Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uwvax!titanic.cs.wisc.edu!tonyrich
From: tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu (Anthony Rich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Imagewriter trouble & possible replacement
Message-ID: <9209@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 22 Nov 89 17:51:07 GMT
References: <6234@shlump.nac.dec.com> <869@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu
Reply-To: tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu (Anthony Rich)
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 40

In article <869@maytag.waterloo.edu> jb@aries5.UUCP (Jim Bryun) writes:

[Woes about jammed Imagewriters in a heavy student-use environment.]

>Every second page gets jammed in the sprocket feed, or lines become
>scrunched up or ...
>
>Does anyone know of a decent solution to this problem with ImageWriter II's.
>

I was a consultant in one of the Mac labs here at UW-Madison; the
Imagewriters were by far the biggest headache because of their
"push the paper into the platen" design.  [Second biggest headache:
student-mangled System Folders].

I don't have any "decent" solutions, but a couple of stopgap
measures we used helped in the heat of battle.

Putting additional pressure on the paper bail (and therefore on the paper
at the front of the platen) seems to help.  The quick-and-dirty way we
did it in the lab was to wedge a folded-up wad of paper between a flat
part of the printer and a flat plastic tab on each end of the paper bail
underneath the cover (sorry to be so vague, but I don't have an Imagewriter
nearby.  Take a look and I think you'll find the places).  The wad of paper
forces the paper bail down harder, helping to "pull" the paper.

If you wedge too big a wad in there, though, the paper bail pops out
of its detents, so a it's trial-and-error kind of thing.  Also, if the
paper wad is too big, the cover doesn't close all the way.  We used a
folded-up length of the torn-off sprocket-hole part of the printout paper
itself to do it.

An only-slightly-less-ridiculous way is to beef up the springs that hold
the paper bail down by looping a rubber band around their anchor points a
couple of times.  (Heavier springs might do it, too.)

Neither suggestion is a real solution, but will help in a jam (pun
intended).

  -- Tony