Teletype model 33 restoration

General discussions related to the Altair 8800 Clone

Teletype model 33 restoration

Postby Ben_Aveline » March 28th, 2023, 7:34 am

Hi guys,
Making a thread for my teletype model 33 restoration in order to use it with my Altair Clone.
First, big thanks to jefferjs for the punched tapes he sent to me, that will come in handy.
So I recovered 2 Model 33 Teletypes that were otherwise doomed to be trashed. Both are the same, and both haven't been plugged since 30+ years. The old man who gave them to me got them at his factory when they decommissioned those. His plan was to plug them to each other in 2 different rooms for his kids to play with them. He never did.
So, having both, I started to restore one, keeping the other one for spare parts.
Here is a picture of one before I start cleaning:
Image

They have been modified by a retailer for France use (220V 50Hz).
So I cleaned one, degreased and re-greased most of it, changed a broken ball bearing shaft (taken from the other one), checked the relays were not stuck (with a 12V lab psu) and replaced the rubber hammer on the print head with a rubber tube (the 40yo rubber hammer was turning into some sticky nasty gum).
I'm close to make it work locally. I still have to fine tune some settings and make the Carriage Return work, but the four blocks work.
My intent was to use Mike's "current loop to rs232" adapter, but the P2 connector looks a little bit different. Its pin 3 isn't wired (which is where the adapter gets power from).


Image
Image
Image

So, the UCC neither a UCC-6 or a telex. Has anyone seen that kind of UCC ? Does anyone has some information about it ?

Thank you

Ben
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Re: Teletype model 33 restoration

Postby Wayne Parham » March 28th, 2023, 1:08 pm

That's so cool! Anxious to watch as you make progress!
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Re: Teletype model 33 restoration

Postby Ben_Aveline » March 28th, 2023, 1:29 pm

Working on it every day since a week now. I have 2 main issues left I need to fix : the carriage return not working, and once over ten, the outputed character is wrong.
I'm assuming a bad connection somewhere, or an interference.
I'll have to monitor what passes on the line output to be able to know if it's coming from the sending part (keyboard or punched tape reader) sending bad characters, or from the receiving part (tape puncher or paper printer)
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Re: Teletype model 33 restoration

Postby Ben_Aveline » March 31st, 2023, 10:49 am

Ben_Aveline wrote:So, the UCC neither a UCC-6 or a telex. Has anyone seen that kind of UCC ? Does anyone has some information about it ?


Hum, I was hoping anyone had some info, anything.
So far I discovered the "French" update is just about the transformer. This UCC exists also on UK versions.
I've looked into tons of documentation, I've emailed youtube channel and museums that have one with exactly the same UCC, but without answer. I guess I'll have to reverse engineer as much as I can the electronic to be able to map the pinout.
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Re: Teletype model 33 restoration

Postby AltairClone » April 2nd, 2023, 7:54 am

Ben, have you tried asking on the green keys group?

http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys

Mike
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Re: Teletype model 33 restoration

Postby Ben_Aveline » April 3rd, 2023, 2:45 am

No, I didn't. Thanks, I'll try there.
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Re: Teletype model 33 restoration

Postby Jefferjs » April 4th, 2023, 1:38 pm

Hi Ben glad I could help with the paper tape If you need any more when you finish your project let me know

Jeff
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