dave@ips.oz.au (Dave Horsfall) (06/24/91)
[ I'd use comp.laser-printers, but it hasn't had a message in it for ages ] I am the ex-proud possessor of a "BDS Lazertron 8" printer (well, that's what it says on the front). Its history is unknown, I bought it 2nd-hand, and the distributor has long since gone out of business. After years of sterling service, it is now behaving in an odd manner. First, a brief description is in order. It is Canon-based, and takes the same fusing rollers, cartridge, trays etc as does the Apple Laserwriter. Naturally, Apple dealers don't want to know about it, apart from selling me spares. A sticker on the side says: "LBP-CX I/F PCB-1", with some sort of stylised logo consisting of the letters "GS" tracing out the paper path. The manual says it is a "BDS Laser 630/8", dated Jun 24, 1985. It emulates Diablo 630, and claims to do HP LaserJet, but it is not documented, and I've never figured it out, although I do get some weird graphics when my WordStar jobs get out of hand. BDS Australia went out of business a long time ago, as did the people that took them over. Now, the problem. It is best described as "loss of memory", in a funny sort of way. If there is an appreciable interval since printing the last page, such as power-on after a while, or a dense page taking a long time to image, the thing starts to feed the next sheet, then instead of a loud "CLUNK" there is a quiet "click" instead. At this point the display signals a paper jam, and the errant paper is found in the pre-feed somewhere. After extracting the sheet (and power-cycling it, since there appears to be no other way of resetting it) it can take MANY cycles like this before it comes good. As luck would have it, I discovered another way - remove the paper tray, power off for a while, power on, then if I am in luck the stuck sheet will start feeding through. If I'm really in luck the printer is then ready to start printing as normal. However, it varies. Indeed, the problem seems to slowly get worse, but once it actually starts printing, it sorts of "remembers" that it is OK to print - i.e. delays that would have frozen it earlier in the power on/off cycle no longer worry it, that is, until there is a VERY long delay between pages (such as setting up a new print run etc). The problem is difficult to describe, but you get the picture, I hope. It looks suspiciously like the EEPROM is failing, after all these years (and cycles). So, what sort of an EEPROM would it use, if this diagnosis is correct? Where would I even FIND the EEPROM within its innards? I'm understandably reluctant to pull a laser-printer apart... Has anyone even seen one of these dinosaurs before? -- Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU) VK2KFU @ VK2RWI.NSW.AUS.OC dave@ips.OZ.AU ...munnari!ips.OZ.AU!dave