Repairing an Electric Typewriter

This Olympia Reporter electric typewriter was working perfectly when last used 25+ years ago. However, when plugging it in now and turning it on, there's a humming noise, but the keys only move up part way (ie.

Does anyone have any quick fixes or troubleshooting ideas? It would be a shame to trash it.

My IBM Selectric just started acting odd. Once turned on, and when the carriage return button is pressed, the carriage moves all the way to the left and stays there, and the machine hums. Normal typing is impossible. Turning the machine off is the only "remedy".

What could cause this?

The ribbon seems to be lifting up as the daisy wheel is moving. We've pulled the daisy wheel out to look at it and there's no reason this should be happening. Perhaps there is something we're missing.

I own an electronic typewriter - Nakajima AE640 - which I bought in the UK. When I last used it it was working fine. I tried to use it again today and it comes out completely different from what I type.

Numbers 123 etc. come out as y-,1340562.X% on the first line of the keyboard. Qwerty etc. come out as rz;etc and the 3rd line of the keyboard comes out as: luphox!MK7.

Is this something that can be fixed and can I do it myself? It seems that the
daisywheel is not sitting correctly.

I would be grateful for some help.

Many thanks.

I moved to France in 2012 and brought my Brother SX4000 with me. I only recently pulled it out and tried to use it with a converter US to EUR. the typewriter clicked and then powered off. Is it beyond repair because of neglect? Are the power sources not compatible with a simple plug converter? Do I need to get an actual amp converter? Any other trouble shooting you could recommend?

Thanks. It will be super hard for me to get it repaired in France and I don't want to buy one here with a French keyboard.

Thanks!

I have had this Brother AX10 typewriter for a while, but set it away for a time since I had a small child that hates the noise. I took it out today though, and powered it up.

Everything seems to work fine, except that the keys 3-C and 4-V do not work. I can press them as many times as I want, or as firmly as I want, but nothing happens.

All the other buttons happily comply with what I want, although the exposed ribbon was a little dry and needed a score or so keystrokes before becoming crisp and clear.

I have tried to pull of the keys and use the vacuum cleaner to get out some of the dust, spiders, and crap, but it has had no effect on the affected keys. I think I could clean the parts underneath, if only I knew how to open the thing. There are no screws like there are on a laptop to remove the keyboard from the rest of the machine, or to remove the keypad from the sensors below them, at least that I could find.

I have an old electric Olivetti. I was using my typewriter when suddenly the carriage got stuck and I was able to hear the motor spinning without it moving. I had to restart the machine, but this problem keeps happening, even 2 or 3 times a row. Sometimes the motor spins without moving after 2 seconds, but this also happens and the carriage starts to shake left and right.

I can't get the typewriter to come on or make any noise at all. Yes I've plugged it in and turned on the power button. Help! What could cause this?

My Brother, model GX 6500 electric typewriter powers on. When the machine is turned on it starts beeping, the car is locked, and no key works, but the whistle continues.

I have an AT&T electronic typewriter, model 6500. I turned on the typewriter with the carriage locked, now it will not type. There is a little window where you can see what you are typing and the letters appear there, but it will not type.

Thank you.

My son was writing a research paper on his Electra 220 when the light on the machine turned off. It acted like it was off even though it was in the on position, and now it won't turn back on.

My Brother AX-100 electric typewriter hammer is not hitting the ribbon. It is switched on, has power, and ink. How can I fix this?

I bought an AT&T model 5300 electric typewriter and when I started it up and began to type my name after the first letter the typewriter stopped typing. Then it started beeping and the only solution was to turn it off.

I have a Sears Electronic II electronic typewriter, it has the disc or wheel with type on it. It starts and everything seems to work when I hit any key the disc spins to the proper position, but the plunger that forces the letter to the paper does not move.

I have a Royal TQ 740 electronic typewriter in good physical condition, with unknown history. Everything on the machine works exactly as expected, except for one problem: when the machine executes a carriage return, the ribbon cartridge's takeup reel is rotated the wrong direction and the ribbon bunches up inside the cartridge and fails to feed again until the slack is manually removed.

I see how the ribbon feed mechanism is driven when the carriage moves left to right as in normal typing, but I don't see any obvious mechanism to stop it rotating backwards on a carriage return -- except that it has a sort of friction clutch, so my hypothesis is that this may be gummed up. However, it may just be there to avoid stripping gears if the ribbon gets stuck or reaches its end.

The machine does have a mechanism to lift the cartridge completely off the spool drive pin, which it does for repeated spaces (to avoid wasting ribbon) so perhaps it should be doing that during a carriage return. However, because that function works during spaces, we know that the electromechanical mechanism to drive that does work, so there's no obvious reason why it wouldn't be initiated on a <CR>.

I do have a background in electronics engineering, so I'm comfortable digging into the machine; I just don't have experience with these particular machines.

If you happen to know the fix for this, I'd appreciate your input.

The carriage on this Silver Reed EZ20 electric typewriter had stuck in one position, approximately 3" from the left/start position. On removing the cover, I noticed one end of a cable laying in the base, this I now know, is the cable that moves the carriage along the bar.

Can anyone advise on how this cable is reconnected to the spool that is at the left end of the carriage bar? (Photo 2 & 3) I have attempted it twice so far, but there seems to be a small excess of cable, therefore I am presuming that it has to be pre-wound a couple of times, to take up the slack, or connected to the spool in a particular order?

In my attempts, the other end of the cable has now come out of the spool! There appears to be two holes in the spool, one (Photo 2) that obviously takes the 'copper coloured bobble' on the end of the cable (Photo 1), but I'm unsure if the 'bobble' on the other end of the cable also goes in to this hole and if so, in which order these cables are connected to the spool?

The second hole (Photo 3) appears to feed the cable underneath the spool, is this correct? I have attached photographs of the cable and spool, in an attempt to clarify my description.
Any answers/assistance will be appreciated, to allow me to attempt to complete this repair.

Thank you.

I've recently acquired this Olivetti ET111, it turns on and lights up, but doesn't work. None of the keys do anything. I am just wondering what the possible problem could be?

I have an Accent Remington 700 whose keys get stuck and repeat randomly. I mean the keys that get stuck are random and they type over and over without me depressing the key.

The lower case "a" on this old typewriter suddenly stopped printing. When I type "a" another character is printed. Is there any way to fix this?

I recently acquired an IBM Selectric II correcting typewriter. I plugged it in and it started up just fine. I type a few words and they were fine then it just began typing all 1s no matter which letter or number I typed.