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ValVashon · Jan 6, 2001, 06:40 PM

My StyleWriter 2400 has been giving me fits lately. I posted about this once before, but I have some more specific details on it now. What is happening is that if the power strip it is plugged into is turned off (like overnight) the 2400 seems to forget how to turn on. If you manually turn it on with the switch up top, it will sometimes power up and start to make whirring noises like it's going to work, then it stops after about 2 seconds. Then, sometimes hitting the switch won't do anything, or if you hold it, it will light up both the power and no paper lights, and they will stay on for a while. Most of the time, after about a day of fiddiling with it, it will start to work again. It doesn't seem to matter if it is connected to a computer or not. If you go to initialize it by sending a print job to it, it will whirr for a few seconds and then you get an error message that the printer is not responding. I know it's an old paperweight of a printer, but it works pretty well when it is working. Is there a memory card in there that got corrupted or a pram type battery that needs replacing? I don't think it's the switch itself but it might be. Anybody have any ideas or have this happen to their printer? I'd love to fix it so I can start turning off my power strip (and save electricity- other peripherials are plugged in there as well).

Val

ValVashon · Jan 7, 2001, 08:55 PM

Guess I was the only one to buy one of these things. More info. Moving the print cartridge carrier to a mid point lets it try to start up, but it quits when it (the carrier) gets back to the end of the slider. So I'm guessing the motor that movesthat belt thing is bad, but are replacement parts available? I know that this is the same printer as a Canon of some sort.

Val

jeromep · Jan 8, 2001, 06:03 PM

I wish I had better news for you.

You say that you have had that 2400 on a powerstrip that has been power cycled many times in its life. Well, that is not a good thing. The 2400 and 2500 printers were both auto power printers. But on top of that they had a rudimentary amount of memory which let the printer keep track of its power status. If power got cut off, the printer would automatically clean its heads when it was plugged in again. So, every time you powered on the power strip it cleaned its heads. A task that it didn't need to do that frequently. The head cleaning process produces many short moves of the print head and is probably the hardest action on the belt servo motor.

So, by not seeing this printer in action I get this impression. I think that the belt drive servo is probably dead or close to it.

Take a week and plug this printer into a constant power outlet. Don't worry about energy savings. If it starts to work normally connected to an always on power source, you may get a few more months of life out of it, but if it doesn't start to act properly then I suggest going onto eBay and getting a 2400 or 2500 from there.

ValVashon · Jan 10, 2001, 05:54 PM

Pulled it apart and had an engineer at the TV station where I work confirm that to was the belt servo motor (He's seen it before). Took a chance and went to my independent Apple retailer, and they were able to order me the part! It came to $40 plus tax, if I returned the old one. That's a common request for things like automobile starters and the like, but not for a tiny DC electric motor. My guess is that Canon and Apple know something about the short life span of this motor, and in a way are buying them back from people, but I can't figure out why. Anyway, the motor will be here in about 2-4 days, and I'll repost. An older technician confirmed that the 2xxx series of Apple printers have this energy saving feature, and shouldn't be power cycled. They offered to install it for another $40, but I already had the printer down to the chassis, so I declined. Two screws and it pops right out!

Val

jeromep · Jan 28, 2001, 05:28 AM

I'm glad that this worked out well for you. I would never have expected an Apple dealer to be able to get internal parts. That is something that my local Apple dealer would never do. So much for common levls of service from the various independant Apple operations.

Thanks for the tip. If I loose my parents 2500, then this is where I'll start. Likewise, I hope that you find an always on power source once you get this printer back online.