Extremely busy at work and with other obligations, keeping me out of the workshop until midday today. I was able to sneak in a few times and get things moving forward again.
1053 CONSOLE PRINTER RESTORATION
Lunchtime allowed me to use the FE maintenance manual method of installing the cords onto the drums and setting up the mainspring. I did that and installed the motor starting capacitor into place. I knew that the backspace interposer to operational latch spring had to be installed, but expected everything else to work properly.
I got the cords installed, apparently correctly and with the proper spring tension. I tried a series of tab operations which moved across to the right, then a carrier return operation which brought the carrier back to the left. However, something went wrong as it got to the back, because it would no longer tab or space. In fact, I saw that the cords had become unwound somehow.
When I get a chance to go back to work on it, I will try to figure out what went wrong and correct it. I should be right at the end of this restoration, ready to verify the operation, put covers back on and stick it back on the machine
In the late afternoon I snuck out to the garage and saw that the knotted end of the escapement cord had come loose from the escapement drum. I reinstalled the cord, making sure it was firmly in the notch with the knot to the side. I had to get one turn of cord on the drum, then snake the rest around a pulley and a tensioner before hooking the clip onto the side of the carrier.
Once the cables were in place, I had to test the tension on the mainspring while the carrier was at the extreme right of its travel. The pesky spring between the backspace operational latch and interposer popped off the spring hook and is currently hiding inside the mechanism. It is the last part to install before doing my round of testing.
Of course, it is finicky, troublesome and prone to springing off to the abyss of the mechanism, returning to the outside world at some later point after lots of shaking and inversion of the printer (or just randomly an hour later). Finally, I got it installed.
I began testing and adjusting. First up, I checked the operation of the Tab, Space and Return buttons, which work reliably now. However, I had some adjusting to do for the carrier return function. It worked fine when hand cranking, but not as well under motor power.
The high speed carrier return feature moves the carrier very rapidly leftward, with an air piston cushioning the carrier as it strikes the left margin. The mechanism to release the CR latch wasn't adjusted right, but with a bit of work I got it to reliably unlatch once the carrier strikes the left side.
The movement was tepid during CR, until I realized that the spring was not attached to the torque limiter which allows the operational shaft to slip if there is too much resistance to any action. I put on a fairly heavy spring and did get snappy return of the carrier, but my cords are still not set up right. When it moves that rapidly to the left margin, the escapement cord pops off the drum and that lets the mainspring unwind.
I will check to see whether I need a different spring with less tension for the torque limiter, then work on cord installation in a way that is going to be less prone to popping off at the end of a carrier return. A bit of tweaking until that part works right and I can then remove the temporary power cord, rewire it into the 1130 and do some testing under program control.
I was very happy with the performance of the space and tab functions, CR is probably working fine as long as the darned cords stay on the drums. It is feeling very close to a satisfactory conclusion of the restoration. It will be nice to have the console printer in its covers, with the console switches in place, ready to be used.
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