Dot Matrix Printer Head Breakdown

[Bear]

I recently came upon about 20 older dot matrix printers. They had an easy to get mainboard and a decent transformer, and these heads, which were put up until winter weather got me inside for a bit.

These were from various dot matrix printers


You can see a couple of the little boards peeking out of there


These little rascals are encased in some very strong magnets, possibly rare earth


This is the dot matrix. Electrical impulses force the pins rapidly through an alignment tip, onto a ribbon cartridge, and into the paper (like a type writer)


Signals are sent through this tiny board on the matrix, activating an electrical magnetic charge, forcing the pins to strike a dot onto the page. Some of these tiny boards were gold, although most were silver


The boards pry right off of the matrix head with a small flat screwdriver


Once I got to the main bunch, and began an assembly line process, it moved along rather quickly


Well, this is what I got out of the bunch, a couple tiny piles of small boards, and some aluminum




This is the pile of larger boards from in the heads, the whole bunch weighs 2 ounces


Plus these smaller ones(which I didn't even bother to weigh ; )


I'll conclude this in a following post

[jghilino]

i see high grade boards, and mylar

stuff i dream about

[Bear]

There were some decent pins and such in these, but not a great many


I broke one of the brown ones open easily, but this black one was a bit tougher to separate the pins from


This is top side of the larger board on the heads, a little over 2 inches square


This is the bottom side, I believe it's all gold tracers


And these I suppose go in electric motors(although the rare earth magnet guess could be correct) about 3 pounds maybe


All in all, a bit of an education, but, not much of a payday ; )

[Bear]

i see high grade boards, and mylar

stuff i dream about

I'm collecting it, but my collection could probly still be weighed in ounces, and fractions of an ounce ; )

[jghilino]

"these are a few of my favorite things"

i have about 6 ounces of gold mylar stockpiled

[Bear]

"these are a few of my favorite things"

i have about 6 ounces of gold mylar stockpiled

got a photo of some of it ?

[etack]

some dot matrix printers carry a good resale. they are still used in places that print forms.

Eric

[Bear]

It was actually a fairly ragged pile of old printers. I kept the ribbon cartridges, but doubt Office Max will want them in the trade in proggie ; )

And I just realized there wasn't any ink, it was like a typewriter, using ribbon cartridges

[KzScrapper]

Good info...thanks Bear.

[Bear]

Found in a patent from Suzuki made in 1984, "The magnet 2 is located with its peripheral edge surface radially spaced a predetermined distance l from the inner wall surface of the cylindrical casing 1. Further, the magnet 2, preferably a rare-earth magnet,"
Dot matrix printer head - Nippon Electric Co., Ltd.
click "download PDF" for images
The rare earth magnets are labeled 2