ScanMate drum scanner DIY maintenance, troubleshooting, mods

Kamph said:
Activating AF often leads to completely out of focus scans.
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Make a preview, then select either a portion or the entire image you want to scan and start "Calibrate Focus" from the top menu. What you should look for is part of the image with at least some contrast. Don't include film rebate in the selection. Sometimes it takes a few tries for AF to work.
If you're unable to dry-mount film using 3M 610 and/or 800 tape with proper tension, then your film is visibly damaged beyond simple curl. Mounting film isn't really that hard. Texture of 3M 800 taped on a drum can even successfully be used for focus calibration, if the image is too dark, low in contrast or if the film is very fine-grained.
 
MarinB said:
Make a preview, then select either a portion or the entire image you want to scan and start "Calibrate Focus" from the top menu. What you should look for is part of the image with at least some contrast. Don't include film rebate in the selection. Sometimes it takes a few tries for AF to work.
If you're unable to dry-mount film using 3M 610 and/or 800 tape with proper tension, then your film is visibly damaged beyond simple curl. Mounting film isn't really that hard. Texture of 3M 800 taped on a drum can even successfully be used for focus calibration, if the image is too dark, low in contrast or if the film is very fine-grained.
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Thanks, I'll try calibrating the focus on the negative itself. So far I've only tried calibrating focus on the supplied focus target.

I've been using 3M "Magic" tape, I might try another kind of tape. All of my negatives are very flat.

I've noticed that the tape on the drum is almost always very sharp on the scans, yet the negative itself isen't (the grain isen't resolved) maybe indicating that the scanner is focusing closer to the drum than it should?
 
Kamph said:
So far I've only tried calibrating focus on the supplied focus target.
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After 20 or 25 years of use and who knows how many owners and how much (improper?) transportation, focus targets are probably less meaningful for these tabletop scanners. But, as with anything, YMMV. From my experience, on my scanner (made in 1996), focus each and every image individually for proper grain definition and sharpness.

Kamph said:
I've been using 3M "Magic" tape, I might try another kind of tape. All of my negatives are very flat.
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3M Magic tape (aka 800) is more than good. Practice mounting some more, you'll get the hang of it. When you do, it'll become second nature.

Kamph said:
I've noticed that the tape on the drum is almost always very sharp on the scans, yet the negative itself isen't (the grain isen't resolved) maybe indicating that the scanner is focusing closer to the drum than it should?
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It means the tape and its texture is recognized by CQ as the area of most obvious contrast. Just try "Calibrate Focus" on the image itself, it should eventually work.
 
jzagaja said:
Encoder is another company. If you could make encoder to the spec then great idea. Clean with alcohol and brush. Try to correct vibrations there.
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Thanks buddy! I'll look into it soon and see what I can gather.

Kamph said:
So far I've only tried calibrating focus on the supplied focus target.
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Well there is your problem *I think*. Your drum may be out of alignment from one end to another and also keep in mind emulsions vary between films (including your target).

Focus in an area that has the detail and scan without autofocus checked and you should see amazing detail. Set your sharpening settings to Custom and turn sharpness off (the 1st drop down to 0) and also select aperture to 1. Perform a 6000 DPI scan and see what you get. A properly calibrated SM scanner will scream detail - yes scream it loudly! 🙂 I have both the 5K and 11K and they can both pull grain with sharp focus from a Velvia 50.

Here are two ~6000 DPI scans from the scanner with no sharpening applied. I even have a test at 11000 DPI someplace in this tread. You'll need a flickr login to be able to click on the original link for full resolutions scans.

Fuji Velvia 100 6x7 MF Wetmount
https://www.flickr.com/photos/palikalsi/24904376190/sizes/k/

Kodak TMAX 400 6x7 Drymount
https://www.flickr.com/photos/palikalsi/21740620618/sizes/k/

Good luck and keep us posted!
 
Thanks guys! Calibrating focus directly on the film did help a lot on positives, however, negatives still poses a challenge for the AF apparently - maybe due to the negatives being less contrasty?

I noticed that Velvia 50 dosen't show any signs of pepper grain even when using aperture 1. I get tons of pepper grain with my Plustek. I guess the Scanmate's light source is a lot less harsh than the LED on the Plustek?

Drum's definitely out of alignment, focusing in one end gives out of focus scans at the other.

BTW is there any give away signs when the bulb needs changing?
 
Anyone got the Raw 16 bit setting to work on their Scanmate 5000? Raw 8 bit setting is so much sharper than the RGB 16 bit. I think monkeyfist might be on to something - there definitely seems to be some kind of blur filter applied to other scan settings.
 
After some more research I found that apparently the whole 16 bit RAW ordeal is a well known issue with the Scanmates and one without any fixes at that. Bummer! I scan a lot of negatives so 16 bit would be really nice. Do any of you see a significant difference between the other settings and raw as well?

My lamp just died as well. MarinB, you spoke highly of a german made one, which one if I may ask? 🙂
 
Kamph what software are you using? I have been using 16 bit TIFF (not Raw) for almost all of my scans and have never had a problem. Since my scanners are now calibrated and I do not use any post processing settings in CQ, my 16 Bit TIFF files are practically RAW but it gives me the option to attach the Adobe RGB color space right from the scan.

I do believe that I have tried 16 Bit Raw before and from what I can recall, I don't remember having any issues with it in CQ.
 
Kamph said:
After some more research I found that apparently the whole 16 bit RAW ordeal is a well known issue with the Scanmates and one without any fixes at that. Bummer! I scan a lot of negatives so 16 bit would be really nice. Do any of you see a significant difference between the other settings and raw as well?

My lamp just died as well. MarinB, you spoke highly of a german made one, which one if I may ask? 🙂
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This is only on the 5000 model correct?
 
Netsoft2k said:
Kamph what software are you using? I have been using 16 bit TIFF (not Raw) for almost all of my scans and have never had a problem. Since my scanners are now calibrated and I do not use any post processing settings in CQ, my 16 Bit TIFF files are practically RAW but it gives me the option to attach the Adobe RGB color space right from the scan.

I do believe that I have tried 16 Bit Raw before and from what I can recall, I don't remember having any issues with it in CQ.
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I'm running QC 5.2.2 with all PP turned off as well. The difference is very noticeable. It's bascially a question about having sharp grain or not.
Would it be possible for you to try and do a 16 bit Raw scan with your 5000 to confirm?

calebarchie said:
This is only on the 5000 model correct?
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It seemed like some had problems with the setting only producing 8 bit files when the 16 bit setting was selected on 11000 but as I don't own one of these fine scanners I can't confirm that for you.

The folks at the high-end scanner group didn't find a solution it seems like.
 
Kamph said:
My lamp just died as well. MarinB, you spoke highly of a german made one, which one if I may ask? 🙂
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Look for an Osram HLX Xenophot, standard bulb with a reflector. Should be easily available.

These scanners do seem to simply eat bulbs. My Fujimoto 450M-C enlarger from the 80s has been in constant use for nearly five years in my darkroom and the bulb went just a few months ago.
 
Netsoft2k said:
Kamph what software are you using? I have been using 16 bit TIFF (not Raw) for almost all of my scans and have never had a problem. Since my scanners are now calibrated and I do not use any post processing settings in CQ, my 16 Bit TIFF files are practically RAW but it gives me the option to attach the Adobe RGB color space right from the scan.

I do believe that I have tried 16 Bit Raw before and from what I can recall, I don't remember having any issues with it in CQ.
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Kamph, in case you have not found it, this the page at ColorNeg.com (producers of ColorPerfect) that describes how to get a RAW 16-bit scan from CQ:

http://www.colorperfect.com/scanning-slides-and-negatives/scans/Howtek/ScanMate/ColorQuartet/

I presume it *should* work as netsoft2k has indicated...
 
Kamph said:
Thanks guys! Calibrating focus directly on the film did help a lot on positives, however, negatives still poses a challenge for the AF apparently - maybe due to the negatives being less contrasty?

I noticed that Velvia 50 dosen't show any signs of pepper grain even when using aperture 1. I get tons of pepper grain with my Plustek. I guess the Scanmate's light source is a lot less harsh than the LED on the Plustek?

Drum's definitely out of alignment, focusing in one end gives out of focus scans at the other.

BTW is there any give away signs when the bulb needs changing?
Click to expand...

plustek does not focus, the perppergrain is caused by out of focus grain... i really dont understand why they make scanners without even some manual focusing adjustment. its just waste of time & resources.

Scanmates lightsource is as harsh as it gets, its basically a microscope. and this is the thing that makes drumscanners good, they scan a tiny dot at the time.. so only a really small portion needs to be illuminated at one time, and the light is shot at just the right angle (using condenser lens) at the lens. Its called "Köhler illumination" in microsopes.

Its actually really important that the lightsource is aligned perfectly, to achieve the max sharpness. Shame there is no easy way to do it with this machine.
 
Kamph said:
One can only hope. Were any updates ever released for the firmware?
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You can try this:

http://aleksikoski.com/temp/Scanner Firmware/ScanMate 11000/SCA04000.A6

No garanties about anything, i pulled it from some of the CQ files that were posted here. I needed a firmware for SM5000 to get it work with CQ5.

Only on SM5000 i did get the crapped out 16bit RAW. So it might also be that some older firmware works better or something. Do not know what i got on my machine now, i dont even know how to check the version. Maybe it shows in the service terminal program.

The AF is not perfect on these machines, often i manually seek the best possible focus (especially if i scan at 11000dpi). By scanning many many tiny scans using focus elevation with 10 point differences.
 
Netsoft2k said:
Kamph what software are you using? I have been using 16 bit TIFF (not Raw) for almost all of my scans and have never had a problem. Since my scanners are now calibrated and I do not use any post processing settings in CQ, my 16 Bit TIFF files are practically RAW but it gives me the option to attach the Adobe RGB color space right from the scan.

I do believe that I have tried 16 Bit Raw before and from what I can recall, I don't remember having any issues with it in CQ.
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RAW is sharper, it lacks some sort of softening effect that I assume is used to hide small defects in piecing the image together. Though it probably does not matter much on larger negs. I scan a lot of 35mm stuff at 11000dpi... and i really want to get the natural sharp grain, it makes great looking inkjets. Inkjets that rival silverprints.
 
On my SM11K, I scanned at 11000 DPI at 8 BIT RAW and 16 BIT RAW and the scans are equally sharp with no issues. Did the same test on 5K at 5000 DPI and things got very interesting. 8 BIT RAW scans are as expected but the 16 BIT RAW scan is corrupted. I then scanned in 16 BIT TIFF and everything is fine but TIFF is noticeably sharper than RAW. This is really bizarre - thanks Kamph for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea.

On a side note, 11000 DPI on this scanner still makes my jaw drop.
 
MarinB said:
Look for an Osram HLX Xenophot, standard bulb with a reflector. Should be easily available.

These scanners do seem to simply eat bulbs. My Fujimoto 450M-C enlarger from the 80s has been in constant use for nearly five years in my darkroom and the bulb went just a few months ago.
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Thank you!

plustek does not focus, the perppergrain is caused by out of focus grain... i really dont understand why they make scanners without even some manual focusing adjustment. its just waste of time & resources.
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I absolutely agree in regards to AF, however, my copy of the Plustek do resolve the grain of any film I've thrown at it quite easily, as long as the film is perfectly flat. Pepper grain isen't caused by aliased grain btw, it's small air bubbles caught in the emulsion, this is rather well known. I've used an Imacon before, and it too showed the pepper grain. I'll upload a comparison of the Plustek and the 5K at some point. When scanning using the Raw setting the Scanview IS sharper than the Plustek, but I'm not quite sure if that's the case when not scanning Raw due to the wierd softening effect introduced by QC. 5K wins on everything else of course and by a wide margin at that.

Only on SM5000 i did get the crapped out 16bit RAW. So it might also be that some older firmware works better or something. Do not know what i got on my machine now, i dont even know how to check the version. Maybe it shows in the service terminal program.
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But 16 bit Raw works on your 5K now? 🙂

I then scanned in 16 BIT TIFF and everything is fine but TIFF is noticeably sharper than RAW. This is really bizarre - thanks Kamph for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea.
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So the 16 bit TIFF setting is actually sharper on your scanner than the Raw? That's so odd! Is this on your 5K or the 11K?
 
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