geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) (02/06/90)
I've been having a problem with my ImageWriter II lately and was
wondering if any of the net.mac.hardware.gurus out there might have any
suggestions.
The symptom is that the printer doesn't always start in the correct
position horizontally. For example, the printer might start printing
the page in the center, rather than at the left side. Then, when it
reaches the right side, it makes a very hideous sound as the print head
reaches its rightmost limit.
This may repeat for several tries, until finally a page prints properly.
Turning the printer off and back on again seems to have no effect.
I tried replacing the ImageWriter driver, but that apparently wasn't the
problem.
It's the kind of problem that's tough to troubleshoot, because it only
happens `sometimes' and with no apparent antecedent (except trying to
print :-) ).
The technician from the `local' (55 miles from home) Apple dealer
guesses that it might be a logic board problem. If so, it'll be $155
for parts, and $30 for labor to swap the board. I'd really rather avoid
driving for an hour each way to drop it off and pick it up again just to
spend $185 to get my printer happy again.
Any ideas from y'all?
Expectantly,
Geoff
--
Geoff Allen \ I don't want to yield to fashion and
{uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ make the Macintosh as ugly as OS/2
ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \ --Jean-Louis Gassee, Apple Computerurlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de (02/07/90)
In comp.sys.mac.hardware geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) writes:
<
< The symptom is that the printer doesn't always start in the correct
< position horizontally. For example, the printer might start printing
< the page in the center, rather than at the left side. Then, when it
< reaches the right side, it makes a very hideous sound as the print head
< reaches its rightmost limit.
<
This seems like your left margin switch is stuck.
When turning the printer on, it normally moves the head all the way to the
left (to learn its exact position), and then to the center (to make inserting
the paper easier).
If your head doesn't move to the left, but instead either stays where it is or
moves half a page's width to the right, that might be it.
Disclaimer: The reasonable thing for the priner to do in such a case is to
blink its error light and not do anything (after all, the printer could
realize something is amiss as soon as the switch doesn't turn off when the
head gets moved to the right), so I don't know how valid this analysis is.
< Any ideas from y'all?
<
Ideas, yes; but I don't know if it'll actually help...
--
Matthias Urlichs