Re: Commodore 1520 supplies + programs

On 2014-06-24 at 22:25:47, Ville Laustela (ville.laustela@gmail.com) wrote:

> >> You were lucky, indeed. I have several of those and ALL have the same failure: this tiniest 
> gear on the axis of the stepper is broken and split.
>  
> If I am thinking about the right part, it might have been replaced in my printer at some  
> point as it didn't look exactly the same as I have seen in some pics...

Yup - the smallest one. Directly on the axis.

> > I need to find one day a source of those damned tiny gears or I print them one day myself  
> ;-)
>  
> I have access to a 3D-printer at work (we just got it couple of weeks ago), and I was thinking  
> the very same thing! Unfortunately I have yet to study some 3D-drawing program to make  
> anything by myself... And this gear is so very small that I am not sure how easy that would  
> be.

Design would be easy. With basic knowledge of mechanics and current CAD stuff that wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that I don't believe the 3D printers are able to print this kind of things yet.


> What I had in my mind for some time but never got to finish it in the end was to design an adapter 
> for the modern "gel type" ball pen inserts. I even started to lathe the back part but got  
> stuck with the front part.
>  
> A 3D-printed holder for some modern-day pen sounds relatively easy to do.

Here it was the other way around. It was not a problem of producing this. Lathes are more than enough precise to do this. The problem was with designing the front cap so that it could work as original, even if not holding the same shape. If you look at the mechanism you will see that they are spring loaded and the thin membrane with holes is what pushes the pens back, away from the paper. The thing needs to precisely fit and hold the ball in the middle of the hole while leaving no play for it to wobble when drawing. The inserts I had didn't work the way I wanted. Later I found different inserts that could possibly work but then I didn't get back to this subject yet.

> I can see where this would end-up: gear by gear replacement until there would be a re-made 
> all-metal printer mechanics replacement kit :)

Sure - just let me see the small gear first :-)

--  
SD!

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