Have you ever Lol'd at a service manual?

**CraigW** · 03-13-2011

KMBS talks about "lightning abnormality" for arching codes.

And for mis-spelling, I love the Konica 7045 machines display asking for the special "passward"

**Akitu** · 03-14-2011

Just on the sheer stupidity of how the manual was put together, I would have to throw in a contention for the HP LaserJet 5035 MP...
It seems like they were trying to make the service manual end-user-friendly and somehow got lost in that idea halfway through... To my understanding Toshiba manuals are horrid also.

**skynet** · 03-14-2011

Originally Posted by Akitu

Just on the sheer stupidity of how the manual was put together, I would have to throw in a contention for the HP LaserJet 5035 MP...
It seems like they were trying to make the service manual end-user-friendly and somehow got lost in that idea halfway through... To my understanding Toshiba manuals are horrid also.

I remember getting a paper jam in a Toshiba and an error code. I looked up the error or jam code and it said please refer to chapter 5-1-2 or something like that. No page number to make it easy. The first thing the manual said was

'are you using the correct paper type'

wtf ??

Its white, 80gsm and the copiers set to that.

-----------------------------------------------------------

We got sent a cd from Toshiba prior to my first training course years ago and I still remember one of the multiple choice answers

1 : The photo conductive drum has a negative charge the toner has a negative charge

2 : The photo conductive drum has a negative charge the toner also has a negative charge

Although both answers mean the same thing and the only difference being the word 'also' and are both correct Toshiba decided in this test that number 2 is correct and you get no points if you chose the first one.

**Akitu** · 03-14-2011

Wow, talk about some terrible translations. Interesting, thankfully I have not yet had to work on any Toshibas.

**mrwho** · 03-14-2011

Originally Posted by manuals4you

Well, I've got some experience with manuals and I can tell you that these manufacturers need to get a person with a degree in English to proofread some of these manuals. There are tons of typing errors as well as numerous grammatical mistakes.

Although I agree with you, keep in mind these are technical manuals, not a romance or an epic tale (although some are so thick they could be carried by a grad student without atracting too much atention). I'm more worried with spelling errors in user manuals and on the machine's control panels - that's what they should contract proof readers for.

**fixthecopier** · 03-14-2011

People may not notice. Some talk that way. I had a sign on a drawer that read "Do not use this draw". Maybe he was from Texas and was spelling his accent.

**Hemlock** · 03-15-2011

Lol'd, no. How about cringed?

Océ, in their infinite wisdom, created a system where you had to have Lotus Notes to load the manuals. To get them, you had to have access to the Océ servers, via an annually renewed license, to download. If your license expired and you connected to the servers, it would wipe out what you had on hand. Oh yeah, Lotus notes required its own annual license to operate.

Each section of the manual was kinda like its own webpage, with a link to where you might need to go - based on their opinion of how you should work on machines. Y'know how you can scroll down a PDF to find what you need? Not happenin'. Keyword searches were for shit and gave the most ridiculous results imaginable.

Extra bonus - The only way to enact a sim/test in service mode was to connect the laptop to the machine and run the test via a link on the page in the service manual. No kiddin' - you wanna reset a counter, you gotta fire up the laptop and connect it, fire up lotus notes, access the webpage and run the test.

But wait - to access the server on the machine that controlled all the functions (yep, each machine had a controller that ran on Win2k), you had to have yet another license. One that would also expire annually. If your license expired, you weren't doing anything to that machine. If you forgot your laptop powercord, you weren't doing anything to that machine. If the laptop crashed (like they do), you weren't doing anything to that machine.

Connecting to the machine? You weren't doing it via usb. Nor a printer cable. Definitely not standard Cat5. You had to have a crossover *and* a special Cat5 to usb converter that only came from Europe and retailed for $150 or so.

As much as I loved the boxes themselves, the other crap made me rage.