HP Z3100 Printer

[ricwis]

Hi all,
After a lot of research and the usual stressing out :confused_1: over what should I do, I have decided to get the HP Z3100 :coo3l:. Originally, I was looking at the 18" 5100 printer from Canon. My brother just got the Z3100 and his decision made me reconsider. I thought I would share my rational with the forum as it may help those considering a wide format printer.

Now that the the HP is down to $2945 with a price drop and rebate, this seemed like a good buy for a 24" printer. I really did not need this size printer for most of my work but I would consider it. One of my big concerns with smaller printers has always been ink cost as smaller cartridges cost more and hold less ink. This did not seem to be the case with the Canon printer as the cartridges were 130 ml.

To make a long story shorter, here is what convinced me to go ahead and get the HP:
1. The reviews of the printer are all good. The print quality is outstanding. The gloss enhancer eliminates the usual bronzing and gloss differential of pigment ink printers. I read Reichmann's review at Luminous Landscape, watched his videos, and was impressed. He had no negatives like he did for the Canon (documentation, user interface, etc.)
2. Ink costs turned out to be one of the major cost factors for me. HP offers dual cartridge packs that provide a huge savings. For two pack cartridges the price is $46-$50 per cartridge for 130 ml depending where you get it. This compares to the $75 cost for the Canon. By running the numbers for my three year usage estimate (5 Canon ink sets vs. 2.5 HP ink sets) the cost difference now is down to $180 more instead of the $1500 more for the HP.
3. Since I print mostly glossy, the gloss enhancer feature was a big factor.
4. The built in spectrophotometer to create custom printer profiles was the deciding feature. This is a $1K-$1.2 K cost to buy separately but is included and built in to the printer.
5. The software and interface are as good as it gets. (See review).

Hope this may be of help to some who are considering a wide format printer. Its been a long time in the research and thinking stages. Considering the ongoing operating costs and the outstanding output plus the features, I decided that a <$200 difference to get the 24" printer would be worth it. Just make sure you have the room. It is a big printer.

[Rudi]

Congratulations, Rich! Have you got it yet??? :)

[ricwis]

Not Yet Rudi. Hope to have it by next week and then setup and printing soon thereafter. I am anxious to get this little puppy set up and put to work. Waiting for my vendor of choice to verify they can give the same prices offered on the HP website. Hopefully that will happen by tomorrow.

I am sure I will have some questions for the large format printer owners who have been doing this type of printing for awhile.
Thanks,

[spfanatic]

Congratulations Rich. I'll be interested in your further comments once you put it through its paces.

[mdephoto]

I've had mine for about 9 months --- hope you love it as much as I do......

[David Cramer]

Congrats, Rich. I have the DJ130 from HP, but yours is a big step up in technology. I'm looking forward to your impressions.

[ricwis]

The printer should be here either Friday or Monday. Depends on when they ship it. HP has lowered the price. At ITSupplies, the printer is $3199 with a $300 rebate for a final cost of $2899. One note. Shipping is free from ITSupplies. However because of the trucking company policies, they cannot guarantee a delivery truck with a lift gate. Since the shipping weight is like 225 lbs. it is worth a $50 surcharge to insure lift gate delivery and have it wheeled into the garage. Otherwise, you have to unload it from the truck yourself and move it off the sidewalk yourself.

David, I was considering the DJ130. In fact I came pretty close to ordering it. During my research, I visited a wide format printer in the area. They had the DJ90 that they use for proofing. Although the output is great, I noticed that it was extremely slow to print because of the USB 1.1 interface. They also told me that the printer is now three years old and at the end of its product cycle so I decided not to get the 130.

I am glad the research part of this is over. There is so much more to consider than just the purchase price. I will keep you posted on the unpacking and setup.

[David Cramer]

I totally agree. The DJ130 has been a fantastic printer, but mine is three years old. I'm sure it is slow and noisey by todays standard... and it doesn't have a spectrophotometer! I'm interested in your experience, as well as Mike's, as I may be shopping for one in the coming year.

[ricwis]

Mike,
Since you have used the printer for quite a few months now, do you have some recommendations about ink usage and which colors are used the most? I would like to order some additional cartridges but don't have a guide as to what colors go first. I would think that the Gloss Enhancer would be one to keep on hand as I will do my share of glossy prints.

Thanks

[ricwis]

What a surprise. The freight company called at 11 and said the printer would be delivered between 12 and 4 today, Friday. At exactly 12:14, the truck rolled up to the house with the printer. I must say the packaging and instructions are excellent. Within 45 minutes, I have the stand all assembled, all the parts ready to go and now just have to wait for my son to stop over and help me lift the printer on to the stand. Guess what I will be doing this weekend!

This printer is large. Very large. There is nothing cheap about any part of it. The stand is solid metal and very sturdy when assembled. Although it is a lot more work than setting up a small 13" printer, it is easy to do and the instructions are easy to follow. As one of the reviewers noted, Ikea should hire HP to write their instruction manuals. After the printer is mounted and secured to the stand, the print heads, ink, and other things have to be installed. Should be a fun evening.

[Rudi]

Guess what I will be doing this weekend!

Visiting the chiropractor? ;) :D

[mdephoto]

I bought extras of all the colors just to be safe and the only ones that I have depleted so far are the yellow, gloss enhancer and the light black --- all the others are running lower, but equally so.....

[ricwis]

Not a happy camper any more. Things for the setup were going just fine. Installed the ink cartridges with no problem. Installed the printheads and then trouble started. The last printhead, the gloss enhancer-gray head would not work. The error kept coming up to reseat the faulty printhead. Would not work and I could not get past that part. So a call to HP technical support only made things worse. They do not have support for this printer outside of bankers hours. So I have to wait until Monday to get any support. The printer will just sit.

[Rudi]

:arghh::arghh::arghh:

Sorry to hear that, Rich. :disgust: Good luck with it on Monday!

[David Cramer]

Arrrrghhh!!!!!

[mdephoto]

Rich, sorry about that ... you have probably tried this already (from my manual) , but just in case....
...
4. Clean the electrical connections on the backside of the printhead with a lint free cloth. You can carefully use de-ionized or distilled water if moisture is needed to remove residue. Do not use water.
WARNING! This is a delicate process and may damage the printhead. Do not touch the
nozzles on the bottom side of the printhead.
5. Reinsert the printhead.
...

[ricwis]

Thanks Mike. I did see that and tried it but it made no difference. It looks like it is just a defective print head. Looking carefully at both the electrical connections and the print head itself, there does not appear to be anything wrong. The error message keeps repeating with "reset the printhead" which does not fix the problem. Looking at the HP site knowledge base, the solution is a new printhead, which I hope they will send me Monday. Meanwhile I look over at the printer and it just sits there.

[MorrieC]

Hi Rich

I just read your posting and congratulations on you new printer. I bet you are like a kid in a candy house.

Sorry to read about your problems but you might want to put a posting on the Luminous Landscape printer forum about the this problem. There are a lot of X3100 users that post on that forum. This link will take you to the printer forum.

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showforum=6

Can't wait to visit with you in a couple of weeks. I'm sure you will have all the kinks worked out.

Morrie

[ricwis]

Of course there is always the need that us photographers have to share the pictures. Here is how the printer arrives at your doorstep (garagestep):
http://www.ricwis.com/postables/ZDelivery.jpg
After about an hour of work and some heavy lifting you get this:
http://www.ricwis.com/postables/ZPrinter.jpg
Notice it is sitting in a corner. It was a bad boy.

[MorrieC]

WOW
That printer looks great. Hopefully you had help in putting it together. It looks really heavy.
Morrie

[ricwis]

Finally got things up and running. The printhead arrived FedEX today. I installed it and the printer then continued to initialize and do all the things it does to get ready to print.

My next adventure required me to spend over an hour on the phone with HP support. The DVD that ships with the printer is NOT Leopard compatible and of course, they do not tell you that. What they tell you is to go to the website and download the driver from there. When you go to the website and choose Mac OSX 10.5, there is no driver there. So I figured I must use the one on the DVD so I did. Wrong choice. I had to delete the HP stuff, dig out the Leopard install disc and install the HP printer package and then download the 10.4 driver. Then there is new firmware for the printer that needs to be installed as well.

After we got that all done, I was ready to print. For my first print, I decided to go for the big one and print 16x24 of a Wood Duck. Wow, it is a nice printer.

My big letdown is the fan noise. I am going to have to figure something out to deal with that. The fan never stops, even when the printer is in sleep mode and is not good for my office. The Mac is quiet with no fan noise at all so this ruins my quiet work environment.

Other than the fan noise, I am now a happy camper.

[MrPaul]

If that printer were any bigger, you would need to buy a bigger house. :) I hear the ink cartridges need to be refrigerated. Is that true?

[ricwis]

With the number of prints I am doing, I think I will use up the ink so preservation is not necessary.

I wrote up a little review of the printer and how I decided on this one. You can read about it here:
Rich's HP Printer Review (http://www.ricwis.com/HPPrinter.html)

It is a great printer. Even though I had some frustrations in the setup, it is now working great.

[MrPaul]

Those big printers use a lot of electricity. Your printer is probably contributing to global warming. :realmad: Consider buying your electricity from a small neighborhood nuclear power plant that does not produce CO2.

[Rudi]

Those big printers use a lot of electricity. Your printer is probably contributing to global warming. :realmad:

As is your computer, printer, cellphone etc. The real problem here is how much energy it takes to ship all these things around the world, and not just computers! The fact that it is cheaper to ship food and goods from another part of the world than it it to produce them locally is one of the biggest problems. Although with the rising price of oil, it shouldn't be a problem much longer... ;) :D

[MrPaul]

Of course, being able to produce one's own prints, means not having to drive to the photo store to pick them up. That must save a lot of energy, time and money. So.... we have another excuse for buying a new toy!

I must admit I admire the big ink tanks on this printer. The ink is practically affordable! I never understand how ink can cost almost $1 a ml. It makes $4 a gallon gas seem cheap.