9 Sep
2004
9 Sep
'04
8:43 a.m.
[pcw(a)mesanet.com, there's a note addressed to you some 2/3 of the way
through, in case you'd otherwise not read the whole thing]
[msokolov(a)ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov), two different messages,
both replies to me]
Based on your description of what's what, I think so: the board it's on
matches your description of the DC controller.
Duh, I forgot
to say: I've more than removed the dead cap.
Where was it? I thought it was on
one of the PSU boards, but you now
seem to imply it's on the DC controller. The control panels lights and LCD are controlled by
the formatter
board. That's the ...
...one the ribbon cable from the control panel plugs into. :-)
The fact that it walks the lights, enters the
self-test and knows
about PS indicates that the formatted board is probably OK.
This is no surprise to me, since the trouble appears to have been
entirely elsewhere.
The formatter board throws up a 55 error if it
can't talk to the DC
controller. If the board you are having woes with, the one damaged
by the blown cap, is indeed the DC controller board, then it's
probably the culprit.
Then it seems likely to me that a main power supply line got shorted
and decided to play fuse, and the DC controller is now getting no power
at all. I need to sic a voltmeter on some of those connections and see
what it can tell me. [But see below.]
If you take a close look at the front cover between
the tray openings
and the font cartridge slots, you'll see a small hole. This hole
provides access to the engine test button on the DC controller board.
Okay, it's definitely the DC controller board, then. I saw that switch
and wondered what it was for; I couldn't see anything that would push
it, but the presence of a plastic extension to make it pushable clearly
indicated it was deliberate.
If you push this button, the DC controller will print
an engine test
page independently of the formatter, i.e., it'll forcibly override
whatever the formatter is directing it to do and will work even if
the formatter is missing or dead. Try it. But it looks like your
problem is the opposite, good formatter and bad DC controller.
I went to do this, but when I put it all back together and turned it
on, all armed with a voltmeter to check power, when I turned it on one
of the LEDs on the DC controller board came on, something I cannot
recall happening before. So I just let it sit, and darned if it
doesn't work fine - all sprawled all over the table, but working.
However, the selftest button does not work; as far as I can tell it
does nothing at all. I even tried holding it in for some 15-20 seconds
and it still did nothing, despite printing working normally from the
network and printing a selftest page when told to do so using the
front-panel buttons.
Someone just posted about having a bad HP 4SiMX for
free for the
taking. He said it jams, so that's probably a mechanical problem and
the electronics is probably OK. [...] You'll need both boards and
the cable between them since it's a 4Si. Since the two printers are
otherwise identical, swapping those two boards will turn your IIISi
into a 4Si, i.e., you'll get 600 DPI and PostScript Level 2.
Now _that_ would be nice (both of those).
I think this was Peter Wallace, pcw(a)mesanet.com. Peter, might you be
willing to do that? I'd be happy to snail you a cheque for postage and
a bit on top of it for your time.
And if you two do work out that arrangement, I could
take the rest
for spare parts next time I'm in the Bay Area. (I'm in Southern
Calif.)
If nobody takes it before then, and Peter isn't willing/able to, might
_you_ be willing to extract those and send them to me?
(There are two
sockets with no cables to plug into them as far as I
can tell; I don't _think_ I have any cable ends hiding, but....)
The big
cavity clearly visible from the rear with the covers off is
for the duplexer. The socket in the corner of this cavity [...] The other socket is on the front directly above the
upper tray [...]
No, neither of those. I refer to two sockets on the DC controller
board. One is a two-pin socket in the upper right (looking from the
right side of the printer at the board mounted in place), the rightmost
socket on the top edge of the board; the other is a socket of, if I
counted right, 30 pins in a 2x15 array, on the left edge of the board;
the bottom edge of this socket is immediately above the self-test
switch you describe (but on the other side of the board). The former
is marked as J005, the latter J014.
Since it works apparently fine as it is, and I can't see any cables to
plug into either, I'm inclined to ignore them. (I really should have
been taking better notes when dissecting it originally....)
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