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Bulb for Imacon Precision II


jejes

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello, I'm located in Spain and i need to buy new lamps for my Imacon. Any advise ?

 

No idea about Imacon servicing in Spain, but Hasselblad stopped supporting Flextight scanners some time ago.

 

Bodoni Systems subsequently took over all Imacon Flextight scanner servicing and repairs in the UK.  If you can't find a service agent local to you, it might be worth contacting Bodoni for advice or arrange with them to order a lamp for you. 

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Guest Nowhereman

The Precision II uses an OSRAM L 8W/12-950 bulb, a shown in the manual.. Spending less than five minutes on a web search you can find them online for about US$5. You can also find them in Europe.

 

Also, you can replace the bulb easily yourself just by taking off the cover of the scanner, as shown in the manual. One doesn't need Imacon service to replace the bulb.

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Guest Nowhereman

Apart from bulb replacement the main problem on the Imacon Flextight scanners is the need to service the drive system, which involves the replacement of springs and plastic belts. Some people have found that this service needs to be done frequently, sometimes as often as 3-6 months. Possibly it depends on ambient humidity. The cause is slippage of the of the feed mechanism drive belts. An indication of the problem is that the frame holder feeds into the machine in a skewed manner, making the film frame shift as it goes into the scanner so that a small portion of the scan is cut off, or that the trailing edge of the frame shows loss of focus. 

 

I encountered this problem less than six months after buying a new scanner in Washington, DC around 1997 and the dealer sent the Imacon back to Denmark for warranty service. I then moved the Imacon to Bangkok and encountered this feed problem intermittently, but didn't know the cause and had no access to Imacon service. Then, I stopped using the scanner altogether because I was shooting with digital cameras.

 

In late-2016, when I started shooting some film again, I got the Imacon going — this was a chore because my Precision III uses a SCSI interface for which I had to use a legacy operating system on my Mac (OS X 10.6.8) on an old PowerBook together with old Imacon ColorFlex 4.04 software and a SCSI-to-FireWire Orange Converter and a Granite SCSI Terminator. After spending many hours getting this setup to work I found, again, that the trailing edge of my scanned frames was out of focus — and learned on the FlexTight Scanner Group, linked in post #2 above, that the problem was with the drive belts. I found that I could buy the belts from the US and UK for only $5; but I gave up because I didn't want to make a career out of the care and feeding of this Imacon scanner: I concluded that using this scanner made sense only in a photo lab environment, where someone knowledgeable could do the frequent drive servicing.

 

Another reason I ditched the Imacon — I tried giving it to a friend but he couldn't figure out how to use it — is that a full resolution 35mm (6300 ppi and dMax of 4.2) took 12-15 minutes per frame. Instead I bought for $200 a Leitz BEOON copy stand and a Focotar-2 50mm enlarger lens, which, using an M10,  in a few seconds gave me digitalizations close the those of the Imacon in resolution dynamic range — and, surprisingly, better color accuracy on transparency film, with much less need for color correction.

 

Some people have never had this belt slippage problem with Imacon or Hasseblad scanners (same drive mechanism), but my feeling is that anyone using these scanners in a humid environment is likely to have problems. If one is willing to do this drive servicing oneself, all the necessary information is available on the Flextight Scanner Group. Having to rely on sending the scanner for third-party service would be too expensive. I've written about my experience at length here so that people know what they may face if they decide on a scanner of this type.

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No idea about Imacon servicing in Spain, but Hasselblad stopped supporting Flextight scanners some time ago.

 

Bodoni Systems subsequently took over all Imacon Flextight scanner servicing and repairs in the UK.  If you can't find a service agent local to you, it might be worth contacting Bodoni for advice or arrange with them to order a lamp for you. 

 

Hasselblad still looks after their Flextights in many countries, and of course they still make two models, the X5 and the X1. They won't service the older Precision models any more though - I think the Precision III, for example, dates back to 2001.

I have been very happy with the scans from my 848 and X1, and they are much quieter and faster than the Nikon 9000 that I keep as a backup.

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