Should there THIS much fog/haze under glass of refurbished Epson?

[catcher]

I just recieved yesterday by "new" (actually refurbished) 3170

scanner from Epson. This one was refurbished by Epson and bought

directly from them. I'm aware from other posts that over time

there's no way to avoid the haze/fog that forms on the underside of

the glass because of various gasses. But should a refurbished

scanner direct from the manufacturer have this much right out of the

box? Should I bother with contacting epson about this?

 

I'm going to try and post a picture of the haze/fog. Then I"m going

to attempt to post a full rez section of an identical 35mm

transparency scanned on the epson 3170 and scanned on my minolta Scan

Dual IV. Now I realize that the epson 3170 will never be able to

touch the Scan Dual IV for 35mm negs, so this isn't a complaint about

why the epson doesn't look as sharp as the minolta. Rather, I want

to know if the "halo" that appears around the white window from the

epson scan is a function of the fog/haze or if that's just what's to

be expected from a flatbed scanner.

 

Okay, here goes.<div></div>

[catcher]

Oh, by the way, you're seeing what looks to me like a fingerpring(?) on the underneath side of the glass. Which is what tipped me off to the fog. Now to the photos<div></div>

[catcher]

And now the minolta. Again, I'm not asking why the epson looks worse than the minolta, just a comparison to help identify whether part of the reason it looks worse is because of the haze.<div></div>

[eosbob]

I bought a refurbished Epson 2200 printer a few years back and it had a 1 pixel wide line about 2/3 of the way across the page where it would not lay down ink no matter what I tried. I called their tech support and spent about 40 minutes on the phone before they decided it had not been refurbished, just repacked and sent out again.

They made good and sent me another refurb (which UPS crunched in shipping), but the third one was the charm and served me well for several years. Just call them and explain your concern.

[bill.akstens]

I bought a new 3170 and it had haze under the glass right out of the box, perhaps not as bad as yours though.

[mike_r.1]

That's a lot of haze; but my 4990 hazed up after about 3 or 4 months. It's trivial to clean it, and there is a PDF with some good directions. Use Monster Clean fluid and a KIMWipe to clean it, if you do decide to try.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

It's haze build up from gas released by electronic components

like capacitors. It's been discussed in these forums before. Even

Nasa knows about this and made capacitors for the shuttle to

overcome this.

 

It's a standard problem with many scanner brands. Mine did the

same and I just took the glass off and cleaned with Invisible

Glass. You can use any glass cleaner.

 

The important thing is to use a CLEAN cotton cloth that hasn't

been through a wash cycle and fabric softener. Keep turning the

cloth over and over because it can easily get back on the glass.

 

A cloth used for optics would be ideal. Some have used

unbleached paper towels. I've used unbleached coffee filters

one for each wipe stroke.

[catcher]

thanks for hte responses. I've seen the posts about getting to the glass on the epson, and I may try it. But before I do, has anyone actually done this? ON the epsons you actually have to do some minor disassembling to get to the bottom of the glass, and it voids the warranty. So has anyone actually done this on the epson, and does it make a noticeable difference in scans to clean off that haze? thanks.

[greglyon]

I have an epson 1670 and I did remove the glass to clean it. I don't use the scanner for film too often but it did make a difference for all scanning. Be careful but (at least on my scanner) it isn't too difficult to do.

 

For what it's worth, I also clean my Digital camera sensor myself...