JFB
Hunter
My chrono has been in the barn for decades. With the desire to do some reloading and shooting, I wanted to see if it still works. Putting in a fresh battery, the printer made noise and the display lit up.
So far so good.
The old paper left in it was brittle and at the time I didn't know much about the printer's ink source. The results from google were not promising, seems like these things had a flawed roller that disintegrated. Well after taking printer off for inspection, my paper feed roller was crud!
Interesting there is no replacement roller available, however Oehler bought a bunch of calculators that uses a similar printer. They remove, modify and sell for replacement printer for $50, so not all is lost.
I had the ideal to try and repair the roller by cutting a strip of paper, wiping it with Elmer's and wrapping it around the shaft. I was lucky in that my first 11" strip broke with about 5" when the paper roller just made contact with the hard backing roller.
I found the ink roller and refreshed the ink with a quick dip in mineral oil
The plastic gearing concerned me in that in the "as found" position, the drive gears for the paper feed could be rotated due to missing teeth in the motor gear. Sure hope that has something to do with printer timing and not a result of putting in fresh battery
Well the first loading of paper just felt too loose. I noticed a dispenser of narrow cellophane tape, so I took a 4" section and with a tooth pick got in on the paper roller and fingered the gear to wrap the tape. Well, the mechanical advantage between the rollers allowed me to easily put on enough that the roller bars now have a slight bow AND the paper cannot be side through, requires the printer motor drive to load.
To test to see if it works, I used a 22/45 4.5" Mark III (with can) with CCI SV.
pop---piff---piff--piff----
Hurray!
The printer typed the velocity strings with an average of 890 FPS. Seems a little low, but glad to see the thing working. Now to start reloading a few rifle rounds
So far so good.
The old paper left in it was brittle and at the time I didn't know much about the printer's ink source. The results from google were not promising, seems like these things had a flawed roller that disintegrated. Well after taking printer off for inspection, my paper feed roller was crud!
Interesting there is no replacement roller available, however Oehler bought a bunch of calculators that uses a similar printer. They remove, modify and sell for replacement printer for $50, so not all is lost.
I had the ideal to try and repair the roller by cutting a strip of paper, wiping it with Elmer's and wrapping it around the shaft. I was lucky in that my first 11" strip broke with about 5" when the paper roller just made contact with the hard backing roller.
I found the ink roller and refreshed the ink with a quick dip in mineral oil
The plastic gearing concerned me in that in the "as found" position, the drive gears for the paper feed could be rotated due to missing teeth in the motor gear. Sure hope that has something to do with printer timing and not a result of putting in fresh battery
Well the first loading of paper just felt too loose. I noticed a dispenser of narrow cellophane tape, so I took a 4" section and with a tooth pick got in on the paper roller and fingered the gear to wrap the tape. Well, the mechanical advantage between the rollers allowed me to easily put on enough that the roller bars now have a slight bow AND the paper cannot be side through, requires the printer motor drive to load.
To test to see if it works, I used a 22/45 4.5" Mark III (with can) with CCI SV.
pop---piff---piff--piff----
Hurray!
The printer typed the velocity strings with an average of 890 FPS. Seems a little low, but glad to see the thing working. Now to start reloading a few rifle rounds
