Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!m2c!ulowell!bbn!aoa!dean
From: dean@aoa.UUCP (Dean Wormell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Some Imagewriter II trouble!
Keywords: Film at 11:00
Message-ID: <75@aoa.UUCP>
Date: 12 Feb 88 16:11:44 GMT
References: <3681@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <69@aoa.UUCP>
Reply-To: dean@aoa.UUCP (Dean Wormell)
Distribution: na
Organization: Adaptive Optics Assoc., Cambridge, Mass. USA
Lines: 62

I would like to add some more details about IW II hardware failure.

>>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
>
>  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.
>
>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).
>
>		Dean Wormell
>
Well, I just talked with the "authorized" service technician, who was
attempting to fix my IW II, and the estimated $150 repair job is now up to
$400.

He suspected that the driver board had failed, so it was replaced and the
printer was tested.  In his words upon running the self-test, "sparks and
smoke came off the driver board"; and, the missing line was still present as
the printer continued to print.  More specifically, a surface mounted
device at location HIC3 on the driver board was the part that smoked.

He called Apple Tech Support and they told him that replacing the driver
board, the CPU board, and the print motor should solve the problem.

Needless to say, I'm not to thrilled at paying the price to have the guts
of the IW II replaced now that the repair cost is approaching that of a new
printer.

Since this does'nt seem to be a common problem (like loud fans, jittery
screens, and flyback transformers -- two of which I experience with my work
and home SEs); I suspect I have a "lemon".  I plan to talk w/ Apple about
this; but, from previous posters, I'm not over confident about a positive
outcome.  

In short off buying a new IW II (and AppleCare :-(), could someone point me to 
third-party printers and/or schematics of the IW II boards so I can try to 
fix the printer myself.

Thank you for bearing with this long poster. Flames, solutions, comments,
related experience, etc. ... are welcome.

-- 

		Dean Wormell

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