As time goes by (a popular song)I find I have an increasing
stack of stuff needing repair. Some very simple. I have a
reasonably good radio that needs one resistor replaced. I have
the part. I think I am just getting lazy in my old age. I am
pretty good at mechanical stuff although there is a limit to what
I will undertake.
The problem with selenium meters is the selenium cell. Not
made any more. Same with selenium rectifiers although there is a
way around that. I think selenium is banned for some
environmental reason. The cells are sensitive to heat and
moisture. If the seals break down the cells quit working right.
They seldom just stop working but become nonlinear, can read OK
at low light levels but not at high levels. Some sort of change
in the chemistry.
Quality Light Metrics in Hollywood used to fix many selenium
meters including those in some cameras. I don't think they do any
more. Its been a long time.
I don't think there is anything that will exactly replace a
selenium cell. So many cameras with built in meters are non
functional now. Just use the camera and ignore the meter.
Frustrating because replacing the cell is often fairly easy.
On 8/11/2020 2:27 PM, Jan Decher wrote:
Hi Don,
This is very encouraging. It’s always a rather daunting thing to go from the virtual world of just scanning/printing etc. to actually opening such a device. But you are right, I have nothing to lose. The scanner cost me €50 Euros on EBAY and I scanned quite a number of 35mm and 6x6 Rolleiflex slides and negs since March. I really liked it. The only current Epson model that provides as many different neg holders (35mm, 6x6, 6x9 and 4x5 large format!) is the much more pricey V800, I think.
Epson, of course does, not provide a repair service for his older model… The only third-party company on their website that/might/ repair it, is in Schleswig-Holstein. Shipping alone will probably cost me €50. It reeks of another case of "planned obsolescense” on part of Epson.
Already went through all this with my Canon ink jet photo printer after I moved here from the US in 2012. (...not to mention the eMac desktop I brought over here thinking it had an “autosensing” power supply and when I plugged it into the GErman 220 V outlet - POOF! - there goeth 15 years of virtual stuff… I still have the hard-drive actually.)
I have another similar project - a German Kaiser 6x6 enlarger I found on the “Sperrmüll” (= bulk trash pick-up) in my neighbourhood here. You can find the most amazing things in affluent people’s trash piles (waiting for the discarded Rolleiflex 2.8F... ;-).
Nothing wrong with the Kaiser, except the focus bellows drive, which does not “grab” anymore. The Kaiser representative I contacted actually sent me a nice “exploded" drawing of that model and even suggested I try to open, clean and re-lube it myself, as it would cost too much in labor, if I sent it to Kaiser. He can still provide me with other condensors and negative masks for that model. That’s what I would call great honest customer service.
Now, if I could only find a creative genius who could fix the selenium meter in my Super Ikonta BX over here in Old Europe. The old mechanical camera wizards are dying out...
Good night!
Jan
On Aug 11, 2020, at 10:56 PM, Don Williams <daw3237@xxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:daw3237@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Jan, (and everyone else still surviving this list)
I wouldn’t hesitate to open the scanner. Most likely it’s a mechanical issue. Also, it would be a good opportunity to clean the bottom side of the glass. You have nothing to lose and a very small chance of making things worse. As for me, my HP D110 printer is beginning to print all black pages as a copier (I mean the whole printout is black) and it seems to be a known issue. It fixes itself from time to time but I usually do copies in other ways.
I have a Perfection V550 which I bought after I lost part of my Canoscan 1230U during the move from SD to Oklahoma. I also lost the software when I scrapped my giant 9 drive machine that ran windows and Unix with several different interfaces, including two versions of SCSI. I still have it but it is going to have to go away because I no longer consult for some special market programs. It was built in a gamers box and I had to cut the wires to all the lights, etc. Finally it became too loud for voice output so I bought a ready-built HP which is small and quiet.
The end to that story is that I eventually found all the parts to the Canoscan and was actually able to find the software for it from a site over in UK.
I like the larger transparency area of the Canoscan but the Epson does an incredible job with a “restore” setting, which is important to me because I have a lot of old stuff to scan.
*...*
