wired network for two HP3200 but no internet

[sharadn]

I now have one of my two HPZ3200 prints working! Yay! The printers are located in a different building than my apartment and I do not have internet there. I would like to setup a wired network so I can use the printers web server for the HP Utility. I will leave the printers on the network and plug in my laptop when I go there to print. I only have a vague idea of how to do this. I guess I need to buy a router and some RJ45 cables. I don't really know what kind of a router to buy or to how to set up things up when I have the parts. Can someone recommend a router to start with and provide some follow on steps? TIA.

[degrub]

How far apart are these two buildings ?
A map, geo coordinates, or similar with rough dimensions would help.

You can create a ground loop if each building is on a different electrical service  - which will damage/destroy the networking gear.

External cables must be protected from lightning with proper shielding and earthing or else directly buried at the edge of each building.

All of this is covered in the national electric code regulations.

If you can use wifi and have direct line of sight between a window on each building, point to point wifi network extenders can work well  unless it is raining hard or dense fog or the window glazing severely attenuates the wifi signal.

Ethernet is limited to 100 meters for 1000 Mbit/s link rate.

If all of the devices can be assigned static IP addresses, all you need is a small Gbit/s switch. No router required. Just assign each an address on the same IP subnet - e.g. 192.168.1.xxx where 1 is the subnet address and xxx is the unique number for each device ( 2-255 ) .

[sharadn]

They are not separate buildings only two printers and one laptop will be in one small room. It seems that you are right that this is all I need:
If all of the devices can be assigned static IP addresses, all you need is a small Gbit/s switch. No router required. Just assign each an address on the same IP subnet - e.g. 192.168.1.xxx where 1 is the subnet address and xxx is the unique number for each device ( 2-255 ) .
Trying to build something from scratch in a country far from home with a language that I do not speak! I guess I am just looking for challenges in my old age (71).

[Kyle Jackson]

Yeah like @degrub says just a small network switch would be fine. You only have 3 devices and no internet connection to worry about so any small ~5-port "desktop / SOHO" switch should work. Here's one at random:
https://www.tp-link.com/ca/home-networking/soho-switch/tl-sg105/

Since the Z3200 has gigabit ethernet just make sure you get a switch with gigabit speed as well (1 Gbps / 1000 Mbps). Some only have 10 / 100 Mbps which is kinda slow.

That link shows an example connection diagram (obviously ignore the internet part). Just plug in your 2 printers and laptop and there you go.

That said, if plugging an ethernet cable into your laptop every time you go to that room is a pain, you could also just get a cheap router with wifi so your laptop can just use the wifi connection. Any cheap one would do, maybe you already have an old spare one. Whatever works.

[degrub]

If you have/need a small travel router for hotels, etc. GLiNet makes a reasonable set of devices.

https://www.gl-inet.com/compare/

They have both for cellular internet WAN connection and existing ethernet WAN connection (like you would have at home)

This one would be adequate. Since they limit the number of LAN ports, you would still need the 5 port switch. You don't want wifi7 - it is a work in progress.
https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-axt1800/

[sharadn]

i bought that exact switch on Amazon De along with some cables.

[sharadn]

Degrub: Thank you for your help and input! My Swiss printer/s saga has been a long one, but it seems that I might be approaching some of the final episodes.

[sharadn]

I now have one printer up and running and talking to my computer thanks to all your input regarding networking.
Still working on the other printer: It keeps telling me the printhead replacement is not complete over and over again. It have put in all new printheads and bled the lines. I think one of more of my cartridges may be blocked. It has told me a few times to reseat the blue and green cartridges. It is still a work in progress but I am getting very close to making my first original print in Switzerland!

[Kyle Jackson]

I now have one printer up and running and talking to my computer thanks to all your input regarding networking.
Still working on the other printer: It keeps telling me the printhead replacement is not complete over and over again. It have put in all new printheads and bled the lines. I think one of more of my cartridges may be blocked. It has told me a few times to reseat the blue and green cartridges. It is still a work in progress but I am getting very close to making my first original print in Switzerland!

Since you have more than one printer, try swapping the B-G printheads to see what happens in both printers.


When I went thru this rescuing a Z3200 I did the clean slate approach: generally all new printheads and new or nearly full ink carts, and pulled air from the tubes with syringe. Everything removed, powered up, and only added the heads and carts in one by one when prompted by the printer.

It went fine, however the MK-R head sometimes throws a "reseat head" error after power-off startups (power outage or whatever). It's been suggested to kill the power using the rear switch to reboot, and if the message pops up, kill it a 2nd time. That lets it restart okay without the reseat message..., at least until the next time it shows up. I've found no permanent fix.

I thought maybe it's the electrical contact for the printhead and/or carriage, but that wouldn't seem to explain why the error only pops up after a power-off restart.

I also thought maybe the seals I added from LPS were the issue as they do make the heads sit a little higher in the carriage. So I tried cutting them thinner but no improvement. Maybe it wasn't enough.

[sharadn]

Thanks Kyle. I am hesitant to do anything to the working printer since it is under a 12 month warranty. I will make sure that I have plenty of ink in all the cartridges, make sure the lines are bled and then try starting with all the heads and cartridges out as you suggested.

[Kyle Jackson]

Trying different heads in the printers doesn't affect warranty or cause harm, that's bogeyman talk lol. It's probably the first thing I'd check to avoid wasting time on something else.

Weighing the heads to verify they are full (60 grams) is also important. But since these are new heads and you already bled air from the ink tubes, they should still be 60 g unless there's an air leak somewhere. So it might just be low ink carts, or it needs that start-from-scratch method to clear it's brain lol. Here's summary of how I did that for mine:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=141083.msg1258667#msg1258667

Did you add any LPS seals to the heads? I'm using them but jury is still out whether they can cause this issue as they make the heads sit a little higher in the carriage. In that same thread @Ernst Dinkla said he made his own:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=141083.msg1260023#msg1260023
That's on my to-do list...

[sharadn]

I was finally able to get past the "Printhead Replacment Incomplete" message. I swapped the MK/R print heads between the two printers and this resolved the issue. When I put the MK/R printhead in the working printer I got a bad printhead message for MK/R. Now I just need to come up a working MK/R printhead. I did try to power down and back up again a few times but this did not solve it.
I still have a bit of work to do, see the diagnostic image but I am much further along than before!

[sharadn]

Never mind I found it!

I can't seem to find this in the menu either the regular menu or the service menu.

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!

Can you please let me know where it is?

[Kyle Jackson]

Ok that's good, was worried maybe the menu was different on different printer versions.  For others seeing this, it's Main Menu > Information > Printer logs > Printheads, then look at the numbers next to the error codes and status. The same is also available for ink cartridges.

So error messages with the same MK-R head in both printers suggests the head might be a lemon. It was brand new? I wonder if the last batches HP made were defective, because the new MK-R I put in my Z3100ps last year has been throwing that same "reseat printhead" error message since day one.

What error/status code did that MK-R head have?

[Kyle Jackson]

I still have a bit of work to do, see the diagnostic image but I am much further along than before!

That diag plot looks very promising actually. But I recommend doing the IQSB plot I mentioned earlier from the service menu, because sometimes those full-density patches look fine but the half-density patches on the IQSB show problems (faded banding, etc).

You said these were all brand new printheads? (except the donor MK-R from the other printer)  If so I'm surprised the Magenta is banded, a new head shouldn't do that. That said, M is a common troublemaker if it's been sitting in the printer for a while. Running the Clean Printheads function should recover it. Repeat IQSB plots and printhead cleanings as needed until it comes back.

The matte black banding looks a little odd with the rough edges on the patch, I don't recall seeing that before. Hopefully printhead cleaning works on that too.

[sharadn]

I ordered a new MK/R Printhead. There was some Magenta cleaner in the extra supplies that I got so this may indicate a previous issue. Once I get the new MK/R printhead I will go back to work on the printer. I did not want to waste anymore ink while spinning my wheels until I had a new MK/R print head in there.
The rough edges on the MB patch does not show up on the other printer with the same printhead....
I remember seeing some photos I think on the LPS website that showed the bottom of a good printhead and a fried one but i can't seem to find it again. Have you seen these?
I will also look at the fault codes for the MK/R head.
Thanks as always!

[Kyle Jackson]

Sorry I don't remember any photos of fried heads. Wouldn't be much use anyhow because many failures aren't visible. I have an MK-R head that looks fine but doesn't work, the printer says "replace". Only the error/status code and the service manual says the issue. Unfortunately I didn't check that until after I wasted effort and ink priming it lol.

Strange that MK-R head prints differently on the 2 printers. Maybe it was just left out of the printer too long without a cap on it. Or maybe that printer needs to run Printhead Alignment, but it should have prompted for that automatically after replacing the head.

[sharadn]

See the printhead info in the photos. I agree it is odd that it prints differently on different printers. I am just waiting for the new printhead to come and will resume testing on the second printer.
I can see the working printer on the HP Utility so I do have communication over the network. I tried adding it to my list of W11 printers with the IP address but it did not work. I already have the driver on my computer. Do I need to install the driver again to see it in my list of printers? I am also not seeing it in Qimage. I will have 3 HPZ3200 on my printer list and would like to be able to identify them separately. Can I assign a unique name to these printers?
TIA

[Kyle Jackson]

From the "Printhead Error Codes" section of the Service Manual:

Error Code	Status Name	Status Message	Description
524288	Expired	Warning	Printhead has used expired or non-HP ink

Which is no big deal. Even brand new heads get that code automatically after one year.

So according to that error/status code, that printer sees nothing wrong with that printhead.

Check the code on the 2nd printer, as it might report a different code. You don't need to reinstall that printhead, the printer stores the codes for the most recent 3 printheads. The serial number tells you which head it is.


Not sure about adding the printers in Windows, especially in Win11. In Win10 I had to use HP's driver installation programs to get my Z3100 and Z3200 to work correctly. The HP install does a few things, including the creation of "printer ports" and setting up a "print monitor" for each printer. (You can see them in Windows Print Management > Print Servers > ... Ports.) I had no luck with adding printers (or ports) manually, things only worked when I ran the HP installer.

And even then only the printer set as Default in Windows works correctly in the print dialogues in Photoshop (CS5), which seems to be a known issue for these older drivers on later Windows versions. There was a Windows update that changed the Windows print management system, and the new system doesn't work with HP's older drivers if the printer isn't the Default printer.

I'm currently rebuilding my PC as a new Win11 machine and don't know what to expect when I start adding the printers. Others have reported the legacy HP drivers still work ok with Win11, so I'm hopeful. I'll let you know how it goes. But my plan is to just run the HP installer for each printer.

[Kyle Jackson]

...Also spotted this nugget in the Service Manual for the "reseat printhead" message:

Reseat You are recommended to start the printhead removal process from the front
panel, but instead of removing the printhead, simply press the OK key on the
front panel.

So apparently we only need to hit the OK button?! I've been physically removing and reinserting the printhead, because that's what "reseat" means to me. At least until I gave up and just started killing the power a couple times until the message goes away (until next time...).

I'll try the OK button next time to see what happens!