Z3200 Right side cartridges all display as missing.

[Ussmillerco]

Recently acquired a z3200 24” printer, it came broken with a new ink tube assembly in a box. Upon power up, it starts up and after it’s long system check, it displays that every ink cartridge on the right hand side (LM, LC LG R etc.) is missing. Removed and replaced cartridges without resolution. Pulled side cover and all wiring and ribbon cables look good and properly connected. Was thinking there’s a problem with the print mech board that the supply station ribbon cables connect into, but before I begin going that route, I thought I’d better check in here and see what others thought. Can scroll through menu and aside from this issue, the printer seems to operate fine. Suggestions?

[jasonmiamifl]

there should be 4 white conectors & connected to ink supply station. follow the ribbons  & check them out.

check the print mech board & see any missing / unplug cables.

remove one ink & see what change on display panel..

[Ussmillerco]

Thx for the reply, did everything before posting, all checked fine. Traded print mech with another printer I have, still no right side cartridges. Did multiple restarts and got a bunch of crazy errors ( power supply, generic firmware, and others), so not knowing it’s history, pulled formatter board and blew off dust, and replaced the dead 2032 coin battery. Continued a few more times with errors, then it came up and I saw all printheads and machine initialized. Now chasing dried printheads, after several prints missing colors. Now cleaning and refilling printheads to 60g wt.  Again thanks, 

[jasonmiamifl]

also use a syringe & draw out air bubbles from the ink tube of dry up ink printheads.

Myself every time had bad printhead & I first draw out ink & no sure no bubble, then replace with new

printhead.. by this way, it always work out good.

[Ussmillerco]

First of all thank you Jason for your quick reply, Ok, used syringe to pull ink in to supply lines initially to make sure ink tubes weren’t clogged, but need to actually do this more thoroughly. Did manage to get this to print a several good diagnostics pages after cleaning all printheads and adding ink into printheads with the exception of the blue green printhead which I could never get to print any green, so I replaced and had all colors printing. I do have lingering problems with LC and PK banding and showing clogs that seem to get better after cleaning, but go back to banding. Note these issue are from the right side cartridges, see below. 

   But once again I’m having issues with the right side cartridges showing intermittent, reseat, missing and faulty cartridges. Many times, doing the reseat or replacing the offending carts (have extra set of carts from a Z3100) doesn’t correct the problem. It takes a shutdown and restart to get to “add paper/ ready to print” and if I leave the unit on for a while I have come back to one of the cartridge errors. I think it’s not the individual cartridges but an ink supply issue, where it’s sensing it’s not refilling printheads or not seeing some pressure differential needed to get to an ok. On luminous landscapes I read a nightmare issue a user(Z3200ps faulty ink cartridge. Already replaced it 3 times)  was having that sounds eerily similar to my issue although his problem was on the left side where mine is on the right side. He went through a mountain of troubleshooting only to throw in the towel and selling off the unit. Now I don’t suspect I have bad cartridges, but the system is losing prime and acting as though the ink carts are empty or perhaps it just has just enough air in the ink supply lines to cause a problem. I as I stated before did a manual prime using a syringe but only slightly to make sure none of the lines were clogged. Each produced a small amount of ink but I really wasn’t trying to fully pull all the air out if any existed. I will do a better job of that which could fix my problem. I also will test the ink lines pressure integrity by  testing them with some cartridge connector setup tubes I made up to connect a hose to the ink cartridge supply connectors. I know there’s a iss/ink supply test, and I will look into that also. As I stated before, I have printed numerous diagnostics pages and other info pages, which shows I’m very close to having this fixed, just want it to be long term. Any other suggestions?