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From: Nigel Feltham on 12 Apr 2010 13:24
Barry Watzman wrote:

> There are two transit screws. The holes on the back are the STORAGE
> holes. For transit, one goes in the hole on the bottom, the other goes
> into a hole just inside the front edge of the film adapter compartment,
> on the left side. You can't just stick these in any old way or time;
> before they can be inserted, the mechanism has to be put into the
> "transit park" mode. If the scanner needs service, this may not be
> possible, in which case the scanner will need to be shipped without the
> screws (in which case it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you use a
> relatively large box with LOTS of good, shock absorbing padding.
>
> An inserted transit screw WILL cause a POST failure (fast blinking).
>
> Now that both screws are removed, how does the unit behave on power up?
>
> Note, over 80% of Nikon scanners sold online are defective. Most don't
> work, and of those that do, most have dirty optics and need cleaning
> (not withstanding that they will produce a scan).

Having owned several I'd have to add that not only are most scanners sold
online defective but those sold as second-user virtually anywhere unless
serviced first. The Grease used by Nikon is prone to drying and seizing the
mechanism and the mirrors will coat with dust unless the scanner is stored
and used resting on it's left side as all the main optics are at the bottom
and don't have any covering preventing dust (keeping it on the side helps
dust fall into the casing where there's nothing major to coat with it).

In my limited experience even most units sold as working will have dirty
optics - the users often don't notice as they would have still got images
they'd consider good as the dust causes blurred highlight (shadows on negs)
visible best in mount area of slides as a hazy mist where there should only
be blackness. Of course this won't be visible to you until it's mechanically
functional.

The symptoms here do sound exactly what I've had on my scanner prior to
servicing - for some reason when the grease hardens the mechanism can still
move in one direction so every time it tries to initialise it moves closer
and closer to one end (so you may get 1 or 2 scans) then locks solid at that
point unless you turn it by hand to free it using Barry's instructions and
you'll get another scan before jamming again.

There are a few online DIY guides to repairing these scanners but I'd only
recommend these as a last resort (when no-one else can do the work) or to
someone mechanically minded (who's done similar repairs before) as better to
send the scanner to someone like Barry unless you're confident in what
you're doing as one bad slip and you've no scanner (especially when it comes
to the optics - the mirrors are silvered on the front surface, not the back
like household mirrors, and easily scratched rendering the scanner useless).


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