Color StyleWriter 2400 power issues

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Color StyleWriter 2400 power issues

Recently refurbed the motherboard on a Classic II, got that going. Works great, comes in beautiful.

 

It came with a Color StyleWriter 2400 which powers on for a few seconds, powers off, plays dead, and the process repeats if you come back a while later and try again.

 

I actually got the thing properly disassembled down to the logic board and power supply without breaking anything. There are no obvious signs of capacitor leakage, bulging, etc.

 

Curious if anyone else has dealt with this, and if capacitor replacement is appropriate for this problem, or if it's likely something else. I realize this is a cheap, POS printer, but it is vintage.

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/guidance.

 

Chris

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BJC

I believe all of the StyleWriters were based on Canon BubbleJet mechanisms, if that helps your search for clues.

Possible reasons a printer might shut off are

  • If it tries to turn a motor, and that motor is seized, the stall current may overload the electronics and make them shut down;
  • A programmable memory (like flash or EEPROM) has some of its contents faded away, causing the microcontroller to crash;
  • Electrolytic capacitors have dried up, going high ESR, so they are unable to deliver sufficient power, especially when cold;
  • The microcontroller expects to see some sensor activity (particularly from optical or magnetic encoders) but those sensors are blocked or malfunctioning, and the code crashes;
  • and surely there are more possible reasons.
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robespierre wrote:I believe
robespierre wrote:

I believe all of the StyleWriters were based on Canon BubbleJet mechanisms, if that helps your search for clues.

Possible reasons a printer might shut off are

  • If it tries to turn a motor, and that motor is seized, the stall current may overload the electronics and make them shut down;
  • A programmable memory (like flash or EEPROM) has some of its contents faded away, caus

Excellent points. I'm curious if anyone else has been through this already, before I shotgun the capacitors. Past that, I wouldn't bother putting any more time in this thing.

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Another thing to try if you

Another thing to try if you can find any specs on the output of the power supply circuit is to try injecting proper voltages there from an external supply and see if the rest of the printer comes to life.

 

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Oh also, have you metered the

Oh also, have you metered the power supply as it is powered on to see if the voltage comes up and then drops?  That might give you some kind of clue if it is a power supply problem and not one of the other kinds of issues that have been mentioned.  I imagine you probably already did all these things, but I didn't really see it in the description of what is going wrong.

 

 

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softwarejanitor wrote:Oh also
softwarejanitor wrote:

Oh also, have you metered the power supply as it is powered on to see if the voltage comes up and then drops?  That might give you some kind of clue if it is a power supply problem and not one of the other kinds of issues that have been mentioned.  I imagine you probably already did all these things, but I didn't really see it in the description of what is going wrong.

 

I've not done that - that's something I'll work on today time permitting. I'm curious if there's any sort of service documentation that indicates what the expected voltages should be, though I'd assume they are relatively obvious, and you're looking for collapse anyway moreso than being "slightly out of range".

 

Chris

 

 

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