HP 82143A Printers

[larthurl]

So I have two HP 82143A printers from my 1980s HP-41 days.
One printer - the paper won't advance. The other printer, the paper advances but does not print anything.

I have good batteries so that's not the issue. I've even tried 3 different HP-41s - a 41c, and two diff 41cx

Any thoughts on what's wrong with these guys?

.....Art

[Dave Frederickson]

(11-30-2017 09:43 PM)larthurl Wrote:  So I have two HP 42143A printers from my 1980s HP-41 days.
One printer - the paper won't advance. The other printer, the paper advances but does not print anything.

I have good batteries so that's not the issue. I've even tried 3 different HP-41s - a 41c, and two diff 41cx

Any thoughts on what's wrong with these guys?

.....Art

Try the Service Manual. Always a good place to go when trying to fix broken things.

[Raymond Del Tondo]

(11-30-2017 09:43 PM)larthurl Wrote:  So I have two HP 42143A printers from my 1980s HP-41 days.
One printer - the paper won't advance. The other printer, the paper advances but does not print anything.

I have good batteries so that's not the issue. I've even tried 3 different HP-41s - a 41c, and two diff 41cx

Any thoughts on what's wrong with these guys?

.....Art

The paper advance problem usually can be solved by replacing the paper transport wheels. The principle is similar to that used in the HP card readers, but it's much more effort to get to those wheels. And, in the card reader there's one wheel, whereas the printer uses two of them.

The non-printing unit can suffer from various injuries. The easiest to cure would be the plug, if the contact springs are dirty or corroded. Next thing would be checking the cable.

In any case consulting the service manual (as suggested by Dave) would be a good idea;-)

[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.

[Craig Bladow]

Can anyone point me to a good source for the rubber o-rings in this printer? I got some off of EBay last year that were too big.