[filmscanners] Re: Cleaning SS4000 scanner

["" <snsok@cox.net>]

Tony,

Thanks for the details. If you ever do this again, how about a few digital 
images along the way :).

After I removed the lamp, I tried to remove the film carrier.  With the scanner 
oriented in the same fashion as the background shot on the website you quote 
below, I removed the two sheet metal "caps" that retain the ends of the rails. 
I suspect the two other screws that you refer to are under the film carriage on 
the left side.

I marked up the background of the SS4000 Problems page and put it here:

http://www.tallgrassimages.com/gallery2/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=590

I should have powered up the device and moved the carriage to the right--or 
used the suggestion of gaining access to the worm gear and moving it while 
powered off. Did you have to do one of those two options?

Thanks

Stan
---- Tony Sleep <tonysleep@halftone.co.uk> wrote:

>
> It was me who wrote the report originally. I removed only the lamp carrier
> (2 screws) and the front upper portion of the film advance housing (4
> screws), then decided any further dismantling looked too hard and probably
> unnecessary. Access to the reflex mirror is limited, through a roughly
> 20mm x 15mm aperture in the bed of the film carrier, but I found it was
> enough to be able to thoroughly clean the mirror with a DSLR sensor
> cleaning pad on an angled arm (I use Green Clean, the wet pads have a
> plastic arm, and I heated and bent one about 45 deg). My mirror had been
> utterly filthy with thick dust.
>
> Once I'd done that I could shine a torch onto the mirror and was able to
> see the lens cell reflected. That was perfectly clean, so I left it alone.
> Just as well, getting to it would require an awful lot more dismantling.
>
> The only other thing I did was to wipe the parts of the coarse and fine
> carrier advance worm gears and support rods that I could see, using a pad
> with some WD40 to remove old lubricant. I then dribbled a little light
> machine oil onto the rods and some light grease onto the worm gears. As
> expected, after reassembly, the carrier movement distributed this to the
> areas I couldn't get to just by scanning a few frames. The sound of the
> mechanism changed noticeably, sounding less strained, during the first
> couple of scans.
>
> All the internal dust I could get at was removed at the same time,
> especially the little sensor notch toward the rear, LHS of the carrier
> mechanism. I have no idea how this sensor works - it doesn't even look
> like a sensor just a V-shaped notch in plastic - but that is what detects
> the filmstrip holder is not the mounted slide holder. Mine was filled with
> fluff that wanted to stay there. You can figure out where it is from the
> design of the Polaroid brush (which I don't have).
>
> Just cleaning that mirror has made an amazing difference to scan quality.
> It also now very seldom fails to correctly recognise the filmstrip holder
> at the first attempt. I think I've had 2 misfeeds in maybe 30 loads. It
> had been driving me crazy before, misfeeding about 2/3 the time.
>
> > Any suggestions? Is there a site with some images of this process? I
> > spent some time with google but was not successful.
>
> The only page I know of is http://pages.videotron.com/tiller/SS4000faults.htm
> which won't tell you much
>
> --
> Regards
>
> Tony Sleep
> http://tonysleep.co.uk
>
>


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