HP 82143A Printers

[David Hayden]

I assume you mean the HP 82143A printer, not 42143A. The Service manual is on the museum thumb drive.

My 82143A wouldn't advance the paper. Actually the print head wouldn't travel freely back and forth. To solve this I opened it up and lubricated the lead screw and guide rods as shown on page 3-9 of the service manual. I used dry teflon lube, which you can get at bicycle stores. After applying a little bit of the stuff I turned the wheel by hand to run the print head from one extreme to the other. Voila! The printer worked fine after that.

Oh, and in a bit of serendipity, when I went to Staples to look for thermal paper, I found a pack of 50x 50' rolls in the clearance bin for $7. The rolls are small, but it's probably enough to last for the rest of my life.