Jostein, Nice play on words if that was your intent... "anecdotal", "vibration", "gas". :-)
I took my Dimage Scan Dual apart today, as far as I dared... which is to say I took the cover off. If there is a lens, I was unable to see it. The film carrier transport mechanism pulls the film holder past a small slot, wherein lies the CCD, one would presume. There is a mirror system, I could see the back of it from the outside of the "sensor chamber". Whether the CCD is directly behind the slot opening or somewhere else is a guess, but I suspect it's a mirror that lies there and the light is directed elsewhere. There is absolutely no way one would want to disassemble any further, unless risking the integrity and alignment of components was of little concern. When looking at the scanner from the front, the slot I refer to where the CCD must lie is on the left, and the illumination source is on the right. When spraying compressed air in the scanner, there's virtually no way to spray the air directly on the CCD or any lens element if one exists, as the slot is immediately to the left. With the cover off, I did stick the straw through the slot and spray around, but could not see what it was reaching. The unit looked entirely clean inside to begin with. The only dust I could see, 2 or 3 specs, was on non-optical components. I put the think back together and did a weight vibration test. I scanned a slide that shows the front door of a house with the house number above the door. 1. Scan with no dampening or weighting. 2. Scan with scanner on a mouse pad and about 25 pounds (two slabs of petrified wood) on top. 3. Scan with just the petrified wood and no mousepad. I cropped each image to the area just around the house number and where I could see a good sharp contrast line between the blue trim on the orange house. It's a Mexican style house, what can I say? Nice motif actually. I zoomed in 300x. Results: For me, I could see absolutely no difference in scan quality between the three. In a way that makes me happy. I find the scanner to be extremely quiet and would be rather upset if it was made in such a way that self-induced vibration was so great it could blur the image (although come to think of it, cameras do that). Thanks for the tip Jostein. I have no doubt it worked in your particular circumstances. One conclusion I reached though... just spraying the inside with compressed air through the film door likely has almost no effect if there is any dust or grime in the light path of the CCD. It just won't get close to touching it. Tom C. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jostein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2001 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Scanner Cleanliness > Tom, > Sorry if I'm too "anecdotal". > > vibration: > When I first bought the scanner I had the same frustrations as you. > Ie, the images didn't seem as sharp as expected. Mine too was resting > on a sturdy table. Weighing it down with some heavy volumes improved > sharpness in my scans. Don't have any great explanation why I thought > of it. Just wanted to rule that factor out, and then suddenly it > seemed to be significant. > > Gas: > I too have noticed some split-second "spitting" from the mouthpiece of > compressed-gas devices, but I've never seen that film you are talking > about. Maybe it would help if you pointed it away from sensitive > surfaces just when starting the blow? > > Best, > Jostein - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
