Cleaning underside of glass in Epson V700 scanner?

[Leonard Evens]

My Epson V700 scanner glass shows very light blotches when viewed from certain angles. I don't see them when looking straight down, and they don't show up in scans. They are on the underside of the glass.

If they don't seem to be affecting my scans, would it be wise to just ignore them? Will tryiing to clean the underside of the glass likely just make matters worse?

If they keep annoying me, how difficult is it to get at the underside of the glass to clean it?

Can anyone direct me to instructions for doing so?

[Ed Bray]

I have the same issue with my V750, I have tried to ignore it to date but it must have some effect on the scans.

[tadler]

i also have something similar to that on my epson 4990..

[Doug Fisher]

I have put up some resources here:
http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/dismantling.html

If you have very good duct tape, the "tape and rip" method to remove the screw cover caps works well for most people. You have to have good sticky tape. One brand did not work for me but the 3M brand did work fine.

Doug
---
www.BetterScanning.com

[Peter Gomena]

It's easy to unscrew the scanning bed and pop it off. The sources referenced above will get you plenty of information. You just unplug everything, take off the transparency unit, pop off the four screw covers on the top of the bed, and unscrew the four screws. The bed lifts right off. A little glass cleaner and a very soft, lint-free cloth, and you're good to go. It'll take you less than 10 minutes.

Peter Gomena

[Leonard Evens]

I have put up some resources here:
http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/dismantling.html

If you have very good duct tape, the "tape and rip" method to remove the screw cover caps works well for most people. You have to have good sticky tape. One brand did not work for me but the 3M brand did work fine.

Doug
---
www.BetterScanning.com

Thanks for the information. The screw covers are so well hidden that I wouldn't have been able to find them without the diagram.

Your second tutorial link doesn't respond. It sits there "Connecting" but doesn't connect.

[Ed Bray]

I've done mine, after unplugging the mains and USB cables and locking the movements I unplugged the transparency cable and lifted the transparency unit off the top of the bed. I tried the sticky tape trick but it did not work so I prised the plugs up gently with the tip of a scalpel blade. Undid the screws and lifted the bed off the base, microfibre cloth and some breaths later and put it all back together again. Took about 20 minutes in total. Looks great now.

[jb7]

Is this worth doing? Has anyone made before and after comparisons, and been able to measure a difference? I've noticed a slight haze on the glass on mine, and scans look they might be affected by a little flare, so if someone can link cause and effect, I might go to the trouble of fixing it-

[Ari]

Is this worth doing? Has anyone made before and after comparisons, and been able to measure a difference? I've noticed a slight haze on the glass on mine, and scans look they might be affected by a little flare, so if someone can link cause and effect, I might go to the trouble of fixing it-

I had a lot of fogging on my old 4870; when I got around to cleaning it, I didn't notice any difference in the scan quality.
It looked very unsightly, though, and it was great to finally clean it.

[architorture]

I had quite a bit of fogging on the underside of the glass on my v700 a year or two ago after it had sat in a room without air conditioning over the summer.

I was able to use the tape method to remove the screw covers, and the whole process was really very easy. I think I did do some tests re-scanning a couple images, but I didn't notice any great difference. Felt much better though to be rid of the fog anyway.

It did get me thinking though about making a custom mount to replace the glass that would support film holders for glass-less scanning. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to do.

[jb7]

Thank you- I think it's something I'd consider doing if the fogging was much worse, or if a marked increase in contrast was reported...

[Leonard Evens]

I had quite a bit of fogging on the underside of the glass on my v700 a year or two ago after it had sat in a room without air conditioning over the summer.

I was able to use the tape method to remove the screw covers, and the whole process was really very easy. I think I did do some tests re-scanning a couple images, but I didn't notice any great difference. Felt much better though to be rid of the fog anyway.

It did get me thinking though about making a custom mount to replace the glass that would support film holders for glass-less scanning. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to do.

You might end up with more dust spots on your scans than before. It is relatively easy to remove dust from the glass, but if it gets into the scaning mechanism, it seems to me there would be more places for it to hide.

[architorture]

looks like we're not the only ones to have this idea:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/466058@N21/discuss/72157625028665821/#comment72157629753853032

These guys actually tried it, with no visible improvement though.

[cabbiinc]

How much light does it block? If it's significant it may be worth cleaning. Do you have a spot you can identify that needs fixing every time you scan in that area? My HP G4050 collected a fare amount of dirt in the lid. This translated to the same blotches needing to be fixed in post. I eventually just removed the glass in the lid all together and noticed a good improvement.

[Ed Bray]

I cleaned mine recently and have noticed a marked decrease in the amount of spotting/retouching I am now doing on my scans.

[lkkang]

I just spotted 3 fungus on the underside of my V700 scan bed, followed the instruction to open the TOP cover, removed the fungus ...

now, happy man :)
Billy

[Michael Cienfuegos]

At ease, disease… There's a fungus amongus! :eek:

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I cleaned the haze off of the undersinde of the glass on my 4990 a few months ago. It wasn't hard, but took some time and was a bit tedious to get back together. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have helped, since I still need to spend about the same time as before dust spotting the scans, and too make matters worse, there is a faint blue veritcal line that now shows up on some of the scans. I think a piece of dust must have fallen in the works somewhere, which causes the lines. It's a pain to clone out, so I probably will need to clean the thing again, but that could make it worse. Anyone have something like this happen and any advice on how to deal with it?

[emilnekem]

Based on all that was written here I cleaned my V750 Pro. Opened up the screw covers with a scalpel. Managed to clean the glass perfectly, no more haziness. Thank you!

[Tom Kershaw]

Have just found this thread in 2019 as my Epson V700 started showing "blotches" in scans. Will now hopefully be able to clean the glass with confidence.

Tom

[Tin Can]

Good updates to a thread I don't think I ever read.

My V700 is now about 7 years old and my humidity inside my new studio is 61% with match outside temp.

It's a damp warmth!

[jim10219]

I would recommend any semi-serious photographer learn how to open up a scanner and clean the underside of the glass. The plastic housings in all of them will outgas, and it will become a problem on every scanner at some point. So it's a good maintenance procedure to learn. And it's not hard to do.

The hardest part, in my experience, is actually cleaning the room to do it in. You don't want to get any dust inside the scanner while you've got it open, so you need to work in a clean room with clean air, and work relatively quickly. Other than that, it's just operating a screw driver and cleaning glass.

As a tip, I use cheap paper towels for this. I've found the more expensive paper towels are softer and leave more fibers behind. The cheap ones tend to clean glass and stuff better, even if they're less absorbent.

[Doug Fisher]

>>The hardest part, in my experience, is actually cleaning the room to do it in. <<

If you have a bathroom large enough to work, give it a good cleaning and wipe-down. Then run a hot shower long enough to steam up the room a bit. Turn off the shower and let things cool down for a while. You should have a clean room with almost no dust in the air as long as you keep the door closed as much as possible while going in and out to get the scanner.

Doug

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Good advice. Mine is a little over a year old do needs it. Based on my scan of glass a few months back.

[Two23]

>>The hardest part, in my experience, is actually cleaning the room to do it in. <<

If you have a bathroom large enough to work, give it a good cleaning and wipe-down. Then run a hot shower long enough to steam up the room a bit. Turn off the shower and let things cool down for a while. You should have a clean room with almost no dust in the air as long as you keep the door closed as much as possible while going in and out to get the scanner.




My problem is I have a cat that has to come in and check to make sure I'm doing everything right.


Kent in SD

[Steven Ruttenberg]

My cat wants to lie on my scanner lid when scanning.

[PRJ]

If your glass is foggy the mirrors will be too. A while back I opened up my Canon and cleaned the whole shebang. PITA, but the scans are super clean again without any flare around the edges. The mirrors need to be spotless if you want good scans. In my case the offending mirror was the first mirror closest to the lens that had never been cleaned which meant quite a bit of disassembling. I don't know about Epson.

[Tin Can]

I have used a V700 (https://kenrockwell.com/epson/v750.htm) for at least 6 years and before that a few lesser iterations back to 1996.

I may just buy a new V850 as I want the upgrade to LED and...

I consider it the cost of operation. About $10 a month.

However the production lifespan of the V700 was 8 years until V850 (https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5201214752/epson-launches-perfection-v850-and-v800-multi-format-film-scanners)introduction in 2014, so maybe I should wait a year or so.

[germansaram]

My problem is I have a cat that has to come in and check to make sure I'm doing everything right.


Kent in SD

What a helpful feline you have. But maybe you can give it another job while doing the cleaning? :D