Posts: 30
Threads: 1
Joined: Jan 1970
Ed-
Do it while it's solid!
If it starts to get soft, there's a good chance it'll start to "drag" the gooey mess into other parts of the reader and make it more challenging and time-consuming to clean up.
This is from experience that I and my father have had with some gummy versus still mostly solid wheels. The more solid ones clean up so much more easily and you don't get cards gooey too, if you do it early.
Good luck!
-Mike
Posts: 252
Threads: 14
Joined: Jan 1970
Just so that you can read a dissenting opinion here as well :-)
I wouldn't replace a wheel until I have to. Usually, you can detect signs of trouble long before the wheel liquifies to the extent that it contaminates other parts (this is not like the case of those HP-67s that stayed in closets for years until someone tried to use them again, with the wheel completely disintegrated already.) And in any case, I didn't find it the least bit difficult to remove that contamination. So why mess with something that may have years of useful life left in it?
Viktor
Posts: 1,162
Threads: 26
Joined: Aug 2005
My experience is that if you wait until the roller has turned to glue, it's easy to remove the remains from the gear assembly (just wipe it off), but
you also have to clean up many other parts of the reader. If you do it before it's turned to glue, then
the reast of the reader won't need much cleaning, but it's a lot harder to clean off the remains of the old roller. I just did an HP67 where the roller was just starting to decay and I had to
spend quite a bit of time scraping the roller off the gear shaft.
It's up to you. If i get an HP card reader in for repair for some other problem I normally replace the roller anyway (unless it's obviously new or still OK). If it's my own machine, I replace the roller when it needs it.