Search This Blog

Saturday 23 January 2016

HP41C Printer Works

When I bought my HP41C, it came with a printer. The batteries were dead, so I threw them out and bought some tagged cells. I left it at that as I wasn't sure what the wiring of the battery packs were. Anyway, this morning I decided to have a look inside and see if I could get it going. The wiring was straightforward, so I attached the battery pack. I don't know what sort of charger it uses, so looking at the components, I guessed about 6V a.c (as there is a bridge rectifier in there). I attached a supply and the batteries seem to charge. I'll have to invesigate that.
Anyway I turned the printer on and attached it to the HP41C, but nothing much happened. i was about to give up when I noticed that a wire was hanging off a connector. I soldered it on and more life appeared in the printer. Anyway, it turned out that several more wires had broken, so I soldered them all, and we have this:






The printer prints. It also takes standard thermal paper so that's obtainable. It makes the HP41C even more of a nice little machine.
I'll have to tidy up the wiring and printer physical arrangement, but it looks like this will work again.

No comments: