Z3200. And Z3100 parts and service

[JCD]

Hi Guys. I’ve been using Z printers since the first Z3100 came out. I really hate to let mine go.

I have a Z3200 ( one of the last made) that finally had the fan stop working this week. I get the error message
about the power supply needing service and because I can no longer hear the fan I’m sure that’s the problem.

LPS has the power supply fitted with a new fan for $400.00 .  And there are lots of them on eBay for a fraction of that including a new ps that was never used. But you never know how old the fans are on most of them.

Has anybody ever replaced the power supply themselves? How complicated is that? I want to keep this machine going. 

My Z3100 was restored a few years ago with new carriage assembly, spectro, etc but the Hp tech didn’t put  in one of the good belts so that shredded and I need to replace it. I’m thinking about doing that myself even though the last guy, a retired HP tech, who replaced one struggled all day putting it on and then broke the little rubber bushing so he had to start over the next day. Is this doable for someone with moderate mechanical skills? I’m in no rush but don’t want the heads to clog.  I know you have to tear the whole damn thing apart to get to it. This is the worst weak link in the Z system. The other is the cheap fans they put in.

The thing about the Z3100 is there are no HP 70 red heads and Vivera red ink available now. I have one of each.

Are there any of the Chinese refurbished red/MK heads out there for the 3100 . And third party ink carts for it?

I would mainly use this one for less critical stuff. 

John

[Kyle Jackson]

I would love to have a Z3200 where the fan is actually SHUT OFF lol! It's ungodly loud 24/7 compared to my Z3100 that actually idles the fan when not needed. I'm planning to mod my Z3200 with some kind of relay/controller to make it do similar (assuming just stuffing a Z3100 PSU assembly into it wouldn't do the same thing).

Anyhow LPS has a belt replacement video, with some shortcuts so it takes less time compared to the Service Manual method. That'll walk you through it. It's not a big deal, just time consuming, and you need some nice skinny torx drivers that can be found cheap anywhere.

And yeah my HP auth centre messed up the belt replace too...

PSU replacement is a bit more work beyond that. And the fan is inside the PSU box, so you have to disassemble the box to replace just the fan. So it's just time vs cost tradeoff to replace the fan vs whole new PSU (assuming it's actually the fan itself that's "dead" and not something else on the circuit board). It could also just be stuffed up with dust, so trying vacuum on it first is worth a shot. Anyhow here's some info for PSU fan replacement:
http://z3200.com/Power_Supply_Unit_Fan_Replacement-HP-Z3200_Printers-Mark%20Lindquist.htm

Optionally just buy a fan and fasten it over the vent holes on the back of the printer and turn it on manually. It won't be much different, their airflow is crap anyhow.

Ink and heads are about the same across the board, about all you can do is scrounge them wherever you can. I haven't yet tried any 3rd party inks. Some of the suppliers mentioned here very recently for other printer brands don't offer stuff for HP printers. So I guess when we reach that point we have nothing to lose we just have to try them out. How well they perform, and in particular their longevity, is complete wildcard. I've seen occasional mention here of ppl using 3rd party inks in Z3X00 but not much info / data.

I have a set of 3rd party inks and "remanufactured" heads that came with the Z3200 from previous owner but they were never used. They tried to install them but the printer rejected everything because of other (apparently unrelated) issues. So none of it went thru the printer. But maybe someday I'll need to try them...

[Kyle Jackson]

...Delayed thought, the Service Manual has a test you can run to check the PSU Fan. It's in the diagnostics tests under "Electronics Module".

[JCD]

Thanks Kyle,

Yes I plan to replace the entire PSU. I wouldn’t dare tear it apart like Mark did. Those fans are dirt cheap computer fans so I would like to find a new PSU so the fan would be new, or at least find a newish one.

Is replacing the entire PSU more complicated than the belt.

No kidding they are noisy and stay on ALL the time which is nuts. Something so sophisticated and they put a toy fan in it. How did they go backward from the Z3100. Odd. But I still love this system , especially for profiling odd uncoated papers and fabric. Never had any problems.


Thanks for LPS video recommendation. 

I’m going to try to set up an external fan first because I don’t use the Zs much anymore since I bought the. 9570 which is super fast.  What happened though is when the printer was turned on after being unplugged it kept flashing that PSU warning. Now for some odd reason it’s not doing that but there is no fan sound. I’m sure if I printed with it it would konk out. You could be right in that it might be gummed up with ink and crud that’s stopping it. I’ll tear it apart first and look.

My Chinese heard works perfectly but never tried the inks either. I would use the z3100 for non archival work if they are decent.  No more HP Z3100 R70 inks for us.

Hey I just thought of something. There are refillable ink carts that we could put Hp 73 red inks in right?
What if we put anHP red chip on them?

https://www.inkowl.com/wide-format/wide-format-refilling/hp/refillable-cartridge-pack-for-hp-designjet-z3100/P11990/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=856457999&gclid=CjwKCAjwtfvEBhAmEiwA-DsKjvMHbvk46F-deH_3-SNQaO_Ykf88oijP_EkKt5M53cAZh0JK8x81HBoCtuMQAvD_BwE


John





quote author=Kyle D Jackson link=topic=144961.msg1266568#msg1266568 date=1755189316]
...Delayed thought, the Service Manual has a test you can run to check the PSU Fan. It's in the diagnostics tests under "Electronics Module".
[/quote]

[Endeavour]

Hey I just thought of something. There are refillable ink carts that we could put Hp 73 red inks in right?
What if we put anHP red chip on them?

https://www.inkowl.com/wide-format/wide-format-refilling/hp/refillable-cartridge-pack-for-hp-designjet-z3100/P11990/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=856457999&gclid=CjwKCAjwtfvEBhAmEiwA-DsKjvMHbvk46F-deH_3-SNQaO_Ykf88oijP_EkKt5M53cAZh0JK8x81HBoCtuMQAvD_BwE


John

This is something I am wondering. Which other HP7x ink cartridges can be plundered?
If you dont want to get non OEM ink, but have the refill cartridges, which non HP70 inks can be substituted I wonder?

[Kyle Jackson]

This is something I am wondering. Which other HP7x ink cartridges can be plundered?
If you dont want to get non OEM ink, but have the refill cartridges, which non HP70 inks can be substituted I wonder?

There's a few threads on here where ppl use other HP ink cartridge sizes in Z3X00 printers, or add continuous ink feed, and show how they do it. I forget the number, think it's HP 773 or something, they're like 1-litre or so. But the main limitation is limited colour options, they don't have all 12.

[Kyle Jackson]

No kidding they are noisy and stay on ALL the time which is nuts. Something so sophisticated and they put a toy fan in it. How did they go backward from the Z3100. Odd.

What happened though is when the printer was turned on after being unplugged it kept flashing that PSU warning. Now for some odd reason it’s not doing that but there is no fan sound. I’m sure if I printed with it it would konk out. You could be right in that it might be gummed up with ink and crud that’s stopping it. I’ll tear it apart first and look.

My Chinese heard works perfectly but never tried the inks either. I would use the z3100 for non archival work if they are decent.  No more HP Z3100 R70 inks for us.

Yeah I dunno why they changed the fan idle/sleep. Maybe some customer somewhere had them in 60'C rooms and complained about failures 

That Electronics Module test in the Service Manual should tell you pretty quickly whether the fan is working.

There wouldn't be any ink on the PSU fan. The aerosol fan on the service station at the other end of the machine (right side) is the one that gets coated in ink, it's unreal gross.

The aftermarket head you have would be primed with whatever ink they used so you've technically used "non-HP" ink. There's roughly 8 mL of each colour in a head. It's possible it's still HP's ink formulation from the same supplier, or it's from somewhere completely different, who knows.

I wonder where Ink Owl gets their ink formulation. Just says "made in USA", whatever. There's some photoshop fudging on their site, the photos for the Z3100 and Z3200 ink bottle sets are identical, they just edit the red label to say "Chromatic Red" vs "Red". I wonder what would happen if contacted about technical test data, longevity tests, etc...

[JCD]

I’d like to put chromatic red on the z3100. Like using one of those refillable carts. You could create all kinds of crazy ink hues with that, mix your own.

[Kyle Jackson]

I always wanted to get CR into the Z3100 too. Ofc with HP supplies (and firmware) we can't. No idea how well it would work adding the ink ourselves.

Conceptually we can profile any odd mix that comes out of the printer (and definitely have, when the heads are acting up lol ). But it's the internal calibration/linearization aspect that I'm not sure about. It's firmware LUT/mix tables/whatever are hard-coded for R not CR, so any hue that uses R ink would be affected. I don't have a clear picture in my mind how that works, and if the resulting gamut would be favourable and useable 

[sharadn]

I bought a carriage assembly from the vendor selling this PSU. Unfortunately it did not solve my problem. Repairs are still in progress, but it seemed like a bona-fine brand new HP carriage:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/183027735538?_skw=power+supply+unit+hpz3200&itmmeta=01K34SQ7SGEA77SZD6TABC3BYT&hash=item2a9d4d9bf2:g:~TgAAOSw51VhvZyt&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1f5GPQ1PL5jHRZUgdqPT%2B%2FJWJMkqFshIUvhfkrn1In3H2dIrbkh5BrptUY51bXkcOZtdslMUftUFrseTctu%2F5NzdCFidlFV5cpIk6OxVtD%2BiFFJ5mLYbmL3vs6Y6%2BOau02UDn4oFmfMV6GlulHKJTzpti3Avn5hzXYTAghWQ3QOiQfUvaAbfGWVqXwWuWLZghS37HgQJ9EYOU6qBy4W5uxrT%2FLLj6FVYQW%2F0tBHpODcBIh%2BjV9AueDvCXH--XB4ru0x%2FkpAA1EhYIkDNpp0MI%2F4PkALQ6wKvoi8O5sNw9ujnA%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABFBMkv7cmZlm

The seller is pojan02 100% positive (754)
I think he also sells under this name as well: printer-plotter
All in all as far as far the transaction goes I had a good experience and he seems to have a lot of HPZ3x00 parts

[kers]

I would love to have a Z3200 where the fan is actually SHUT OFF lol! It's ungodly loud 24/7 compared to my Z3100 that actually idles the fan when not needed.

I have replaced mine with an 18 € very silent one... makes a lot of difference!

[JCD]

Yea, I wouldn’t have the talent to pull that fan from the PSU.

Back to my original concern : how difficult is it to remove and replace the whole PSU unit on the Z3200?

John

I have replaced mine with an 18 € very silent one... makes a lot of difference!

[Kyle Jackson]

Back to my original concern : how difficult is it to remove and replace the whole PSU unit on the Z3200?

I think only you can answer that for yourself, based on Mark's link above, the service manual, any videos by LPS, etc.  Those resources literally show step-by-step, plus helpful tricks.

I personally don't view any of it difficult, especially after having done a belt replacement, just time consuming.

I wouldn't bother tho without doing the built-in diagnostics test first to verify what's wrong.

[JCD]

Ok, thanks.  I’ll watch the video.  I did watch a retired HP service tech spend all day here trying to replace a belt before he broke that bushing and gave up. So I had to call another guy.

But I have nothing to loose trying them both . I can spend a month trying if it takes that. 

I think only you can answer that for yourself, based on Mark's link above, the service manual, any videos by LPS, etc.  Those resources literally show step-by-step, plus helpful tricks.

I personally don't view any of it difficult, especially after having done a belt replacement, just time consuming.

I wouldn't bother tho without doing the built-in diagnostics test first to verify what's wrong.

[kers]

Yea, I wouldn’t have the talent to pull that fan from the PSU.

Back to my original concern : how difficult is it to remove and replace the whole PSU unit on the Z3200?

John

To replace the fan,you have to remove the PCU
Not difficult . Lots of screws..
See the manual and a video and make some photos during the process