Epson V600 glass cleaning. . .

Hello everyone. Back in April of this year, I posted a question about cleaning a fungi colony off my V600 bottom glass. I thank those who responded, but I never got any decent data on how to go about this task. So, totally frustrated at not being able to use the scanner (mold colony has gone Andromeda on me), I torn into the scanner.

First, there are no hidden tab's or push points on the V600. Four (4) small screws allow the major sub assembly's of the V600 to separate. One must exercise due caution doing this, as many bits and pieces could be damaged if the gorilla approach is taken.

Second, I could not find any mechanical stops that would prevent the various pieces inside from moving around. To this end, do not turn the scanner end for end during your work. Nice, gentle "roll overs" did not present any "weird" noises during my work.

I will include three (3) photo aids in my explanation.

First Group. I believe the caption in each picture will be OK for now. Invert the scanner & remove the (2) screws and gentle roll the scanner over and open the top deck.

The V600 top deck pivots on two "post" that are inserted into the lower section. These post have "push catches" keeping them in the lower section. Use a medium flap blade screw driver and push the keepers in. The keepers are on the back section of the post as shown. When both are released, lift the top section up and turn it onto it's back to the right. Be gentle from this point forward !!!

Remove the two screws at the bottom of the post sockets. The lower sections can now be separated as shown in #8. From here on out extreme caution must be observed, as the internal guts of the scanner contain several, non robust, ribbon cables.

I pivoted the bottom glass section to the left being careful to not put any tension on the cables you will observe in the front section. Sorry but from this point I had my hands full balancing the glass section and cleaning the fungi away. I use a three prong approach on the little beggers ! First a slathering of 91 proof alcohol (soaked rag), then hydrogen peroxide, finally lens cleaning solution. Cleaning takes a bit of time, but think of this process as a waltz with your favorite camera lens !

Oh, the glass on my V600 is held in place with adhesive's. . nothing mechanical.

Edited November 22, 2018 by Bill Bowes

The cleaned pieces went back together with very little trouble. If the lower glass is a bit stubborn, check that a small keeper on the interconnection cable is seated.

Give a shout if you need a bit of help. . . I had to take the scanner apart a second time to remove a hair (blonde..not me!) dead center where the fungi use to be. The scanner fired up right off the bat. . .no alignment problems at all. Aloha, Bill

Gotta be careful what you say, what with everyone being so touchy today...

...One must exercise due caution doing this, as many bits and pieces could be damaged if the gorilla approach is taken...

 

Hmm... Great Apes, my gorilla

cousins in particular, are much

more careful than humans...

http://bayouline.com/o2.gif

Thanks for the instructions.

 

I finally replaced the ancient Microtek i900 with a new V800. Being an Epson and of similar construction to the V600, I will use your posts as a guide for cleaning when the time comes

A big banana for you Vincent ! Approach the V800 with caution. It does not have the same construction, but a little probing around should lead you to some method of attacking that monster. I say this because my V800 in Wa. has massive haze in the lower glass & I will have to get to it upon my return. Aloha, Bill

massive haze in the lower glass

 

massive haze ? what do you suspect caused that ?

During use the plastic parts out gas from the heat build up inside the sections. Very close to zero air circulates thru these pieces, so it "plates" onto the glass. The upper part of the V600 had very little haze on it, so I only cleaned one surface. The lower glass had both haze & fungi, so it needed a scrubbing. Aloha, Bill

During use the plastic parts out gas from the heat build up inside the sections. Very close to zero air circulates thru these pieces, so it "plates" onto the glass.

 

Ok thanks for that info. Geez I hope the V800 has less gaseous plastic, it's a brilliant scanner IMO, with it's anti-newton ring glass in three of it's film holders, that means more glass to keep clean than my other scanners. It's a well thought out machine, I'm putting it through it's paces at present using three different softwares to determine which one I like more than the others

Thanks Bill for the detailed info.. I'm sure it will be of service across the board.. ie go placidly among the noise and haste...no to mention the growing mold. My Epson also has haze on the lower glass and I will likely have to open it. I worked for a while for a Taiwanese distributor known originally for their flooding of the market of inexpensive flattop scanners. Mustek. I was involved more so in the logistics and I ordered the spare parts etc. So I'm not exactly a profi.. but I've seen the insides too often.

Glad that you were able to clean it up!

Kmac, I offer you some non Epson "options" for the V800. Their (Epson) idea of "glass" is plexiglass, which is a PLASTIC of polycarbonate nature. A great dust magnet!!

I replaced ALL of those E parts on my V800 with Real Anti Newton Ring, acid etched glass. A tad expensive for the 4x5 piece, but not so bad for the MF & 35mm.

Common 35mm ANR glass inserts are on Ebay, the MF is taken care of with the Better Scanning products. . .I use their carrier for MF.

If & when you get "tired" of the 1 or 2 channels that the V800 carriers offer, the molded plastic carriers for the V700 scanner work on the 800. . .double your fun!

You might also want to consider scanning with the negative emulsion down, not up per Epson. Once the carriers are adjusted (if needed) for focus, the scans are a magnitude better IMHO. . .your not projecting thru the film base. Most editing software allows you to flip n flop the picture. Aloha, Bill

Your information was of great help to me sort of.. I have an Epson V600 and have been getting a purple vertical stripe on my color scans. If you flip the negative over the purple strip does not move to the other side leading me to figure the negative is fine and the scanner is at fault. Anyway with your diagrams I was able to take the V600 apart and clean the glass. It seemed very clean to me but I cleaned it anyway. I put the scanner back together and it still works but the color stripe has moved to the other side. Kind of surprising over all. And again as before the stripe does not switch to the other side if you flip the negative for scanning. My scanner is just under 2 years old. Anyway thank you. Not sure what to do but am tempted to purchase a new scanner. I guess it's time to determine once and for all if I want to try 4x5 or not. I am going to think about it for a couple months and then decide. I am taking my wife to see Christopher Burketts work at Photography West in Carmel tomorrow. I believe he is going to be there. . He does not scan but other LF scanned prints will be on display. After my wife checks that out I can then assess her attitude towards LF.

You will find the Epson V800 ideal for scanning 4x5. I purchased mine for just 4x5 scans of a 10 year period of work. All came out excellent. Several 16x20 & 20x24 prints are in my home. No they are not carbon ink prints, but Costco does a good job with their pseudo color b/w prints on alumin um. I did send out two of the scans for carbon printing and they are right up there with my one surviving A.A. print. The V800 will be money well spent. Print is from 1970's with a 4x5 Calumet. Aloha, Bill

Kmac, I offer you some non Epson "options" for the V800. Their (Epson) idea of "glass" is plexiglass, which is a PLASTIC of polycarbonate nature. A great dust magnet!!

I replaced ALL of those E parts on my V800 with Real Anti Newton Ring, acid etched glass. A tad expensive for the 4x5 piece, but not so bad for the MF & 35mm.

Common 35mm ANR glass inserts are on Ebay, the MF is taken care of with the Better Scanning products. . .I use their carrier for MF.

 

 

Thanks once again Bill. The reason I bought this V800, apart from a discounted price, was to scan larger than 60mm. My Microtek i900 flatbed was just not producing images as sharp as they should be and sharpening tools in external editors were taken to their limits to sharpen the images to make them look just normal, but such intense sharpening often spoiled the images.

 

My dedicated film scanners take care of 60mm and smaller, for which I have the proper glass to sandwich the film strips between

 

With the V800, I'll only be using the 4x5 film holder and the glass document table. So all I'll need is real ANR glass for the 4x5 holder. The document table will be used for scanning prints and I have plenty of prints to scan.

 

I'm impressed by the V800 though, particularly by the design of the holders to keep the film flat - why didn't I think of that ?, I thought of everything else for film holder design to keep the film flat without needing extra glass bits to weigh the film strip down, to no avail. So I guess, Epson needing something for the film to rest against while being flattened by the clamp, they turned to ANR plastic for economic reasons, given the high production numbers of film holders

 

What is the objection to the ANR plastic ? I suppose it should be obvious to me but is it a lack of optical quality or susceptibility to cleaning marks or haze ? I'm getting some pretty sharp scans, so do faults with the plastic creep in further down the road ?

Rossb, have you tried scanning the color neg as a black & white neg?? If you get a line that will mean the LED bar (in the top section) is faulty. Perhaps opening the V600 cases again and carefully seating those ribbon cable connections MIGHT cure the beast!! Worth a try. Bill

Rossb, have you tried scanning the color neg as a black & white neg?? If you get a line that will mean the LED bar (in the top section) is faulty. Perhaps opening the V600 cases again and carefully seating those ribbon cable connections MIGHT cure the beast!! Worth a try. Bill

 

 

I did scan the color neg as a B/W image and the line is still there. I can give it another try tomorrow and see what happens. Thanks for the tip.

My main objection to the plexi ANR covers is the electrostatic properties of the plexi. . .ie, they are dust magnets and a pita to keep clean. 4x5 neg's are "generally" very flat so there is no problem (to me) of keeping the neg flat, just the dust bunnies. I still do all my negs emulsion down. Aloha, Bill

While you were in there, did you check the condition of the mirror Bill?

 

If fungus has got to the glass platen, it might well have attacked the 45 degree mirror, and maybe the scanning lens as well.

 

Once all is OK, I'd see if there's anywhere inside you can stash a large sachet of silica-gel. Most of the flatbeds I've had apart are a big box of air with not much else inside.

 

WRT anti-Newton ring methods. Some years ago I came across a commercial printer negative carrier. It had anti-reflection (green) coatings on the glass, which I presumed worked to negate Newton's rings.

 

Newton's rings are an interference effect caused by back-and-forth reflections between two shiny surfaces in close proximity. Prevent or reduce the reflections, and you prevent or reduce Newton's rings.

 

Anyway, to cut to the chase. Why does nobody market coated glass as an ANR measure? Surely it's less damaging to image quality than crude old etched glass?

Edited November 24, 2018 by rodeo_joe|1

I seemed to have fixed the color stripe problem. Not sure what I did or if it will come back. Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the heads up RJ on the "other" parts of the scanner. . . I was asleep-at-the-wheel when I finally got into the V600. So far three rolls have been scanned & I do not see any sharpness problem, but I will think of these ideas next time I pop the baby open!

Ross, did you take the unit apart again & check those cable headers for the fix?? Aloha, Bill

I have haze in mine too, so this is going to be a huge help. Thanks for the time and effort in posting!

Thanks for the heads up RJ on the "other" parts of the scanner. . . I was asleep-at-the-wheel when I finally got into the V600. So far three rolls have been scanned & I do not see any sharpness problem, but I will think of these ideas next time I pop the baby open!

Ross, did you take the unit apart again & check those cable headers for the fix?? Aloha, Bill

 

I took it apart again and the stripe problem is still there. At first I thought it was cured but sometimes it's a pink stripe and sometimes a blue stripe. The blue stripe is not easy to see so I think I was just missing it. I also seemed to have broken the ISRD function. It no longer works. Anyway I am not going to mess around with it anymore.

"I took it apart again and the stripe problem is still there."

 

- That sounds like a speck of dust sitting on the 3-line sensor and partially blocking one or more of the strips of RGB filtered 'pixels'.

 

Often the lens and sensor assembly isn't fully enclosed, so locating the scanner lens and using an air blower behind it might well shift the offending particle from the sensor. The lens and sensor are located behind a delicate 45 degree mirror, so at your own risk obviously.