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Repairing the HPz3200 Printer

By 3 Jul ’13February 2nd, 2015Uncategorized, Work

We recently had the power supply on our 44″ large-format inkjet HPz3200 printer fail – it started making a lot of noise – indicative of a dying fan on the power supply – and eventually it failed completely. I was able to get a new power supply for a little over $100 from alinc.com. Thanks to some exhaustive googling I found another owner who had done this repair themselves – Adrian Tsang (big THANKS to Adrian for posting – which is what is motivating me to support other HPz3200 owners with this post). Much like Adrian, the cost of having a technician come out was going to be prohibitive – so diving in myself was the best option. Adrian also connected me to the PDF of the “end of life” disassembly manual from HP (they don’t seem to have any kind of technician’s manual available to download – BAD HP!).

In any case – this was about a 3-4 hour endeavor. The machine was NOT made to be taken apart at this level easily. A lot of the screws were well hidden, and the entire plastic exoskeleton of the printer had hidden tabs and connectors that proved challenging to find and access. Some key points – most of the screws are star drive/torx screws – and you need a #10 throughout, as well as one size above. You really need a “long” tool where possible – the screwdriver kind of torx as opposed to the “L” shaped allen-wrench style versions as there are 2-3 KEY screws that need to be removed but are easily 6″ down between other components – very hard to reach. I also used a little black and decker power screwdriver with a torx bit which sped up the process a lot – if you can get something like that with a long extension on it that would be worth the trip to the hardware store.

You only have to disassemble the one end of the machine with the power supply in it (the left end, when you are facing the machine) BUT you DO have to remove the 3 components that make up the front of the machine where the paper slides over – these components are only held in by a couple of screws but they snap together in a tricky way – you have to really sit underneath and look up and you will see all the way the aluminum cover snaps onto the paper feed outlet surface. But it DOES come off.

I took some photos in process but ran out of steam for that. Here they are. If you have one of these printers and get stuck trying to replace the power supply (Alinc.com SKU# CN727-67022 Z3200/T2300/T1120/T620 Power Supply SV) drop me a note and I’ll see if I can help you out!

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