filmscanners: Slide feeder, was: You have several hundred thousand transparencies to scan...

[Alan Shaw <alanshaw@alanshaw.com>]

Jules wrote:
> 
> 
> i find my SF-200 (LS-2000 slide feeder) to be foolproof, but it took me
> a long time to get it that way.  the primary reason for jams is the
> mount being too rough surfaced or placed incorrectly causing two slides
> to be fed into the scanner at a time.  i found, for example, that one
> particular type of plastic mount (i forget the brand) would work fine in
> one direction, but would cause jams in another (you can test this by
> putting two slides together and sliding them around.  if they can slide
> to the right, that's how you put them in).  the mounts i use now, thin
> gepe when machine mounted, the thicker ones when hand mounting (the
> thicker the mount the less jams you'll get) work exceptionally well.  i
> haven't experienced a jam in over a year (at least a thousand scans and
> all in the feeder).
> 
> ~j

Well, that's the thing, Jules:  you've told us before how well the SF-200
works for you, and I'm envious, but still dubious about it for me.
Your post appears to mean that the SF-200 won't behave well with the "regular"
cardboard-mounted slides I get back from my lab.  So the feeder convenience
must be balanced against the trouble of mounting my own slides.
I do mount my own 120 slides, but that's much lower volume...
Can you talk a bit about machine mounting at home?  Like cost and time?

Thanks,

--Alan