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Apple LaserWriter IINT craigslist find

psychobatpsychobat
edited June 2015 in Hardware
I recently went to get a Apple LaserWriter IINT someone was giving away on craigslist for free. Looking at it in person revealed a few problems (I was expecting this as it is a ~25 year old printer after all).

The first problem is its missing its paper tray, so I dont know how I am going to test this unless theres a way to get it to feed without the tray, I don't have a clue on how I am going to do that. If anyone has any ideas on how to bypass this so I can test it or potentially create a make shift paper tray, please let me know.

Second problem is the fan doesn't sound all that healthy. After running it for ~5 minutes, it seems to improved a lot, but I think I am going to take the LaserWriter apart and lubricate the fan bearings to be safe.

The machine does sound great for sitting in a shed for the past ~15 years, but its going to need a good cleanup. All the rubber in the machine also seems to be in excellent condition and the fuser heats up just fine, though I am not too optimstic about the old HP toner cartridge thats in there. The only indicator light that goes on when its done warming up is the no paper light, which makes sense.

Lights: http://imgur.com/UMBX1hY.jpg

Missing paper tray area: http://imgur.com/6hbbfkw.jpg

Comments

  • psychobatpsychobat
    Well, I've made some progress. Doing more researching after I wrote this, I figured out where the switches were in the missing paper tray area. There were three accordion looking one at the lower right (only middle one needed to be pressed) and a dangling one on top.

    After I fixed that, I reached another problem. I apparently didn't look at all the rubber closely, the paper feed roller was a bit glossy and wasn't gripping the paper. I originally tried sanding the glossy surfaces the best I could (I didn't want to take the roller out because it looks like a bitch to get to), but that wasn't enough. After that, being as cheap as I am, I wanted to find a regular household item to rejuvenate the rubber without buying a can of rubber rejevenator. I went through a couple ideas until I heard goo gone can sometimes work (do not mistake goo gone and goof off), so I applied a heavy coat of goo gone and let it sit a night and it worked. The printer is now able to grip the pages, which uncovered yet another problem...

    The service test page is supposed to print out a page with vertical lines. When I held down the switches and pressed the service test button, it printed out a pretty much completely black page with blank borders on the side (I'm guessing the borders mark where the lines are supposed to end). Due to the toner cartridge looking to be around 20 years old (at least since the printer was retired and stored in a shed), I am going to take a shot in the dark and try replacing the cartridge and see if that is the problem. If it's not, I will try to diagnose it from there (would probably be the DC power board and/or the high voltage board if I had to guess).

    I also attacked it with a magic eraser and some 91% isopropyl alcohol, cleaned up nicely. Sorry in advance for the before pics, I didn't technically take any but I have a couple I saved from the craigslist ad.

    Before Pictures:

    Port Area: http://i.imgur.com/y58RN1T.jpg

    Port Area 2: http://i.imgur.com/OvPL1gz.jpg

    After Pictures:

    Front: http://i.imgur.com/RY4QSx8.jpg

    Rear: http://i.imgur.com/zDOBRKD.jpg

    Port Area: http://i.imgur.com/9e1qpIp.jpg

    Missing Paper Cassette Area: http://i.imgur.com/OHMsuzA.jpg
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    Looks like a fun project.

    Heres the user manual for it
    http://www.mit.edu/afs.new/sipb/user/sl ... INTNTX.PDF

    Toner
    http://www.quikshiptoner.com/catalog/ap ... aper-guide
  • psychobatpsychobat
    TCPMeta wrote:
    Looks like a fun project.

    Heres the user manual for it
    http://www.mit.edu/afs.new/sipb/user/sl ... INTNTX.PDF

    Toner
    http://www.quikshiptoner.com/catalog/ap ... aper-guide

    Thanks for the links. I actually already found one version of the manual and the official service manual, I will read that one over to make sure there isn't anything the others didn't go over. As for the toner, there's actually a boat load of new old stock cartridges on ebay for cheap (~$10-20). Though the Apple cartridges are quite old, because the LaserWriter II has a lot of overlap parts wise with the HP LaserJet II/III (both are based off the Canon LBP-SX Engine), an HP 95A cartridge works perfectly and is just as cheap while being much newer than the Apple cartridges.

    I did, however, hit another problem. The machine started getting the paper jam and out of paper light to blink, which usually means the AC power supply or fuser is bad. The fuser I know is good, so I took out the AC power supply. At first, nothing was obvious. I thought there was some rust on some of the joints, but I'm believe it was just too much flux. Then, I took a closer look at one of the boards saw what I believe to be a leaking cap. The positive lead on it is all corroded and there's a pool of rust or electrolyte at the bottom. There's also another cap with much less corrosion to the left of it in the pic

    I'll try replacing the cap and resistor and seeing if that fixes things. If not, I'll probably be looking for a working LaserWriter II or LaserJet II/III AC power supply since I think they are the same thing. I might retest the fuser just to make sure it isn't the weak link since I'm not sure how many pages this thing has printed and with my luck, the bulb burned also.

    Capacitor Positive Lead: http://i.imgur.com/xHE4uiF.jpg

    Second Capacitor: http://i.imgur.com/WxUdkva.jpg
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    Yea that cap is toast.
  • psychobatpsychobat
    Well, I replaced the cap and it half fixed the problem. The paper jam and out of paper lights no longer blink, but the fuser still isn't warming up. I tested the output with a multimeter and the voltage is spot on, but the amperage is very low. I may try replacing the triac on the bottom board as thats a common failure point also and it plays a major role in the output for the fuser. If worse comes to worse, I'll just have to spend the money on a working used ac power brick for it if I can't get this one working. It's at least better than what it was, its getting there.
  • BODBOD
    Sounds like you need to start looking at transistors too.
  • psychobatpsychobat
    BOD wrote:
    Sounds like you need to start looking at transistors too.

    I'll probably take a look at them if all else fails, there's a couple on the top board I could check, but I'm pretty sure those aren't the problem (pretty sure those are very rare to fail). The closest common fail item to a transistor on the power brick is the triac on the lower board which just so happens to control the current going to the fuser bulb. I found a guy on ebay that will sell me the replacement triac with an updated heatsink for about $16.

    I also got the idea to check the resistors on the top board if that doesn't work, though it really shouldn't have to come to that (hopefully).
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