TI-59 card reader note

[John Garza (3665)]

Hi Ralf,

Nice to see a fellow 59'er out there!

One other thing I've experimented with is removing the top of the gearbox, and lubricating the gears. I use moly-di, the same stuff I use for HP worm gears.

You will be surprised how much quieter it is! I've always disliked the noisy TI card readers.

I also noticed another post by you about read errors. and tacking in a capacitor. I think the real issue there is the tantalum filter caps (4 of them) eventually go bad and need to be replaced on the PC board. These are connected to the Mag card chip - which can sometimes go bad as well. I think an issue contributing to failure is corrosion - even slight corrosion that comes from gasses leaking from battery packs. Nowadays I never keep a battery pack installed unless I'm using the machine. The caps are available - but expensive US $91 for a dozen. I remember when they were a dollar a piece!

-John