[GreenKeys] Refurbishing a KSR-33

[Don Robert House]

Christian,

A set of manuals would be helpful for you to figure these things out.
There is a nice five volume set up for bids on eBay.

I also have a 33 training manual here I could scan and send to you.
I am not sure when I will have time to do it yet however.

There were at least a dozen different type wheels and the keytops
were not always changed to match.  Changing keytops on a 32 or
a 33 is a bit of a challenge.

The best print hammer is a piece of 7/16 inch vinyl tubing cut to
7/8 inch long.  Warm it in your hands and push it over the print
hammer after cleaning the gunk off.

The 33 was made in different configurations depending on the
interface that was needed. Some have an EIA interface and some
have a 20 Milliamp current interface.

Good luck...
Don
K9TTY


On 30 Jan 2011, at 10:51 PM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:

Right, well hello everyone.

I need a bit of help figuring out what - in general - could be
the problem with my KSR-33 teletype, and what I could do to get
it back to the point of actually working. I'll quickly list and
describe the problems that affect the KSR-33.

Firstly, and this problem cropped up most recently. While running
the teletype to check something regarding it; I noticed the teletype
had begun to make an odd noise, before I could kill the power, the
main drive motor blew it's fuse. On a whim - and at the suggestion
of a person who shall remain nameless - we popped a spare fuse in
to check to figure what the problem could have been. Unsurprisingly,
the second - new - fuse blew in a very short time; however the odd
noise seemed to have disappeared.

Secondly, and the teletype has had this problem since I got it, is
that the carriage will not move at all. Though I am unsure if that
is completely correct, as the carriage is at the furthest point
rightward in it's travel, and therefore cannot proceed right any
further. But it also will not return to the left.

Thirdly, the rubber part of the print hammer is completely vanished
into nothingness. But luckily I'll be making a stop at Home Depot
sometime in the near future, so that issue will be resolved quite
shortly.

Fourthly - and this issue is not all that pressing until everything
else has been fixed - but I have no idea what the connection for
the input/output of the teletype is. I say this because the connector
isn't what I ususally assumed was a current loop connection. But
the connector - which is a male DB-25 connector - doesn't seem to
have enough of it's pins connected to the cable to the teletype to
make sense as an RS-232C serial connection. (However, the giant
brick of a box made by "UTEC" looks like it could be a current loop-
to-RS232 converter, so that may be the solution to that.)


I've already downloaded - and paged through - the manuals for the  
machine
that are on BitSavers. Though I do find them somewhat impenetrable.


Oh, and as a question; were the type cylinders of all Model 33 teletypes
the same throughout their production lifetime? Or did they ever change
the type cylinders? I ask because the keyboard of my KSR-33 has replaced
the up-arrow and back arrow-symbols with the caret and low-line ASCII
symbols. Would that mean that the type cylinder of my KSR-33 has those
ASCII characters on it as opposed to the arrows? Or is the cylinder
always the same? If the type cylinders are different, how difficult
would it be to get a Model 33 type cylinder with the "original"  
character
set?

Two final queries; firstly, what kind of ink ribbon does the Model 33
teletype use, and where can one find a replacement ribbon? Secondly,
Is it possible to use 8.5" roll paper with an inner core diameter of 2"
instead of 1" when replacing the paper roll?


In conclusion to this rather long, and very rambling e-mail I look
forward to any replies to my questions, and any suggestions as to what
I could do to get my KSR-33 back up and running again.


Thanks in advance,
C. M. Gauger-Cosgrove
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