Cleaning gungy Flexowriter

[Tony Duell]

>     I finally got the first Flexowriter running. Sort of. The motor runs
> but the belt slips most of the time. The gear train in the thing is TIGHT.

It shoudln't be. With the machine idling (i.e. no snails kicked against 
the drive roller), it should be very free. Remove the punch and reader 
first, of course (trivial to do) to eliminate those.

In case you've not figured it out, pressing a key releases a snail cam 
against the drive roller. The roller then flips the cam round, forcing 
the bracket that holds the cam away from the roller. This operates the 
type bar. It's a standard mechanism for electric typewrtiers.

The transmit output comes from the contacts at the RHS near the 
carriage return clutch. The rials in the encoder frame connect to the 
snail brackets, when the brackets are forced away from the roller, the 
encoder rail moves, lifting the switch actuator bails, operating the 
contacts. 

The receive input goes to solenoids in the decoder box under the 
keyboard. The operate more rails, which allow a key actuator to drop in 
place, pulling down the apropraite key lever.


> I don't know for sure why but among other things the clutch for the belt
> that drives the carriage seems to be frozen on. The carriage runs to the
> right and it's still trying to drive it. I can push it back to the left

Now, I am tryint to rememebr things... That clutch has a bistable 
linkage. It's set (i.e. the clutch is engaged) by one of the snails, 
connected to the return key. I can't remember what resets it, probably 
the carriage getting to the home position (is this adjustable?) That 
should give you some idea as to what to look for.

-tony