Chuck Posted October 19, 2017 Share Posted October 19, 2017 I have a Alps MD-1000 and was wondering if anybody else out there has one? Mine has a problem returning the cartridges back into the holders so I did what anybody would do and disassemble to figure out why. I think it was a timing issue with the cartridge carrier worm screw. The thing prints fine, low band count of 87,000 and some say life span is anywhere from 200K to 500K. Plenty of ink cartridges available on eBay but they don't work in the later MD-5000 series. I have to fix 1 ribbon cable on print head that goes to the end of cartridge tape sensor...now that's gonna be tricky! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted October 24, 2017 Author Share Posted October 24, 2017 Okay so I repaired a broken ribbon cable and got the cartridge extractor timed right. Had a problem with the front cover that holds the ribbon cartridges as they wouldn't load or unload correctly unless I was pushing the front cover in a bit...like it was bowed out 1/8"...so I added a piece of 1" aluminum angle to the front cover to sturdy it up. Then again this particular printer is 20 years old. Here's a video with the covers removed showing how it works...rather boring though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enginear joe Posted October 24, 2017 Share Posted October 24, 2017 Rather cool to watch these things the first time. Seems like some wasted ink on the test page though. It is great to be able to do this for builds. I paid out some big dollars for some custom ones before. I need cut vinyl stripes, letters and/or stencils or decals for my Amtrak F40PH. I tried to get some and couldn't. I left it black until I get the masks and I can shoot the next color. The build went on hold and I forgot about it. I finally got some colored decal paper for the stripes and never cut them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted October 24, 2017 Author Share Posted October 24, 2017 Not much used to print a test page. These don't really use ink...more like colored wax ribbons. The heated printhead turns the wax into a gas while pressed against the paper...or something like that. But the only printers that can print white and gold lettering for like green Pullman cars. Even my Milwaukee Road heavyweights use gold lettering. Now my problem is the Alps drivers won't run in a Windows 64 Bit environment...so I'm looking for a used PC that I can mount Windows XP on...it's always something When you say couldn't get Amtrak decals made?? There are some cheap vinyl cutter plotters out there for sale but I'm not ready to dive into that yet...Still learning 3D printing and Alps printers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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