[GreenKeys] KSR-33 HELP!!

[Dave Hunter]

Hi All:

I have gotten well into the restoration of a KSR-33 I owned 
back in the mid 80's, and loaned out to a friend. It hs 
just been re-patriated, but in the meantime spent 20+ years 
in a barn. Quite honestly, until a phone call from him last 
week, I had totally forgotten what I had done with it!

It suffered quite a bit of rust damage, but appears to be 
restorable. I want to thank a number of the members of this 
list for helping me to find needed parts...

Yesterday, I ran into a bit of  snag. While exersizing the 
keyboard and printer by pressing each key with the Rpt key 
to space the type carriage across the printer (in order to 
get the carriage return to work better), all of a sudden, 
the keys stopped responding halfway across where the platen 
would go. Eventually, this became permanent.

Oddly, to be more precise, the letters keys will not 
respond - but all the numbers and punctuation/function keys 
not associated with a letter do!

I don't think the problem is n the keyboard, as when you 
press a letter key, code bars do move on the typing 
unit.The same of course happens with the numbers/function 
keys which do print. Only the letters keys don't.

Now, it wouldn't surprise me too much if the problem could 
be caused by a broken, stretched, or discoonnected spring 
(as many springs in the unit were rusted), but so far 
haven't noticed anything...

Other than this rather obvious problem, the machine is 
coming along well. The CR (which didn't work at all at 
first) is now reliable - the line feed will work once I 
replace the broken platen - it was spacing across the 
platen area with each key-press until this happened (and 
still is, just not with the letters keys), and the machine 
is well lubricated. Most rust has been cleaned up.

Has anyone got any suggestions on where I should look next? 
This seems to me to be an unusual problem.

If I can get this machine going again, it will become part 
of a working teletype display in the museum, along with my 
28 ASR, and I hope to be able to add a Model 15 some day.

Dave, VY2AC

 

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