I opened up my "new" 41C (from eBay) to clean the contacts and see if there was anything I could tighten up inside — the calculator had been working perfectly (with three modules) but now the display wasn't working and it felt like something was loose.
When I took the battery compartment out and removed the four screws, and then separated the two halves of the calculator, a plastic strut dropped out (see photos below).
I can't figure out where this piece is supposed to fit!
It's the same width as the PCB at the bottom of the calculator, but it doesn't seem to belong at either the top or bottom edge of that (the top edge being the spot where the board "mates" with the edge of the battery compartment).
The machine fits back together perfectly without that piece, and powers up....my superficial cleaning of the flexible connector from the main board to the batteries and into the sockets for the modules seems to have worked.
I'm still having problems insofar as putting a module into slot "2" (top right, when viewing the calculator from "above") makes it stop working. Any advice as far as this goes, would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance for anyone's help and advice! I've only been a 41C owner for a couple of weeks but it's obvious that the community here and elsewhere is doing fascinating things with this wonderful old technology. (As I remarked elsewhere here, I've wanted one of these since my Dad brought home the brochures when I was in middle school.)
Jordan