Cheap affordable drum scanner?

[xuan_zheng1]

<p>How much does Howtek 8000 worth? I have seen a used Howtek 8000 somewhere coming with mounting station+drums+software selling for $8000USD, is it a good deal?</p>

<p>btw, the seller(a company selling image equipments) would like me to pay in wire transfer if I was located outside of north america, is this usual? of coz I live in N.A and can pay by VISA, but it makes me wondering why this company only accepts wire transfer if I am outside of the continent.</p>

[xuan_zheng1]

<p>Ok, updates:<br /> I had a vendor selling a used Howtek D4000 pro drum scanner at my city, how much does it worth now? What do I must pay attention to when shopping this model?<br /> btw, I can't find such model anywhere, nor does it have any specifications. Is it newer or older than howtek 8000?</p>

<p>thanx</p>

[xuan_zheng1]

<p>forgot to mention the accessories.<br>

It comes with 4 drums, mounting station and fluid accessories. The interface is scsi-2, will it work with windows vista/xp with Silverfast?</p>

[xuan_zheng1]

<p>seems I've got too many questions to spare, hehe.<br>

One more question, I got Silverfast Ai for epson (bundled), will it work with the Howtek D4000?</p>

[patrick_donegan]

<p>@Xuan: Howtek is supported by the folks at Aztek in Southern California. Check them out at www.aztek.com - they will be able to answer most of your questions regarding the scanner. Silverfast AI for Epson will not work on the Howtek. Silverfast writes software specific to each scanner. They do not offer a cross-platform or universal software package. </p>

[xuan_zheng1]

<p>Ok, today I went to the owner who's selling this D4000 drum scanner. His main work is doing poster design and stuff.<br>

After booting up the machine, the machine threw a code F702 error, and I found out it's an indication of driving belts error mostly... The owner agreed to lower the price.</p>

<p>The f702 error code thingy, could it be something else bad? such as the driving motor? The Aztek website stated that it's a code for drum speed error and 90% of the time, the belt is the culprit.</p>

<p>As I touched the belt, it seems to be not super tight (never saw a real working belt, just my guess), but can still spin the the drum.<br>

The owner claimed that he hasn't used it for 8 years, and about to sell them without bothering to order belts from aztek.<br>

Also, regarding the drums he offers me, 4 of them, I have checked the surface with my led torch light a bit. It seems have no cracks, but not smooth as I imagined, it seems that there are very small&dense fine lines all over the drum, they can only be seen with a bright light source directly casted onto them. I supposed it's normal since they weren't made of glasses pe se?<br>

The owner has all sorts of cleaning fluids, moutning station, and a super old mac computers with polaris, but the computer seems to not be able to connect both keyboard&mouse at the sametime, wonder how he managed to scan his films before...<br>

Is there something fishy about this machine? or it's safe to take a bet? The price is under $500 for the whole thing.</p>

<p>Thank you</p>

[xuan_zheng1]

<p>more updates:</p>

<p>The seller is a completely fraud as it turned out.<br>

He refused to reply my email and my phone as I insisted to replace the belt before making decision to purchase. The machine must have more serious problems than it seemed, and no doubt he was playing hard at innocence to sell this crap for $500.</p>