[filmscanners] SprintScan 4000 cleaning

["Cliff Ober" <cdober@ev1.net>]

Hi all,

I have just completed a successful tear down and cleaning of my
Sprintscan 4000. The improvement in scan quality is very noticeable;
there was a LOT of gunk on the mirror that was reducing contrast. Upon
gaining access to the mirror, I found that cleaning it by shooting air
down through the vertical slot in the mechanism (as has been described
here before) will almost guarantee that the dust will be blasted off the
mirror and onto the lens adjacent to the mirror. Not a good thing. The
only way to really clean the mirror well is to remove the transport
mechanism, flip it over, and remove the mirror.

This is not a not a job for the faint of heart, as the disassembly
involves a lot of screws, and great care not to break something.
Familiarity with electronic product design practices is also an asset.
This is a job that should be done at an antistatic workstation designed
for electronics work, to help insure against damaging the circuitry.

The entire job took me somewhere around 6 hours or so, but a fair amount
of that was learning curve time figuring the order to remove various
components and assemblies. I actually disassembled more of the transport
mechanism than I needed to before learning how it all goes together. The
next will be a lot quicker and easier.

My reason for reporting all this is to let those technically competent
individuals out there know that cleaning these devices is possible. With
care, it can be done, and a fair amount of money and down time can be
saved over sending the unit out to a service bureau.

Cliff Ober

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