Thermal Printer 82143 -Problems to operate the printer-

[Martin Wahlich]

A feew days ago a colleague of fine gave me his old (20 years?) HP 82143 Printer, which was not in use for minimum the last 15 years.

After I connected the printer to my HP 41 I wanted is insert the thermal paper (original HP 20 years old as well).

Putting the paper in, switching it on and pressing the paper advance button, no paper advance tool place, the printing head, which is in a right hand side position moved allitle leftwards (ca. 1cm) returned to ít old position and a funny noise could be heard.

So finally here is my question:
Can anybody give me a hint what to do? Do I have to clean the mechanical Parts and how?

[Hans Brueggemann]

martin,
the printhead is driven by a worm gear, which itself is driven by a motor via a small rubber pulley. if your printer makes squealing noises (which come from the tormented pulley), then the worm gear is blocked.
check the following:
try a paper advance with no paper inserted. if that works, you most likely did not properly align the paper when inserting it into the printer. if the printer is still protesting, open the printer and check the worm gear. try to turn it manually. maybe the bearings are congested with aged oil. send me a mail if you are unsure about the location of the gear. i will be sending you a photo.

hope, that helps

hans

[David Smith]

The worm gear and intrnal mechanism certainly needs to be cleaned. Also the rubber drive belt may be bad. A replacemnt is the Projector Recorder Belt Company SCX2.4 (see www.russellind.com)

[Tony Duell]

After 15 years, the first thing I'd suspect would be the NiCd battery pack. You _must_ have a good, charged, battery in this unit for the motor to work correctly.
If you're using a known-good battery, then I'd open up the printer. Take out the battery, peel off the feet, and undo the 5 screws (4 under the feet) on the bottom. Seprate the case halves.
You can now inspect the mechanism. Check the drive belt, and turn the pulleys by hand to see what's happening. Maybe you'll have to take it apart further to do the actual repair, but this should give you a clue as to what's happening.

[Martin Wahlich]

Thanks to all of you for your good hints.

Finally I connected the printer for about one hour to AC-adapter and all of a sudden it works like tha last 15 years have not been ellapsed.