Z3200 smears ink on paper after replacing carriage belt

[Chownz]

Hi, my carriage belt had deteriorated and caused a paper jam, so I replaced it. The whole process went very smoothly but on start up I still get a paper jam error 86:01 even though the carriage travels smoothly up and down.

I put it into diagnostic mode and ran the carriage diagnostics. I get an error 58:11 Fail Delta E out of limits 92.000>8. During this process I get a message that th PCA Revision is 2.323.

When I load paper the carriage leaves a horizontal trace of black ink. It will travel onto the service station without issue.

Not sure what to do next, had wondered if the rear bushing on the carriage needed replacing also. Any help would be much appreciated.

[AbrahamB · Accepted solution]

Hey there!
As you mentioned that issue can be related to the rear bushing but also have a 58:10 error wich is related to color sensor EPS.
Have you made the service calibrations related to the parts removed during service?

Because that can be the root of those errors and if you did the calbrations i'll recommend to run starwheel calibration too and the service station then check for the up rear bushing.

Hope you have this solved.

[Repairatrooper]

In regards to the 86 error. Did you completely clean the carriage rod and lubricate with proper grade lubricant? Additionally, did you clean the encoder strip? Depending on cleaning method you may have damaged the strip or there might be ink or contamination that prevents the sensor from reading the strip as the carriage moves. The ink line on the paper is likely due to ink contamination on the platen rollers or other paper path components. Ink across the page in the direction of the printhead travel would indicate something stuck to the bottom of the printhead carrier.

The only time I have ever had to replace the back bushing is when I broke it through inattention when assembling. Without the bushing the carriage tilts forward and contacts the paper path, stalling the head.

[Chownz]

Hi, thank you very much for taking the time to respond. I checked the rear bushing and it had indeed snapped. I have replaced this and also re-lubricated the running bar and we're all sorted. The smearing on the paper was caused by the carriage being too low. After re-calibration everything is working fine.

Thinking back to the original malfunction, at the point where the Z3200 stopped working the the carriage had started clicking against the paper edge and I wonder if the bushing had failed at that point. When I then inspected the printer I could see that the carraiage belt needed replacing (because it had degraded) but this component hadn't actually caused the issue.

After re-build I also had to replace 3 of the 6 print heads which worked fine before the main fail. They were the original ones so I guess their time was up. Thanks again for the responses.

[Chownz]

Thank you for your advice regarding re-lubrication and cleaning. I also did these on your advice. Very many thanks.