HP Designjet 3500CP, a list of questions......

[CES020]

Barber on here was kind enough to give us his old HP Designjet 3500CP that had been in storage for some time.

We brought it back, turned it on, and immediately noticed the belt was dry rotted and coming apart. So we got a new belt, and after disassembling a great deal of things, we managed to get the old belt off and the new belt on.

First- we have no idea what we'll use this printer for. We don't have printers and this one was free, so we thought "hey, there's a way to learn- let's try it". So we have no real hopes and dreams of selling 100's of sq. ft a day of product, but if we could find a use for it that made a little money, that would be great too.

So we turn it on after the belt replacement and it seems to get going. Then it comes to the ink part. Errors all over the place with the printheads. So looked up all the issues, cleaned the contacts on the print heads and the carriage and they all show being installed (no blinking light). However, it goes through the tests at startup and says something like "incorrect ink system".

It's all UV, the ink, the printheads, and the head cleaners. We have a set of non-UV, I put them in, and I can't get past the test, it gives me lots of other issues with those printheads. So I got back to the UV, same thing, can't make it work. It came with a number of different ink packs, printheads, and head cleaners. I can't seem to get it to get past the initial test.

Why would it say it's incorrect ink system when it's all UV? Are the printhead, ink, and cleaner all a matched set, and it knows it's a matched set, and me putting other one's into the system has now caused a mismatch? I need some help on that one.

We'd like to buy the ink to get going, but with the price for ink being $650 for non-UV or $850 for UV, we'd hate to drop $850 to find out it won't work because there's something wrong, like a bad board or a wiring harness has dried up and cracked.

So we can't seem to get past that self test of loading the ink, to see if we can even make it move back and forth.

Any ideas on how to bypass all that testing? And what's causing it? The ink is very old, I do know that, but I'm not seeing an "out of date" error at all.

Next issue- let's say we decide to bite the bullet and buy the ink. Do we go with UV or non-UV? From what I have seen, the UV is a bit flatter in color. Also, I do know that even the UV won't work outside, and we'd never try to sell anything for outside use.

So if we can't do outside stuff, is there any real advantage to the UV ink system if we're not producing art work? I have no idea what we'll do with it, but I'd hate to spend $650 to find out we should have got the $850 from the start.

Also, for media, is there after market stuff that works well on it, or do we need to stick with the original HP recommended stuff?

I've found a few sources for the supplies so far.

Any advice is appreciated. I know there are 3 or 4 people on this forum that just got this old printer, so any knowledge yo give will be helping a number of people!

Thanks-
Steve

 

[CES020]

Anyone?

 

[BigfishDM]

You have a very old machine, what do you plan on printing? Cant say if you need UV or DYE if we dont know what you plan on printing. Your going to have to spend the money on the inks and heads to see if your machine is workable. Your going to spend a few bucks to get a HP guy out there to give it a good run through.

 

[CES020]

Thanks Bigfish, we have no idea what we plan to print with it. We didn't have a printer last month, this month, we have this. So that's about where we are.

I do ask the questions as I mentioned above, there are a handful of us on here that just picked up these machines, so we'll probably all face some of the same questions and I thought someone that had knowledge could help educate us as a group.

So you're saying the only way to get past that first stage is to buy the new ink/head/cleaner. There's no way to bypass an "improper ink" message? Do you know what causes that, since it's not like we have dye ink and we have UV print heads installed. It's all UV.

If everything it prints really needs to be geared towards indoors, is there any real advantage of the UV over the dye ink?

Also, media wise, what do we look for, the standard HP media or what type of 3rd party media would work for this time of machine?

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks-
Steve

 

[BigfishDM]

For media there is alot of different materials you can print on you wont have any problem finding media. There is no way to bypass getting new inks, I would call HP and ask them where you could get tech support on that unit. Its going to cost a few bucks to get it running and for the inks but once its done you will have a machine you can print posters, tradeshow graphics, banners, etc... If everything your going to do is indoor then get the dye inks.

 

[CES020]

HP no longer supports it, that's why I'm asking so many questions here

Thanks for your help, I do appreciate it. I know it's ancient, but our hopes are that we can at least use it to learn a little more about color and printing and see if it's something we think we should take to the next level (the next level being a HP latex ).

We've got to walk before we can run

Thanks again!

 

[Bly]

I started off in digital print with a 3000CP, same as yours but without the internal RIP.
The main errors with these printers are to do with the print heads. They are meant to be replaced with each ink cart, so that tells you how long they are expected to last. So you will need to buy a set of inks/heads before you know anything else is up with it.
The only other problems we had were to do with the drive belts.
They initially had a rubber belt to run the paper feed but these were under engineered so there was an upgrade to switch to a gear drive. Most around today would have had this done.
The pigment ("UV") inks did last quite well outdoors - the print life was dependent on the quality of the media and lam. 3M did offer a 2 or 3 year MCS warranty in the day but their stuff was hideously expensive compared with solvent media. The output being 4 colour was a bit grainy but fine for most signage.
The dye output was nicer and if all you want to do is offer indoor posters should fit the bill nicely.
The other flaw with them is they have to stop and refill the heads with ink about every metre so large prints will inherit a "dry line".
An HP5000 would have been a better printer for you but since you have this it could be a foot in the door to the print world for you.
Good luck.

 

[CES020]

Thanks Bly, it was free, so how could we resist

I haven't hooked it up to a computer yet, so who knows what we'll find when that happens. Good to see HP seems to still have all the software available online for download, so I guess when time permits, we'll go ahead and get some ink and give it a whirl!

Thanks for the help!

 

[BigfishDM]

How do you plan on getting business for the printer? Thats even more important than having a machine. Get a plan on how you intend to make money, what do you want to use the printer for. If you can get together a few thousand I can get you a HP-5500 60" that would be alot easier to start with.

 

[BigfishDM]

I have a few used 42" HP-5500 also

 

[CES020]

Our current customers have the need for printed material.

We don't know what this thing is capable of so it's hard to decide how we will approach what we go after. Our thought would be to use it to learn a little and if we can have it make a little money, we'll shove that money aside and start building a stash to buy a new printer. Sort of a pay as you go plan

Right now we don't take print work on, so buying a new printer and starting from zero isn't in our future. But if we could lightly touch on some printing, we could easily develop it into something that we could justify buying a new printer.

We do interior signs for commercial office space. So we could easily market prints for lobbies and hallways. We are working on signs for 3 buildings right now where they are renovating the wallpaper, photos, signs. So we could easily tap into those existing clients and offer to print local landmarks and items for their artwork in their buildings. It wouldn't be a real hard sell. Not high volume, but it would get us started.

I don't know, we haven't figured it all out yet If I could see the thing print, I could work more on figuring out what to market. It's going to cost $650-850 to find out, so we'll just have to go that route.

 

[Bill Modzel]

If time is money, you might be spending way too much on a "free" printer. You're much better off purchasing a used 5500 as suggested above.
You keep mentioning switching from dye to UV. I'M NOT SURE how the 3500 works but the 5000 series has a complete ink system changeout so switch. Ink thanks, hoses, printheads etc. It certainly isn't just switching inks.
Cut your loss and dump it. Even the 5500's are fairly old now but they were excellent printers.

 

[CES020]

I have no plans to "switch inks". I was asking which one to select, the dye or the UV and what the applications would be.

If we don't get this to work, then we'll do without a printer. We weren't in the market for a printer, so probably no need for us to buy a 5500. If it ends up working, great, if it doesn't then, no big deal.

If we buy a printer, it would be a new HP latex, but we're not even shopping for printers. Just thought we could try and get this going so we could learn.

 

[heyskull]

I had a graphtec JX2100 which has this as the printer part.
To be quiet honest I would sort yourself a better machine even if it was free.
This machine uses a printhead with every ink tank!!
You buy four cartridges, printheads and a cleaning assemblies with every refill.
We had big problems with colours and keeping the ink fed.
It costs a fortune to run and uses special expensive material to print onto.
Only use UV inks as the dye versions will last maybe a month!

SC