Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ima!bbn!aoa!dean
From: dean@aoa.UUCP (Dean Wormell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Some Imagewriter II trouble!
Summary: What gives??
Message-ID: <69@aoa.UUCP>
Date: 11 Feb 88 17:39:01 GMT
References: <3681@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Reply-To: dean@aoa.UUCP (Dean Wormell)
Distribution: na
Organization: Adaptive Optics Assoc., Cambridge, Mass. USA
Lines: 50

In article <3681@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> snyder@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Scott Snyder) writes:
>Hi,
>
>    I am running 4.2/6.0 on my Mac SE.  For the past couple of months I have
>had a problem with my IW II that seems to be getting worse.  As soon as printing
>starts (or sometimes in the middle of printing) I'll hear a loud sound from the
>print head (my wife says it sounds like BRRRRRHH) and then the print head uses
>that position as the new left margin reference.  This can happen in the middle
>of a line so that text sometimes wanders all over the place.  I have noticed
>that using manual paper feed it seems to happen much less often.  The self test
>seems to be all right so that I suspect either a cable or software problem, but
>I am at a loss for what to do.  I'm using ImageWriter driver 2.6.
>    Has anyone else had problems like this?  Any ideas? HELP!!
>Please e-mail me any ideas, or post if of interest to enough people.
>
>                        Scott     snyder@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu

Just as an intro, I've been using Macs and their Apple peripherals since
their introduction in 1984.  This includes all flavors of the Mac (128,
512, and SE) and the Imagewriter I & II.  Overall, I'm a very satisfied
customer.  As far as the Imagewriters are concerned, I've have seen very
little reliability problems with these printers, untill the advent of
System Software 5.0.

To deal more specifically with the original poster, I'm running with the
current System/Finder/Drivers, as above, on my SE at home.  Last week I was
printing a Hypercard card on the IW II when the same problem, described
above, occured.  In my case, the outcome was more fatal.

The card being printed had a solid (black) background and a third of the
way through the print job, the IW head slammed hard against the right side
of its' travel.  It stayed there for a second and I could here the belt,
which controls the head travel, slipping (as if the head wanted to move
outside of the printer).  When it resumed printing the card, the left
margin was shifted right about an inch and the solid background now had
white stripes for every printed line.  At the end of the print job, I could
smell burnt electrical circuitry.

The printer is 3 months out of warranty, and it has been estimated by the
authorized dealer that it would cost ~ $150 dollars to replace a board in
the IW II (the print head was not a fault).

I'm am truly concerned with your problem (and now mine) and hope someone
(Apple??) can shead some light on this issue.

-- 

		Dean Wormell

			...!{harvard,ima}!bbn!aoa!dean