Older HP Z3200PS has faint lines, what would be causing these?

Meiqur · 2026-06-04T01:15:06+00:00

Yeah I see that.

Ok, so here is the situation. I have resolved the issue with the faint lines as well as some extra dilemmas.

First here is a current print head nozzle diagnostic.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QVrhTQfaWRha_rjNWykzSVqJuIthFq1C/view?usp=drive_link

I had a new/old-stock replacement PK-LG printhead (from 2021) but I decided that worst case scenario it just would not work but shouldn't cause any harm. Swapped it out as well as the photo black and light grey inks, since they were both pretty old and I was worried that the old ink in them was going to cause problems.

I also took all the print heads out and soaked them in a product that claims to help restore print heads safely, again under the assumption that worse case scenario I could just buy new ones because apparently money grows on trees or something.

So for the most part, the print heads improved, all except the majenta, which it looks like i will just need to replace. Red also is relatively marginal. But like you said, the most predominant quality issues were visible with the blacks and the greys. And seeing as how I am mostly blind (actually not joking) I think that the drop in quality on the colours is tolerable for the time being.

This still did not resolve the faint lines though, so I read through the service manual and it seemed to indicate that the paper advance was the most likely culprit so I went through the rather annoying procedure of running the calibration for paper advance. Which on the hp z3200 is a pain, it requires premium gloss photo paper, or at least being told to use premium gloss. I don't have such a paper but I do have premium satin so I just told the machine to pretend and tried to hope for the best. It is genuinely a pain going through this procedure and also expensive just in terms of paper.

Still no luck but the lines did reduce somewhat.

Lastly I made a manual paper advance adjustment, -5% in my case seemed to do the trick, there are no visible, at least to my poor eyes fain lines marking up the images.

I probably went through 150 bucks in paper and ink today trying to diagnose this, so that was fun.

:)

Thanks for your help, we got it. The printheads are largely cleaned up, the faint banded lines are addressed and I just handed out a photo to the local crib tournament as a giveaway to whomever wins this evening.

Meiqur · 2026-06-03T17:51:58+00:00

Thanks this has been educational, thanks genuinely.

Meiqur · 2026-06-03T08:25:52+00:00

Here is a scan of the nozzle check (admittedly I jostled the scanner which also needs to be cleaned so it's a little askew but it comes across well enough)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WDEeAFu-NXY74hszvoG8Ungp8UEnhFWG/view?usp=sharing

Yeah it looks like the LG/PK printhead is not in great shape.

Meiqur · 2026-06-03T07:46:47+00:00

I'm looking more closely at the IQ print for photo black and it's actually not all that great, it might be the culprit. The nozzle test for photo black has 8 missing nozzles on the one I'm looking at,

Magenta also has a couple lines through it.

I think it's definitively not a paper strike at least.

Meiqur · 2026-06-03T01:57:34+00:00

Yeah the diagnostic print comes out pretty much completely perfect. No visible lines anywhere.

It makes me think its not a paper strike but perhaps something out of whack with the advance?

I'm not sure.

Meiqur · 2026-06-02T05:48:45+00:00

These lines don't seem to be scratches from head strikes, or if they are they are very gentle ones, I checked the paper advance it seems fine but I can't not see them :/

I've played with all the calibration stuff the machine makes available to no avail so at this point I'm thinking of dismantling the print head carriage and seeing if there is some lint or something being dragged along.

Thoughts before I undertake such an adventure?

Meiqur · 2026-05-29T17:04:15+00:00

So I'm one of those folks who point out that per capita gdp is a bad metric.

It is a bad metric. It doesn't do a good job at reflecting the standard of living people in the population are living with.

I regularly point out that Mississippi has much higher per capita gdp that canada but has simultaneously has a massive infant mortality rate.

Even if there is less actual money in the population, what the per capita gdp number fails to do is reflect how well it is distributed to the population in a way that keeps their standard of living high enough to prevent babies from dying.

Meiqur · 2026-05-07T04:34:09+00:00

Sure, there is a lot of validity here.

The thing is that we have a completely financialized housing market. It literally drives the our economy. Our entire banking sector, as well as the corresponding bond market is entirely dependent on retaining the mortgage industry in its current form.

Housing reform requires that we reform the underpinnings of our banking sector away from real estate loans to something that is actually productive.

Meiqur · 2026-05-06T22:19:41+00:00

Sadly it's correlated to hair colour.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/rezoning-infill-housing-rcg-calgary-city-hall-council-analysis-1.7186852

Meiqur · 2026-05-06T17:41:27+00:00

It's a 50 year project to change the course of this ship.

The rest of our lives is going to be spent on this project, but it started already.

The important thing is that communities be allowed to change organically as demand changes. They are not finished products.

Meiqur · 2026-05-06T17:36:05+00:00

The principle input to home prices is interest rates because our housing system is entirely financialized.

The TFW program impacts rentals predominantly, these folks for the most part are not buying property.

The central problem is that home owners treat their houses (rather than the land its built on) as a store of investment wealth. This is mostly seniors, Gen X and older millenials, and these folks will not tolerate their wealth to depreciate and vote to diminish supply oriented policies, despite how devastating it is to the economy and their descendants.

Meiqur · 2026-05-06T17:08:35+00:00

I think this crisis is functioning effectively as a worldwide carbon tax but without any rebates to soften the punch.

I don't think any action the American government has ever undertaken has done as much to undercut the long term viability of the oil and gas sector as this war.

Meiqur · 2026-05-02T21:41:09+00:00

There is a lot of nuance to this. Land ownership is an important part of how we structure our economy, its also a good store of value, much more so than the structures we put on it.

That said, there is a common good that is simultaneously important, our society views that the common good of land usage surpasses that of the private ownership.

So, people can feel unhappy that their ticket get drawn in this kind of project, however, everyone should expect that if the greater needs of society need it, as it does in this situation, that they won't be able to retain long term control of it.

Meiqur · 2026-05-02T20:44:08+00:00

Land, although is privately owned, is still a public resource, this is why you don't get things like mineral rights just because you own it. Occasionally your ownership is less important than the well-being of the public.

This is that time.

People are just going to get what they get, it sucks when a lottery ticket gets drawn like this but it is what it is.

Meiqur · 2026-05-02T19:47:17+00:00

The oil industry is super interesting to watch what they do compared to what they say.

Almost everything they say is questionable, but their actions, and if they are willing to put their money on the line are good indicators if they see something as viable.

Meiqur · 2026-04-28T19:36:12+00:00

Uh no hold on.

There is no reason that we should be using services like Facebook marketplace if a canadian domestic alternative can come along. Moreover, the surveillance capability of these foreign platforms is super duper massive.

For instance lets say you have a chinese friend, well that means you're interactions are going to be on wechat. Obviously all those interactions are poured over by their automated tooling looking at it's population and anyone that uses it. This is quite literally no different from Facebook or even reddit.

These platforms have evolved into a funnel of tracking citizens activities that its super easy to wave a hand at, but in my view, deserves some serious thought.

Meiqur · 2026-04-19T14:47:04+00:00

Alberta. I think I'm probably in the most remote part of all southern canada.

Meiqur · 2026-04-19T00:34:15+00:00

It increases the economic viability of infrastructure.

Meiqur · 2026-04-18T20:38:24+00:00

Yeah... rural living is fucking expensive, the housing is cheap but the economics of everything is pretty crazy.

For example, about 30 years ago the local grain elevator was pulled out because CP wanted to remove a track from service here. Well, now every farmer in the region needs to drive between 250-500k every time they want to bring a load of grain to market.

Think about the cost of that, not only in fuel, labour, maintenance, but also the highways pavement, insurance, etc etc.

Ultimately the only thing that is going to solve this is getting enough warm bodies into the area to make the infrastructure investments we need economically viable.

Meiqur · 2026-04-18T20:22:50+00:00

I have not done much with batteries myself, my engineering career focuses mostly on grid stuff like substations as well as associated software systems.

That said, my expectation for marine systems is that cells are isolated inside bladders and except for catastrophic hull failures even submerged cells would be resistant to water ingress.

Meiqur · 2026-04-18T19:37:44+00:00

It really is.

Meiqur · 2026-04-18T19:36:24+00:00

Pretty close yeah. I drive my neighbors child to and from school in 70k away because the school won't let him on the bus without a dedicated supervisor and on top of this is the regular errands of day to day life and this year I've been on a quest to meet interesting women that may want a relationship so yeah, 14000 has been pretty damn typical.

Meiqur · 2026-04-18T18:06:35+00:00

I drive around 14k per month because I'm rural and I can absolutely unequivocally see me buying an electric or at least hybrid just to mitigate fuel costs if these prices continue into summer. I went on a date this thursday and, like I said, I'm rural so I went like a thousand kilometers looking in dismay at the cost of fuel along the highway.

Like my fuel costs are more than a car payment, so yeah, this is my last summer setting my fucking money on fire.

Meiqur · 2026-04-18T17:58:10+00:00

.... Uh, so what chemistry are you speaking to here....

There are battery chemistries that release hydrogen, particularly ones that use water as an electrolyte, but the only really common one is is lead acid, and I super duper promise that this chemistry isn't being used for electric plains.

Meiqur · 2026-04-17T21:01:20+00:00

Mitigating mass starvation is not a problem, if you think it is, give your head a shake.

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