1 of 1- jacsprat
- New Member
Offline - From: UK
- Registered: 22-2-2021
- Posts: 3
Imperial 66 not advancing with key press
Hi, after watching 'Agent Carter' my daughter fancied a go on an old typewriter. We have recently purchased an 'Imperial 66' which we think has a problem! We cannot get the carriage to move along on the press of a key (or space bar) even though the carriage moves using the carriage return levers on the actual carriage. We have checked and the tension drawband is intact and in place but we are now stuck!
Any ideas please?
- Phil_F_NM
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- Registered: 16-4-2020
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Re: Imperial 66 not advancing with key press
Has the machine been cleaned and properly lubed?
Have you tried gently pressing on the right side of the carriage while trying to type? The drawband may be intact but may not have enough tension to pull the carriage back. Don't push too hard.
Phil Forrest
- skywatcher
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- From: The Prairies of Alberta
- Registered: 14-3-2013
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Re: Imperial 66 not advancing with key press
Greetings JS and welcome to the Forum
The fact that you have an Imperial 66 would indicate that you are likely in England as these British made desk top typewriters were generally not exported. Here's where giving us your location can really help us, should we need to direct you to a competent typewriter repair shop if the problem is more in depth than first anticipated.
That being said, let's start with a few simple diagnostic checks to see if we can pinpoint the problem. First check, when you move the carriage to the right, do you feel spring tension trying to push the carriage to the left. The carriage should take about 2 pounds or just under 1 kg of force to move it to the right. If you do not feel spring tension, the machine most likely has a broken or detached draw band.
If you do feel spring tension, we'll move onto the next check. The Imperial 66 has a tabulator system (the green bar just above the row of number keys). With the carriage moved all the way to the right, hold your hand gently against the left platen knob and press the tab bar. The carriage should move freely to the left and stop if any tabs have been set. If you press the tab bar again, the carriage should move again. If everything is going good so far, we know we have good tension on the draw band and the carriage moves freely along its rails.
The next step would be to determine if the escapement is being properly triggered by the type keys or the space bar. After a little research, it sounds like the Imperial 66 was built with serviceability in mind, see this post (click-here). Let us know what you find so far and we'll go from there. All the best,
Sky
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
- skywatcher
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Re: Imperial 66 not advancing with key press
Oops! Didn't read your post completely. Guess the draw band is in fact attached, just check the tension of it by how much force is required to move the carriage to the right.
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
- jacsprat
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- Registered: 22-2-2021
- Posts: 3
Re: Imperial 66 not advancing with key press
Thanks for the advice, i will have a go this evening and let you know.
I am in the UK, your deductions were correct! I have now updated my profile to include that info.
What is the most frustrating thing is that both myself and my husband are used to fixing scientific equipment and are very competent DIYers but this typewriter has us stumped!
- •
Thread Starter- skywatcher
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Re: Imperial 66 not advancing with key press
Hi Again JS
You're not the only people with scientific minds who have been stumped by what appears to be a fairly simple machine. Sometimes you have to almost stop thinking too hard, then just watch what's happening. These typewriters are purely mechanical, but some analogies can be made to other disciplines of technology. The tension in the mainspring can be likened to the voltage that runs the escapement. If there's not enough tension or voltage, the system won't work.
The escapement itself is very much like the escapement in a clock. Think of a pendulum type wall clock, a Grandfather clock if you will. Instead of counting the oscillations in a quartz crystal and triggering the stepper motor once per second, the pendulum is the controlling factor and has two positions, left and right. Think of these positions as zero and one. On a typewriter, the escapement has two positions, at rest or zero and activated or one. When the space bar or a letter key is pressed, the escapement is activated, when the space bar or letter key is released, the escapement advances the carriage by one space returns to the rest position.
I don't know if this will help you to picture the theory behind the escapement or not, but I figured the thought was worth a try. The other possibility is the connection to the escapement. A dry connection on a printed circuit board will cause the circuit to not work. A disconnected, broken or out of adjustment linkage in a mechanical system has the same end result.
The person on this forum who probably knows most about these Imperial typewriters is Tom thetypewriterman. Tom has been repairing typewriters since the mid 1970's and lives in the UK.
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
- M. Höhne
- Key Master
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- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 625
Re: Imperial 66 not advancing with key press
This might save a lot of visualizing regarding escapements: , and note especially the anchor and deadbeat varieties as used in typewriters.
- thetypewriterman
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- Registered: 29-5-2013
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Re: Imperial 66 not advancing with key press
Here is a link to an instruction book for the Imperial 66 This is an operators instruction book, not a repair manual, but under 'The Feature Of Interchangeability' it shows how to remove the type unit. With this out of the machine, you can see the back of the escapement and the push-rod that activates it (right in the middle of the machine). Perhaps once you can see what is going on, you can figure out the problem.
