The Sinclair QL Forum

sorry for waking the dead ………………

BUT , is there a way to repair cartridges , has anyone experience and or pictures , hints/tips





Techy

When you say repair, do you mean refelting to remove the crumbling old pad to make them usable again (in most cases), or something more serious like corrupt data or a jammed mechanism?

Hi Chris ,

first problem ;


can we repair blocked cartridges , is there any experience ??


second question ;

where to but the "correct " felt stuff

techy wrote: can we repair blocked cartridges , is there any experience ??
f

Without a lot of microsurgery (that is, if you're not a trained brain surgeon), probably not.

Once you have to open the cartridge, you're presumably done with it. I very much doubt there is a way to wind the tape in our out manually.

Felt replacement is probably the only thing that's commonly done by people - If that doesn't help, you seem to have to discard the thing.

Toias

^Agreed, jammed ones can't realistically be saved.

This stuff is what I use to re-felt (you have to cut them down considerably):

https://www.ebay.de/itm/124121854703

thanks for the link !!

Chr$ wrote:^Agreed, jammed ones can't realistically be saved.

This stuff is what I use to re-felt (you have to cut them down considerably):

https://www.ebay.de/itm/124121854703

I actually saved one but killed two others. It's not easy. The end is glued on and doesn't come out easily. Next time I want to perhaps leave the end alone and just cut along the inside edge of the end piece. Getting the thing to spool in is a real pain. I used tape to hold it in place until I got it back together. Still works but the other two I could not get back. I still have a spool of one of them and may try again. Insane how they were manufactured.

pad replacements have arrived

@bwinkel67 ,

any pictures ??

i will need to open up one of them , best procedure ( except for chisel and hammer ? )

update !!

today i have " refelted " several cartridges and found out that there are at least 2 versions of the brass spring/bracket .

the wide long version does not generate any probs , but the small short ones are a " pita " as the felt tends to bendoverbackwards on those .............

anyway , 20 cartridges done and IF only i could format several of them i would be happy to see a result ( i think i do need a new keyboard membrane ) on 1 ql there simply is no O to type "format" , on the other one typing the O will result in a crashing ql . ( any ideas ?? )

if i receive my keyboard membrane i can format the blank ones and see how they survived 30 years of being in a box .