Driver for HP Z3200 photo 44"

[HCHeyerdahl]

I have an old HP Z 3200ps 24" (revision 1), and the driver for this looks like img 1

Recently I aquired a HP Z 3200 Photo 44 " (revision 2) and the driver for this looks like img 2

The driver for the 44 inch appears more limited then the one I have for the older 24 inch printer. At least the selections for gloss enhancer is more limited (eco mode missing)

I have downloaded the driver from HP, and have chosen to install the one from 2021. There is an an older driver, see image 3, but I am unsure if that will work will work with my newer rev 2 printer. No other drivers seem suitable.

Thought I would consult here before I proceed.

[degrub]

Kyle Jackson has a lot of experience with these machines.
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?action=profile;u=59719

[Kyle Jackson]

Hi, 1st screenshot is the "v2" driver, the last ones that were made specifically for these Z3x00 printers.

The later "v3" and "v4" drivers are "universal" drivers for all printer types and are missing key features for these printers, like the one in 2nd screenshot.

The latest driver version I found that fully supports all the Z3200 features are from 2012, the one highlighted in list in 3rd screenshot.

It's best to install it from the full printer installation package tho instead of just manually adding the driver. The installation package also sets up the HP Port Monitor -- without that I couldn't get all the printer comms features to work.

Since you already have the old software installer for your 1st printer, it will probably work for the 2nd printer too. I think you can just connect the new printer and re-run the installer and select the new printer to add.

[HCHeyerdahl]

Kyle, thank you!

I installed the older driver and that worked.

I simply selected it from the drivers avilable. I did not install from the cd that came with the 24 inch. However, perhaps I should, what is the HP Port Monitor, and what does it do?

[Kyle Jackson]

what is the HP Port Monitor, and what does it do?

It seems important for making the bidirectional comms work so that all features in HP Utility, HP Colour Centre, and the embedded web interface are available -- paper mgmt, profiling, printer status, job queue, etc.  For me things didn't work without it.

[HCHeyerdahl]

Thank´s,

so now I am able to upload an oms profile to the printer. However, I am unable to sync this with the computer. When I select sync, I get an error that the printer may be off line or something similar althought it is clearly online for other operations. Any suggestions?

[Kyle Jackson]

so now I am able to upload an oms profile to the printer. However, I am unable to sync this with the computer. When I select sync, I get an error that the printer may be off line or something similar althought it is clearly online for other operations. Any suggestions?

If you didn't use HP's printer driver installation package to install/setup the printer and drivers, I suspect that's probably why. As mentioned earlier I had similar issues like this when I tried just manually installing the driver only. Basically most of the PC-printer bidirectional comms don't work.

I suggest removing/uninstalling the driver and printer from Windows (can leave HP Utility installed tho) and doing again using the full installation package (from CD or wherever). The 2012 driver package I had was named HPDesignjetZ3200PhotoPrinterSeriesPCL3.exe but it might be different on CD.

In Windows Print Management, the Ports tab of the printer's Properties should show a Port Monitor has been added for the printer, and also Bidirectional Comms is enabled (see screenshot). Whenever I had a "failed" installation it was usually disabled/greyed out and could not be enabled.

[HCHeyerdahl]

Thank´s,

I actually found the file you referenced and deleted the printer and did a new install. Unfortunately I am still not able to sync the profiles. The port tabs are as in your image and bidiretional enabled.

I am also not able to access the profiles on the printer from the Utilty to delete them.

[Kyle Jackson]

Nuts. Well so much for that idea 

Do other comms functions work? Some examples:
- HP Utility is in the Windows system tray and gives any alerts from the printer.
- HP Utility shows printer status, ink status, loaded paper, etc.
- Printer driver shows which paper is loaded, etc (for example when printing from PS, etc).
- Able to calibrate and profile papers in HP Colour Centre.
- Putting printer's IP address in web browser opens the embedded web server interface (using ethernet connection right?).

You're using HP Utility 1.17.0.3 right?

[HCHeyerdahl]

Thank´s yet again for your interest in helping me out.

Right now, it seems that when I made a fresh install of the printer, it somehow assigened the wrong driverer, a ps driver rather that the plain photo driver. This may be due to the fact that before the Z 3200 photo, I have a Z 3200 ps installed for many years (now not working)

Anyway, after several itterations of delete and install, it now seems to be working. 

Don´t hold your breath though, I may be back before you you know it!!

Chris

[Kyle Jackson]

Good news it's working!

Yeah it's a bit confusing with the 3 different drivers available for the same printer.

I never use the postscript driver (PS3) even with "PS" versions of the printers. I get there's a use case for some of the postscript functions but they never apply to me. (I think in earlier days the PS driver had bigger print/file size limits than the PCL3 raster driver, but eventually the latter was updated.) So I don't even install the PS driver.

Ditto for the HP-GL/2 driver, it just doesn't apply for me.

I only install the raster driver (PCL3) for a "clean" install, for both my Z3100PS GP and Z3200PS.

The only issue I found with these old 2012 drivers in later Windows versions is they only work correctly as the Default printer. If not, the driver won't remember printer settings (paper layout etc), and will often throw "printer does not exist" errors. So I just have to set the intended printer as Default before printing to it and then it's ok.