.

Hey all, I'm finally back to this topic again (after a year and a half of life I could have done without)... I've done a bunch of testing this weekend on my both Z3100PS and Z3200 and found a reasonable fix.

Background / Discoveries

Both printers have a 12V PSU fan, and both have the same control signal wires from the printer's mainboard to the PSU board (FAN SPEED orange and SLEEP brown, both using 3.3V signals).

Both printers use 2 different fan speed settings, but the Z3200's settings are consistently "one level higher" than the Z3100:

State	Z3100	Z3200
Initial power on	Fan OFF	Fan LOW
After initialization / awake	Fan LOW	Fan HIGH
Printer sleeping	Fan LOW	Fan HIGH
Printer off (front button)	Fan OFF	Fan LOW

So unlike the Z3100 which only runs the fan at low speed (~8V) and shuts it off when the printer is off, the Z3200 is screaming away at full speed (12V) all the time, even while the printer is sleeping, and still runs at low speed even when the printer is off.

(The Z3200 was also full of a lot more dust because of the fan running like a vacuum cleaner non-stop. The Z3100 was fairly clean inside.)

The signals from the mainboards on both printers are the same in all states, so this setup is hard-wired on the PSU board itself.

Fix Options

1) Jumper FAN SPEED to SLEEP.

2) Jumper FAN SPEED to ground.

3) Add a separate fan controller.

The first two options added to the above table:

State	Z3100	Z3200	Option 1 SLEEP Jumper	Option 2 Ground Jumper
Initial power on	Fan OFF	Fan LOW	Fan LOW	Fan LOW
After initialization / awake	Fan LOW	Fan HIGH	Fan HIGH	Fan LOW
Printer sleeping	Fan LOW	Fan HIGH	Fan LOW	Fan LOW
Printer off (front button)	Fan OFF	Fan LOW	Fan LOW	Fan LOW

Option 1 still sucks because the shortest sleep timer is 30 minutes and it's still stupid loud sitting next to me.

Option 2 is practically the same as my Z3100 (since my printers are always either awake or sleeping, never powered off). It basically forces the fan to stay in low speed all the time and high speed will never happen.

Option 3 requires effort / buying parts and I don't see any benefit compared to Option 2.

As for why the Z3200 was built this way, I've no idea. It's possible the mainboard and formatter (all cooled by the same fan) run hotter on the Z3200 with more powerful processor, etc. It could also be the PSU board itself: the older Z3100 has a modern PCB, while the later Z3200 has an ancient-looking 1980's-era board, and this despite the fact that the Z3100 is providing both 45V and 32V power to the mainboard, while the Z3200 only has 32V. Either way, in a reasonable room temperature I think it unlikely overheating is a problem. My guess? Cost-cutting.

If I had the time / skills to study the Z3200 PSU board I could possibly modify it to behave like the Z3100. But the jumper is easier.

I also considered putting a Z3100 PSU into the Z3200, but the 45+32V vs 32V differences are an added challenge, and it also smacks of effort and dollars.

So for now I'm just going to use the Option 2 jumper wire and enjoy my new whisper quiet Z3200! (Incidentally the drive sound on the Z3100 is really noticeable compared to the PSU fan...)

Pics:
Z3100 PSU board
Z3200 PSU board
Z3200 live testing
Z3200 test jumper

[Kyle Jackson]

2) Jumper FAN SPEED to ground.

Ok was asleep at the wheel there, it's even easier... Don't need to connect FAN SPEED to ground, just need it disconnected!

So I backed the FAN SPEED orange wire's pin out of the molex connector (used the staple trick seen on YouTube), then wrapped it with heat shrink tube, and zip-tied it to the wire bundle so it's out of the way. Done! (And this way I can easily restore that pin connection again if I ever need to.)

Doing this doesn't even require opening up the PSU (like I did for testing), only need to remove the PSU box from the mainboard assembly to access the connector. Easy.

Instead of disconnecting that FAN SPEED wire, splicing an external switch into it to manually enable/disable the fan's high speed is also an option.

Pics:
- Orange wire pin removed from connector and heat shrink tube added.
- Wire zip-tied to bundle.
- Connector plugged into mainboard.

[Kyle Jackson]

So I ended up adding a switch anyhow, spliced into that orange FAN SPEED wire. The cable runs from there to the new switch at the back of the printer by the formatter. This way I can easily re-enable the fan's high speed mode any time I want / need to, without needing to disassemble things again.

It's soooo quiet now!!