Nikon Coolscan 4000 ED Potentially dying?

[agoglanian]

I just bought my CS4000 last year and it's been trouble free working over Vuescan (though I honestly never was super thrilled with the results on color film, B&W was pretty decent though.

I decided not too long ago to track down an old Mac so I could run OS X 10.4 and therefore try Nikon Scan 4. Managed to get a really nice Powerbook G4 for a whopping $38 and I got everything up and running with a remarkable improvement in the workflow and ease of getting good color scans.

Fast forward to about a week ago and my scanner is starting to stall occasionally. Sometimes it will scan the full strip of 5 frames no problem, sometimes it will scan one and then hang, sometimes 2, 3 or 4 frames and then hang. I'm not certain what's causing this yet, but there are some variables I'm going to need to work out.

1) Could the FW cable be bad? I'll have to locate an alternate one and try it.
2) Could it be on the computer / software side of things?
3) Is the scanner hardware beginning to fail?
4) If it does fail, can I get it fixed?

If there is any specific info I can get you to help me diagnose the problem, just let me know what it is.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer!

 

[kiemchacsu]

I have a NIkon IV, it got some issued I described here

From what you said, you can try to do these:
1) clean the SA-21, especially the rubber roller.
2) check the scanner again with another FW cable
3) clean the mirror (instructions included in the link above)

If you do all 3 steps and problems still occur, the scanner is in trouble.

 

[agoglanian]

I will try all those things and report back!

 

[agoglanian]

Short of doing the full disassembly (though those instructions are clear and it doesn't seem TOO complicated) I cleaned out the insides as best I could, but I think the culprit was my Firewire cable. It was an old one I'd used for some time a FW400 to 800 cable. I don't have any Firewire devices anymore as Apple has since abandoned the format, but I got lucky and found an unused FW400 cable still in a plastic baggie from an old hard drive enclosure.

So far that seems to be working! I was getting nervous / bummed, I really like this scanner and to get a newer one would cost me quite a bit haha.

Edit: I may have literally spoken too soon as I was writing this post after scanning in a strip of 5 frames without issue and was on the next 5. Then it stalled. Again.

 

[agoglanian]

Well shoot.

Based on my conversation with Alex Ketzner who repairs these fine machines it could likely be one of two problems:

The Power Supply Board
Or the Motherboard.

Neither one is a cheap fix sadly but it's frustrating as I only bought the scanner this summer and am only just starting to use it.

What a bummer :/ I invested in the scanner because I wanted to start shooting 35mm more often (as I all but stopped shooting it for a while). Now I have to budget for the repair so what was a $500 scanner is now going to be an almost $1000 scanner, and for that price I could have bought the 5000 or even 8000 ED.

 

[kiemchacsu]

I don't think that you should repair it.
Keep looking for a 5000, it's newer and hence it should last longer.
I just luckily bought a CS 5000 from a RFF member for $700 total.

 

[agoglanian]

I understand that, but I also don't have limitless funds, and throwing away $500 like that is kind of frustrating. I don't directly fault the seller. I'm just attributing it to a case of bad luck at the moment.

If I could get him to split the repair with me I'd be more inclined to do it.

 

[Particular]

I recently went through a long drawn out saga repairing a Coolscan 8000. I diagnosed my issue correctly based on the excellent documentation on this site:
http://www.shtengel.com/gleb/Scanners.htm
My problem was a fried firewire chip on the main board. I got a local electronics place to replace it, but it then failed again. The cause was that the power supply was sending the wrong voltage to the main board after which the chip fried.
I sent the power supply to be rebuilt by this company:
http://www.power-medic.com
They do a complete rebuild for $125 plus shipping.

Currently everything works. I hope it holds up.

The power supply issue is apparently quite common with old equipment. If you haven't yet fried your firewire chip, I would hold off using it until you know the power supply is good. The stalling you have experienced may be due to over heating, but you don't want to damage it any further.
If you are hesitant to spend the cash, I would take the power supply to a local electronics shop and get them to test the output voltages on the connector to see if they are ok or not.

 

[agoglanian]

Yeah I will be leaving it unplugged until I figure out what to do.

I appreciate the insight though guys!

 

[quejai]

One common way electronic boards fail is by electrolytic capacitors failing. if this is your problem, you can generally tell by looking at them - either they're bloated and deformed, or there is evidence of a leak. Google the topic for samples of what good and bad electrolytic capacitors look like for a better idea.

If you do think this is your problem, and if you want to give fixing it a go, there are quite a few online resources that could help you out. If you're new to electronics, you might want to practice on a less-valuable piece of electronics first. This is a reasonable video, but it makes the replacement look harder than it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjauOGwmKH8

The basic idea to fixing these capacitors is to use a soldering iron to melt the solder keeping it in, remove the old capacitor, then reinstall a similar, working, capacitor back in place.