The "New" IQsmart2 has arrived

[Jim Andrada]

I bought it as a complete refurb from Michael at Genesis and had it delivered to a friend's business because there's no way a freight truck could possibly make it up my driveway - some drivers can't get their cars up here either and my wife has to go get them at the street and drive them up and down. I had someone available to help me move it yesterday afternoon so I went and picked it up and a couple of hours later it was in its new home. Putting it in place was uneventful and with two people it was only a 20 minute job.

I'd done a lot of homework re the physical size and weight and while i waited for it to ship I built a cabinet to hold it along with my 4880. The shelves for both printer and scanner pull out almost 30 inches - actually about two inches clear of the cabinet. I used drawer slides rated for 150 - 175 pounds per pair and built a rotating platform on top of each shelf - you always need to get to the back of these things for something - be it attaching cables or clearing a printer jam or looking up a serial number or whatever, so designing the shelves to rotate was a priority. In order to be sure everything would operate as planned, I modeled the cabinet and the machines in Rhinocerous and animated the model in Cinema 4D to be sure there'd be no interference.

And guess what - it all operates as planned. Must be dumb luck (not!) I use an old MacBook to drive the scanner and it seems to run the latest oXYgen quite well and the nice part is that the computer sits on top of the scanner when everything is pushed into the cabinet, and I can drop the computer onto my desk top to operate the scanner from my office chair.

A few photos



Software installation seemed to go OK, but oXYgen reported errors at startup, so I contacted Michael and discovered that I needed to run the installation utility that would scan the calibration target and run diagnostics and build a series of control tables. So I ran the utility and it failed on the optical test. I noticed that a web browser was running so I terminated it and shut sown networking and reran the utilities successfully. It took about 40 minutes or so to complete the control table build.

OK, time to try a scan. A bit confusing going through the menus the first time (heck it's still confusing on the 7th or 8th try) but after a bit of trial and error I got a rather nice scan of a 4 x 5. I have a lot more work ahead of me to get fully up the learning curve, but I sent a copy of the scan to a friend who knows nothing about scanners etc. I had previously sent him an Epson 750 scan of the same negative. He immediately saw an improvement in the handling of details, particularly in the shadows. jpeg to follow as soon as I shrink it enough to fit the forum requirements. Scan was at 4300dpi.

[Peter De Smidt]

Good stuff, Jim. I hope you get many years of good use out of the scanner.

[Jim Andrada]

And here's the scan as cropped in Photoshop. Picture is our front "yard"

Attachment 155879

[Jim Andrada]

Thanks Peter

I'm sure the scanner is good for a lot of years to come. Not sure I can say the same about myself though. I'll be 76 in a couple of weeks and I have a fusion of 4 lumbar vertebrae scheduled in mid November. I'm sure my wife really wants to inherit an IQsmart (NOT!) I think I'll be limited to using a box Brownie or some such thing for quite a few week. Maybe a good chance to get to know the Minox better!

But not giving up yet - I had the surgery delayed to November so I can take Mark Nelson's "Precision Digital Negative/Platinum Printing" workshop week after next. Flying and standing up for the workshop is going to be pretty uncomfortable but so what. Biggest issue is that I think I'm walking like a bent-over penguin.

[Pali K]

Congrats Jim! You'll be enjoying this for sure

[Ari]

Jim, congratulations! Nice cabinet build, too.
Everything will look good scanned on the Creo, and the ease of use is its second-best asset.

[Jim Andrada]

Thanks guys! I have to figure out how to make and use masks. I got a 4 x 5 mask with it that hold 6 negatives. I want to make a mask that will take a roll of 120. I know I can define "windows that will line up over each frame, just no idea (yet) how to do it.

I spent a lot of time figuring out how I'd be able to store and use the scanner easily and came up with the cabinet design.

[B.S.Kumar]

The lazy susan on the sliding shelf is a great idea. I'm vaguely thinking of getting an iQSmart again, and I'll keep this in mind.
You might want to get anti-static dust covers for the printer and scanner.

Kumar

[Jim Andrada]

I have the scanner cover. I use large cartridges in the printer so the nice Tumi custom cover I had for it won't fit. It's actually a bit more tricky than just using the lazy susan. Most of them aren't rated for heavy weights - I found one that was intended for these new giant TV's and had a 500 pound weight rating. I also added small glides under the rotating part so if the weight wasn't centered the support would stay quite level. The drawer slides need to be heavy duty as well. I used 1" thick MDF as the rotating platform and the drawer itself is built as a torsion box, ie the top is 17 mm plywood and there are several 3" pieces of 17mm ply on edge under the top surface, and on the bottom is a piece of 1/4 inch plywood the same size as the top. This is a VERY stiff construction and it isn't going to sag in the middle over a few years like a lot of shelves do. Unfortunately each shelf assembly weighs in at close to 45 pounds before adding the scanner or printer so the total for each shelf is pretty close to 150 pounds. I figure all loaded up the cabinet with contents weighs in around 600 pounds. There are also four cooling fans at the back of the scanner area to maintain airflow for the scanner.

[Ari]

Jim, I've made only one mask so far, for 8x10.
I also use it for 4 4x5s or a roll of 120. So far I haven't needed to cut another mask.
Film lays right on the bed and I close the lid, the scanner does the rest.