HP Integral : running !

[Tony Duell]

>    IIRC the floppy drives in the IPC are subject to the usual HP >>DS<<
> floppy disk problem. The grease on the mechanism dries out and the

They are! It's the usual Sony unit, albeit here without the front panel. 
The eject mechanism is the same, and suffers from dried out grease.

One minor thing to be aware of is that when you remove the drive from the 
Integral, the eject button and spring are loose in the Integral's front 
panel. It's best to take them out before they get lost.

> mechanism doesn't open all the way and when the user tries to insert or
> remove a disk it tears the top head off of the drive. Examine it closely to
> be sure that the mechanism opens COMPLETELY before using it. Or better yet,
> go ahead and remove the drive then clean off the old grease and relube it
> with a GOOD quality grease that won't harden (I use gun grease).

I find it's best to take the eject mechanism totally apart (it's not that 
many parts, really clean the grease off, and put the a slight smear of 
grease back on. It may take a little more time now, but replacing and 
aligning a head takes a lot longer.

>    BTW I use a HP 2671 Thermal printer on my IPC and it seems to work fine.

If that's the one I think it is (thermal printer), I have a 2671G 
somewhere. It's quite happy using fax paper....

Annoying story. The 2671 is designed to use 216mm wide paper. I went into 
a stationery shop over here, and all the had was 210mm rolls (which is 
the European standard). I bought one and found the 2671 would print on 
it, but yuu had to get it in just the right place on the chassis or it 
would jam. The printhead would catch on the edge of the paper and really 
snarl up.

So I made a couple of brass spacers to slip over the ends of the paper 
roll spindle to keep it in the right place. Worked fine. I was happy.

Until I went to another branch of the same shop. They had 216mm wide fax 
rolls too....

The 9845 built-in thermal printer (I happen to have one in many bits on 
my bench [1]) seems to be 216mm wide with a 6mm plastic spacer plate clipped 
to the right-hand side, so as to use 210mm wide paper. Since it's a fixed 
printhead in that machine (full width of the paper, 560 elements IIRC), I 
guess either width works..

[1] I haev just finished figuring out the PSU. It's quite the most 
complicated one I have ever worked on. 2 main choppers (each with 2 
transsitors in push-pull), 3 more switching regulators on the LV side, 5 
chopper control ICs, overvoltage comparators on all outputs, Eeek. 17 ICs 
on the contorl board (including the PIC6xx choppers), 16 transistors on 
the main chopper board, and so on...

> The Thinkjet is ok but it leaks and/or dries up (Usually both!) if you

I have had a few 'normal' Thinkjets in for repair where leaking ink has 
corroded and ruined the flexiprint cable that goes from the carriage (and 
carries the contacts for the cartridge) to the main PCB. I have never 
found a way of repairing this PCB.

On a 'normal' Thinkjet you can raid the part from any other Thinkjet, so 
you can, say, use a fairly useless RS232 one to fix an HPIL one, useful 
on the HP71, etc. But although the Integral's Thinkjet is electrically 
the same, the mechanical layout is different, and the cables between the 
PCB and the mechanism are longer -- including this flexible PCB. AFAIK 
the only place to get one from is another Integral. Do not leave ink 
cartridges in the Integral's printer.

-tony