[GreenKeys] M26 suddenly stopped coding, stuck on blank

Wed Jan 8 12:40:53 EST 2025

Hey Duncan,

Thanks for the troubleshooting tips.  Indeed, the magnet armature is
working as intended.

Interestingly (albeit somewhat a worrisome outcome), after letting the
machine rest overnight I came back this morning to find it in the same
constant blank condition at first, but then slowly all the selector levers
went back to working after some RYRYRY keyboard input.  Eventually all the
functions and figs followed suit.  Makes me think that something stopped
responding or got jammed last night, but slowly reverted overnight.

It makes me wonder if I was starting to hit the threshold of the M26's
intentions for "light-duty use", although I recall being able to run it for
longer than an hour on a couple of occasions (last night it was copying
various ITTY feeds for just over half an hour or so).

Perhaps there's some preventive maintenance I may need to look into in
order to brace for the next time this could occur.  (Could be some
re-oiling?)

As an aside, definitely going to read up on the type basket operation.  At
one point in my troubleshooting last night one of the selector levers
engaged out of cycle and the type basket kept spinning in one direction
until the lever was pushed back in.

Regards,

*Jomar (Joshua Martin) Quilatan*

On Wed, Jan 8, 2025 at 10:33 AM Duncan Brown <duncanancy at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> Jomar,
>
> I'm not real familiar with the M26, but for some general troubleshooting -
>
> With the Power & loop off, can you move the selector magnet's armature up
> (mark) and down (space)?
>
> If so, turn on the motor, but leave the loop open.  The machine should
> chatter ("run open") as it is essentially just receiving Spaces.
>
> Now put a finger on the armature and press it up to the pole face. This
> should put the machine in Mark condition and stop the machine from running
> open.  If you pull your finger away from the armature some, to let the
> armature down a little, you should reach the Space condition. You should be
> able to move you finger a little to move the armature between the two
> conditions and see some printing of random characters and platen spacing.
>
> From what you have described, you probably won't see any random printing,
> but this is a general TTY troubleshooting practice and it may help you to
> isolate where the problem it.
>
> Another possibility is something that I have often wondered about the M26
> printing process: could the type hammer get stuck in the revolving type
> basket? I don't know how the linkages work in the M26 printing, but
> something to check.
>
> Good luck & have fun,
>
> Duncan,
> K2OEQ
>
>
>
>
> On 1/7/2025 9:40 PM, Jomar Quilatan wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm still in the process of reviewing the M26 documentation I have, in
> order to narrow down a sudden issue, but just wanted to throw it out here
> in case the diagnosis is surface level.
>
> I was transmitting a text file from MMTTY onto my machine and all was well
> until I noticed the carriage was roughly at the end of the line and was not
> performing a carriage return, even though MMTTY was moving along as printed
> in the text file.  I was expecting to see overlaid characters on my copy,
> but to my surprise, it was blank.
>
> The line where it happened was only supposed to be printing periods and
> ringing the signal bell in varying alternations--towards the end of the
> line, it started printing out a few numbers (namely 3 and 5), then went to
> blank.  (Looking at the Baudot it seems like 3 involves only the 1st
> selector and 5 only involves the 5th selector).  Almost seems like
> something that engaged the levers weakened abruptly.
>
> I switched to transmit on my unit, and the result was the same - any
> keystroke would cycle the machine but none of the selectors would engage.
>
> I don't know if I can fully rule out the selector magnet, but that was one
> of my thoughts (maybe loop current suddenly increased due to a bad
> resistor, etc).  Another was the actual assembly from the magnet to the
> selector levers--but, observing that area at surface level, things seemed
> to be moving as intended.
>
> Any recommendations on what I should look at, if not in either of the
> above areas?
>
> Thanks in advance.
> Regards,
>
>
> *Jomar (Joshua Martin) Quilatan*
> Mississauga (Toronto), Canada
> RA 0-8045
>
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