Case Studies of HP DesignJet Repairs, Z3100, Z3200ps, Z Series Printers
 

CASE STUDIES by Mark Lindquist

Repairing Z3200 Printers - Notes on Tools, Materials, and Procedures 
Mark Lindquist 12/10/2014 - updated --1-03-2017

This is a journal about my printers. These are my own personal notes about repairs that others have made based on this website or my recommendations. Every printer has its own problems - these are just a few cases that seem to occur regularly.  Names have been changed to protect identities.

NEW Z3200ps 44" printer would not print sheets correctly under any circumstances.  Printer printed very slowly, pausing between lines.  Tried all the usual restart, check network cables, etc., but to no avail.

FIX:

Went into the printer settings in Utility and compared all settings with the printer not working correctly. 
Found the setting "Metric" was checked instead of "English" under "Units".
Also, advised that all sheets should be loaded with "Skew Check on".
Case closed - works like a charm now.

8 yr. old printer down - Z3200.
79:04 error. Individual performed the following on his own:

1 - removed the network cable incase it was a bad job & restarted the printer.
2 - removed the ink and printheads & restarted the printer.
3 - installed a new formatter board in case that was the problem, it was not the problem.
4 - Took off the right side and inspected the cables going into the service station and they are all tightly seated.

Recommendations:

Turn the printer off. Then turn the printer on and unplug it when the carriage moves to the left. Then you should be able to move the printhead carriage freely. If not, Look at the gear on the stepper motor to the right. Looks for any thing that looks like a blockage of any kind. Free the carriage by turning the screw on the service station - run the printhead carriage to the left, let it click, then move it to the right, let it click home.

Pull all inks and printheads.
Replace formatter board battery. Close the lid and restart - not much response.  Changed out formatter board and hard drive plus new battery on new formatter board.  Clean everything possible to clean - service station, etc.

Restart - fan came on, printer initialized and called for cartridges and printheads.

Success.

9 yr. old Z3100 working but spectrophotometer down.

ESP failure. Recommended replacement - found one from China on eBay.  The new ESP was different and had no external mirror.  Individual was renovating the machine.  Service tech replaced the service station , belt, etc., and put new ESP in. Recommended pulling printheads and doing a "stamp test".  Testing showed the MK Yellow head was bad.  Replaced that head and several different carts. There was a question about purging the lines.  Recommended NOT to do that, but rather just re-install inks and printheads.  Explained about cartidges needing to be full in order to charge the printheads.  After that, system came up fine.  ESP worked.  Re-install of firmware/software/drivers.  Worked fine after that.

SUCCESS.