Maintaining your Canute 360 at home - Bristol-Braille/canute-ui GitHub Wiki

The following procedures can be done on your own Canute 360 without voiding your warranty. It will help keep the Canute 360 operating smoothly. Please note that this does not need to be done regularly and lubrication in particular should only be done if and when errors have been noticed in the Braille cells.

• Kit needed before starting: - Silicone food-safe lubcricant with either pipette, reed, or other precision application implement. - Lint-free cloth or chamois leather. - Alcohol cleaning solution.
• Firstly you will need to clean the Braille cells: - Go into the Library Menu, then into the 'Canute' directory, then to 'for cleaning and testing'. - This will show every cell in the same pattern. There are eight pages. By cleaning the surface on every page you will have cleaned every face of the rotors that makes up the Braille cell patterns (i.e. the dots). - Apply alcohol cleaner to the lint-free cloth (ideal) or chamois. Use pure liquid cleaner, not scented or viscous cleaners. - On each page carefully wipe each cell. Do not be rough; there is no danger to the cells directly, but if you are too rough you may fray even a lint-free cloth, which will create stray fibres, which will work their way into the display. - If you have errors on a column or row that prevents you from cleaning every face of every rotor don't worry unduly; this cleaning process is good practice but not essential.
• Having cleaned the display's cells turn the machine off using the proper system menu option so all the cells are in a down position, then pull the power out the back. Don't just pull the power out the back as this will leave the cells in a raised position (and is not good practice anyway as it may corrupt the files).
• Now you are going to apply lubricant to the internal mechanism: - Ideally you will use a small pipette. Alternatively the spray can may have a thin reed for targeted spraying; this is also fine as long as you only tap lightly to get small amounts of lubcricant. If you don't have a pipette, or a reed on the can, then you can have the same effect as a pipette in the following way: - Squirt/tip some of the lubcricant into a small dish. - Use a jeweller's screw-driver or similar small pointed implement. - Dip the screw-driver in the dish and quickly transfer over the location. - Your aim is to lubricate racks inside the Canute. These are underneath and obscured by the rotors (i.e. the Braille cells). To do this in a non-invasive way you will apply small amounts of lubricant through slots on the top of the Canute's display whilst the rotors are in a down-state (i.e. the machine is turned off). - If you are doing a full service then you want to apply it to every column of slots (40 columns of cells, two slots per column). However if you only have issues with certain columns and are trying to fix those then you need only apply lubricant to those columns. - Use the pipette/reed/other implement to drop a small amount of lubricant into each slot on either all the columns or on the problem columns and the columns next to those (e.g. if column 3 has an error then do the ones on either side). - Give it at least twenty minutes of sitting there turned off for the lubricant to percolate. - Ise this time to use the alcohol cleaner very lightly to remove any excess lubricant from the Canute display surface. However be careful to use very little cleaner here as you don't want the cleaner to get into the mechanism. Alcohol is not a lubricant. - Now turn it on again and go back to the 'for cleaning and testing' book. - Now you are going to cycle through pages on the 'cleaning and testing' book. Do not expect the error to be immediately improved. Going through the pages is intended to move the mechanism, thus improve percolation of the lubricant into the mechanism. - Go back and forward through the eight page book at least once.
• Now press and hold the 'zero' key on the bottom left of the display surface for one second to trigger what is called the 'hard reset', i.e. the process by which the machine zeros itself to a blank display: - Whilst this is happening keep a keen hand/eye on the display surface to see if there is any improvement in your troubled columns. - If there is some improvement (e.g. if some of the cells have cleared themselves on those columns but others remain 'stuck') then go back to the cleaning and testing book to cycle through it, then another hard reset, to see if repeating this improves it. - If there is no improvement at all, and no movement in those columns that previously had issues, then it is likely that the issue needs an invasive fix, most likely a swap of the Braille column module, known as the 'rib'. This is a separate procedure which is not covered under warranty and should be done by a trained technician.
• A note of warning: More lubricant does not necessarily equal better lubrication. One drop per slot is more than enough. If you are concerned you may apply too much lubricant then it is better to only apply lubricant to the cells on two rows, rather than on every row. So for example all the way along row three and row six. This will still reach the mechanism.