Yesterday, I decided to pull out my old scanner — that I had not used for 10 years or so probably –  to scan a few pages that I had printed out log ago. I found those pages inside my desk drawer when I cleaned it out recently. The goal was to get rid of as much paper as possible and have only digital documents instead, especially if they were originally text files to begin with that I had printed.

But it didn’t go so smoothly. When I plugged in the scanner, I noticed that it wasn’t working. The scanning head would light up, but it wasn’t moving at all. Thinking that it was locked, I checked the bottom lock, but it was open, so I figured that it must have been jammed on the inside. I thought opening it would be simple enough, maybe I could unscrew a few screws at the bottom, but there were none at all. This is an old Canon LIDE scanner, that uses LEDs instead of a regular light bulb to make its scans, and it wasn’t made to be easily opened…   I ended up having to pry off the frame that covers the glass, then slide the glass out, and that wasn’t easy because it was glued onto the glass. I checked the lock, and it was fine. So I found my way to the motor, after hearing the “boing!” sounds of the springs that press the scanning head up to the glass and unexpectedly popped out, causing the head to fall off the tray that holds it. I removed the gears that turn the drive belt and found that the motor was completely seized up. I managed to open it, and with some work, it started to turn again. Then I had to reassemble it all, and I wasn’t sure it would even work, but it did. It seems to work pretty well now, so I better not let it sit for 10 years again.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 26th, 2010 at 1:11 PM and is filed under Lair, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.