Re: 1526 printer - repair(able) or not?

From: Ville Laustela <ville.laustela_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2014 18:40:49 +0300
Message-Id: <38E1CEE0-62C5-4815-9CBB-1DBF4ABD0DCB@gmail.com>
Hello, and thanks, Martin, Hervé and Olaf. I was positively suprised to have received this many ideas so quickly.

As I have very little space to work, I had just a quick look on the board today. I had the board on my desk without the printer mechanics so all indicator I had was the paper advance button with the LED.

Today's experiments:

- Into the primary side of the transformer goes three wires: brown, white and black. White is neutral (directly from the mains connector) and black is the live wire (comes thue the fuse and the power switch). Without modifying the wiring I was able to measure that between the black and brown wires there was 100V AC voltage. If some of you who have a 220V version could have a look on the PSU to see how it is wired? The case of the transformer is apparently fixed in place and I can't see where the wires go.

- I pulled out, checked for bent pins and reseated all chips - no change
- I found another copy of the service manual (as PDF) in here: http://www.commodoreman.com/Commodore/Library/Man/1526_MPS802_4023_ServiceManual.pdf
- On page 24 the manual explains that the board accepts 24 or 28 pin ROMs, jumpers J1-J4 (next to the ROM socket) are used to set which size is used. In my board they are set correctly. 

I have no equipment to check the ROM. I have been thinking of getting an EPROM burner (mainly to read some older ROMs for backup and sharing), but can't decide on the model. A quick search on eBay gives just about only two choises: TOP853 and G540, both USB and cheap chinese units. Reviews on both units are not especially good (bad manuals, unstable software, only 32-bit drivers...). Still some say that they are just fine. Perhaps either of these would be just fine for me? Being able to burn Kickstarts for Amigas would be a plus, but not a necessity.

Finally I checked the /RES signal on the 6504 (at last I had some use for my eBay-bought logic tester!). It seems that the /RES signal is being constantly held low. Would this indicate bad ROM or a fault in the reset circuit? I pulled the 6504 out and bent the /RES- pin out of the socket. This had no visible effect (I manually pulled it low after applying power to the unit), at least judging by the front-panel LED.

Please ask if I explained something badly, I am still very new to this level of fault-finding. Again, thanks for your support, guys.

--
Ville


> You can measure the voltage between the brown wire and the other wires. If
> the transformer has a 230V connection you must measure to one other wire
> 115V and to the other one 230V. So you can use the wires where you measure
> 230V for input with 230V. Then if you look at the wire with 115V, you must
> find a junction for two wires out of the transformer. The 115V / 230V
> transformer has two 115V coils. One i used for 115V input, both are used for
> 230V input.

> Have you checked the /RES signal for the CPU? At the picture i see an EPROM.
> The content of an EPROM can be non-permanent over more than ten years. You
> can compare it!
> 
> The CPU needs RAM. This RAM is into the 6532. There are two 6532. Swap these
> chips! The 6532 have no internally programming!

> I would first double check that all socketed ICs are 1) at good location 2) facing the good direction 3) no blent pin. I would then try to force a reset (pulling low the relevant pin). I would also confirm that reset is not low every time ... Also, I would confirm clock operation and or data/address bus activity. As a last try, I would try to confirm status of the eprom (good/bad ?).
> 
> The board looks quite nice and the ribbon should not be an issue even if dried.
> 
> I wish you great pleasure trying to repar this ! The service manual is very nice, I must a pair or 4023 around there if you wish that I have a look at something.


> Interesting that you report about that just at this moment.
> I have an MPS-802 (which is pretty much the same thing, going by the
> pictures) which also doesn't power up. It is a 220 V model though.
> 
> I haven't done any measurements inside since the connections on the
> transformer expose 220 V if the enclosure is taken off. I'll want to do
> something about that first.
> 
> My ROM next to the 6504 is shorter than the socket, just like in the
> reference above (and unlike your dropbox picture).


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Received on 2014-04-06 16:00:02

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