sasaki@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU (Marty Sasaki) (06/30/87)
Is anyone else having problems with 3 hole paper on DEC's PS40? When we complain to DEC they tell us that we are the only one's having the problem so it must be the paper or the person loading the paper. Unless we go through the proper incantations (load paper just before it is to be printed on, curved side downward, keep paper in a box in another room until loaded) the paper will jam somewhere along the paper path. Sometimes the PS40 will print only a few pages before it jams, other times it will print several hundred sheets, then jam. Sometimes doing the incantations doesn't help, mostly it does. We have tried different weight papers and have tried the papers in different feed trays and 3 hole paper consistantly jams. ---------------- Marty Sasaki uucp: harvard!sasaki Ziff Davis Technical Information Co. arpa: sasaki@harvard.harvard.edu 80 Blanchard Road bitnet: sasaki@harvunxh Burlington, MA 01803 phone: 617-273-5500
reid@DECWRL.DEC.COM (Brian Reid) (07/09/87)
We have a very early LPS40, and a couple of months ago an engineer flew out from DEC headquarters to upgrade it for us. He is probably DEC's best expert on the LPS40 hardware. I watched in awe as he stripped our machine down to a bucket of small parts and then reassembled it back into a printer without ever looking at a manual or blueprint. He recommended that we not use 3-hole paper oriented so that the edge with the 3 holes is the leading edge during paper travel. He said that the paper transport mechanism requires the leading edge of the paper to be stiffer than it can be with 3 holes punched in it. We spent a day or two obeying his instructions, feeding the paper short-edge first. This slows the printer down and is a nuisance for several reasons. So I started looking for a brand of 3-hole paper that was stiff enough to work well. After considerable experimentation, we found that "Hammermill Tidal MX" 3-hole paper works just fine in our LPS40. We have not found any other brand that works as well. Brian