Great video. I had the pleasure of designing the optics and mechanical systems of this scanner. We made a few versions and believe me there's a lot of technology in there! Itek were a great company to work for, I still miss the place.
To add for information the chassis and the main elements of the scanner are aluminium, and it's a pre-loaded ballscrew not a worm drive. The lamp has a heat filter and 2 channels leading from it, looks like there's a lens missing. The optical head has 2 prisms, not mirrors. The resolution is changed by using different sized holes in the aperture plate, Colour split is by dichroic reflectors. Contact me if interested, I think I have an original service manual somewhere. This was a real step forward from previous scanners that used arc lamps, optical resolution change and prismatic colur split, the drum lock mechanism is neat too. We added a drum where originals were put on the inside of the drum.
"believe me there's a lot of technology in there" that is exactly what I was thinking when we had to repair our machine with father. I just was impressed of how much time and brain it took to implement that scanner.
@@paulcook2335 I have one of these too. Bought it a couple of years ago from a guy in France, shipped it poorly packed and without ScanXact. Would love to get it working. Any help would be appreciated.
There are a few people (like me) who still run drum scanners. A well maintained drum scanner still blows any CCD scanner, or 'virtual drum scanner' out of the water for colour detail, resolution and sharpness. This scanner would use the 3 lights around the sensor lens for scanning reflective media and the light in the central column (within the centre of the drum) would have been used to illuminate translucent media (negative or positive film). But would never operate with both of these sets of lights on. This scanner would have cost £60k when new. Incredible bit of kit!
I have one of these in my garage that I haven't got around to looking at yet. Fingers crossed on the motherboard battery. That Inmos card is a Transputer, which are worth reading up on by themselves. Interesting to see because I used to work a diamond company and we used those in our optical diamond categorisation machines.
@@csrxn8624 Hi. Sorry for the year late reply! I have an ICG 355i, but I don't have the dongle needed to run ScanXact unfortunately. Do you have an ICG scanner?
Thanks. I saw this on eBay back in April but because it was listed as faulty, I was the only person to bid on it. It just had "TEARDOWN" written all over it - metaphorically of course!
the light coming from the inside is for films - like transparencies or negatives and the lights on the outside are for reflective things like prints or reflected light I think - they probably don't work together at the same time :)
I used to operate this model. Fantastic bit of kit and also doubles as a paper shredder when scanning prints...Ooops! didn't apply enough tape to hold the original to the drum. £20 for this... Wow! the drum alone to replace was hundreds of pounds
Very cool bit of kit! The heatsink on that ISA card with the Molex power connector is most likely the stepper motor driver for the drum. Loving that computer btw! I've recently started putting together a mid 90's workstation with an AT machine with a blistering 120MHz Pentium-S, 96MB RAM, Matrox Mystique and some fun fluff :D It's a lot of fun!
It appears to me that the power supply on the computer went south. You can see the black smoke residue on the outside of the power supply and inside where it gone blown around. It always amazes me about some technology and how it is used. Thanks for the video.
Awesome teardown, thanks! I always love seeing machines with photomultipiers and cool optics. The use of that floating point ISA card was an interesting... I wonder what they were using it for -- maybe to apply some kind of real-time math/transformations to the incoming image data?
Drum scanning is-or at least, was great for film scanning of slides and negatives, where you'd need the transmissive light more so than reflected. I've not seen one used for documents, actually, but my experience is limited to seeing large prints and negatives scanned. It's also I believe why the drums are often clear.
Whoa. That card with the ceramic modules is actually a very rare and potentially valuable Inmos Transputer board. I would highly recommend you keep that board in one piece and list it on eBay or something. It is very likely worth a few hundred bucks, if not more!!!
Would you consider selling this? I"m very interested in reverse engineering one of these things and trying to figure out a 21st century spins on drum scanning.
I'm surprised there is no sensor on that motor, as the speed control requirements for this application are extremely tight- often less than 0.5 percent variation. That is not a worm screw in there; it's a ball screw, and I would imagine it is a special precision ball screw, as these things are capable of resolving details down to tenths of a micron.
You pay for the cost of manufacturing the thing and calibrating it. They are not mass produced whatsoever; they are only made on an individual basis. The lead time can be weeks to months depending on the manufacturer. Each of those Inmos chips on that Transputer board are a single 32-bit microprocessor with its own memory, known as a TRAM. They are designed to be very easily linked together in a parallel array, as the Transputer architecture was intended to be massively parallel.
Carl No chance you live in the USA close to Ohio? Id love to fix that 386 =) Its kind of a passion of mine =) itd be a shame for it to end up in scrap. I wonder if these system are museum wortbly because theybsure do look badass! Would be cook for a tech museum =) Oh well, cant keep everytbing, lol!
Fear not, Jay! Unfortunately I live in England, but I have listed the 386 motherboard and all the components on eBay this afternoon so they will no doubt find a loving home.
You can clean that motherboard off, and maybe use a different power supply. That CMOS battery doesn't look in too bad of shape, so it's probably fine. I'll take the 386 board off your hands should you no longer want it...
Stop calling flatbeds traditional scanners. Drums are the traditional scanners, flatbed scanners came along way later. I used to operate an Itek 300, 310, 320 and the later 400 series. Scanning to film, ah, those were the days.
Great video. I had the pleasure of designing the optics and mechanical systems of this scanner. We made a few versions and believe me there's a lot of technology in there! Itek were a great company to work for, I still miss the place.
To add for information the chassis and the main elements of the scanner are aluminium, and it's a pre-loaded ballscrew not a worm drive. The lamp has a heat filter and 2 channels leading from it, looks like there's a lens missing. The optical head has 2 prisms, not mirrors. The resolution is changed by using different sized holes in the aperture plate, Colour split is by dichroic reflectors. Contact me if interested, I think I have an original service manual somewhere.
This was a real step forward from previous scanners that used arc lamps, optical resolution change and prismatic colur split, the drum lock mechanism is neat too. We added a drum where originals were put on the inside of the drum.
"believe me there's a lot of technology in there" that is exactly what I was thinking when we had to repair our machine with father. I just was impressed of how much time and brain it took to implement that scanner.
@@paulcook2335 Paul please advice how may I contact you. I have some questions about sync system of this machine.
@@paulcook2335 I have one of these too. Bought it a couple of years ago from a guy in France, shipped it poorly packed and without ScanXact. Would love to get it working. Any help would be appreciated.
@@AlanDickens send me a nessage
There are a few people (like me) who still run drum scanners. A well maintained drum scanner still blows any CCD scanner, or 'virtual drum scanner' out of the water for colour detail, resolution and sharpness.
This scanner would use the 3 lights around the sensor lens for scanning reflective media and the light in the central column (within the centre of the drum) would have been used to illuminate translucent media (negative or positive film). But would never operate with both of these sets of lights on.
This scanner would have cost £60k when new. Incredible bit of kit!
I have one of these in my garage that I haven't got around to looking at yet. Fingers crossed on the motherboard battery.
That Inmos card is a Transputer, which are worth reading up on by themselves. Interesting to see because I used to work a diamond company and we used those in our optical diamond categorisation machines.
can you send me a message about your scanner? thanks
@@csrxn8624 Hi. Sorry for the year late reply! I have an ICG 355i, but I don't have the dongle needed to run ScanXact unfortunately. Do you have an ICG scanner?
The light source comes from both directions. It can scan reflective materials and transparent materials like photography negatives and slides.
Wow, that is quite a beast for a scanner, no wonder it was crazy expensive back in the time, so much stuff.
been looking for a drum scanner for a long time, nice to see inside one at last!
Thanks. I saw this on eBay back in April but because it was listed as faulty, I was the only person to bid on it. It just had "TEARDOWN" written all over it - metaphorically of course!
+CarlsTechShed was it one of them $1 starting bid auctions? =)
+Jay Walt No, the starting price was £20 and I was the only bidder.
the light coming from the inside is for films - like transparencies or negatives and the lights on the outside are for reflective things like prints or reflected light I think - they probably don't work together at the same time :)
I used to operate this model. Fantastic bit of kit and also doubles as a paper shredder when scanning prints...Ooops! didn't apply enough tape to hold the original to the drum. £20 for this... Wow! the drum alone to replace was hundreds of pounds
Very cool bit of kit!
The heatsink on that ISA card with the Molex power connector is most likely the stepper motor driver for the drum.
Loving that computer btw! I've recently started putting together a mid 90's workstation with an AT machine with a blistering 120MHz Pentium-S, 96MB RAM, Matrox Mystique and some fun fluff :D It's a lot of fun!
It appears to me that the power supply on the computer went south. You can see the black smoke residue on the outside of the power supply and inside where it gone blown around.
It always amazes me about some technology and how it is used. Thanks for the video.
Awesome teardown, thanks! I always love seeing machines with photomultipiers and cool optics. The use of that floating point ISA card was an interesting... I wonder what they were using it for -- maybe to apply some kind of real-time math/transformations to the incoming image data?
Drum scanning is-or at least, was great for film scanning of slides and negatives, where you'd need the transmissive light more so than reflected. I've not seen one used for documents, actually, but my experience is limited to seeing large prints and negatives scanned. It's also I believe why the drums are often clear.
haven't got a new video since, are you busy something?
Construction like that makes one feel like you're getting your money's worth!
Whoa.
That card with the ceramic modules is actually a very rare and potentially valuable Inmos Transputer board. I would highly recommend you keep that board in one piece and list it on eBay or something. It is very likely worth a few hundred bucks, if not more!!!
Thanks for the advice! I will get this listed today!
Would you consider selling this? I"m very interested in reverse engineering one of these things and trying to figure out a 21st century spins on drum scanning.
I'm surprised there is no sensor on that motor, as the speed control requirements for this application are extremely tight- often less than 0.5 percent variation.
That is not a worm screw in there; it's a ball screw, and I would imagine it is a special precision ball screw, as these things are capable of resolving details down to tenths of a micron.
There is an encoder built into the spindle which feeds back the speed to a microprocessor which then sends control signals to the motor controller.
You pay for the cost of manufacturing the thing and calibrating it. They are not mass produced whatsoever; they are only made on an individual basis. The lead time can be weeks to months depending on the manufacturer.
Each of those Inmos chips on that Transputer board are a single 32-bit microprocessor with its own memory, known as a TRAM. They are designed to be very easily linked together in a parallel array, as the Transputer architecture was intended to be massively parallel.
Carl No chance you live in the USA close to Ohio? Id love to fix that 386 =) Its kind of a passion of mine =) itd be a shame for it to end up in scrap. I wonder if these system are museum wortbly because theybsure do look badass! Would be cook for a tech museum =) Oh well, cant keep everytbing, lol!
Hooe you can get through the typos, typing on the phone su and youtube wont let me edit comments. =(
Fear not, Jay! Unfortunately I live in England, but I have listed the 386 motherboard and all the components on eBay this afternoon so they will no doubt find a loving home.
+CarlsTechShed where about in the uk? Because one of your videos you said "rl supplies" which is in Watford... Humm
Any scanner parts left over?
You can clean that motherboard off, and maybe use a different power supply.
That CMOS battery doesn't look in too bad of shape, so it's probably fine.
I'll take the 386 board off your hands should you no longer want it...
Did you find out what's on the hard drive?
Not yet, but I might plug it in later. Most likely it will just contain Windows 3.1 or DOS with some basic startup software for the scanner.
btw...that thing is built like a tank. some dosh must've been had.
my school basement still have those computer
Would be nice if you could get it that working. Here's a video of a similar machine running watch?v=Wa_Of9lO1yo
Stop calling flatbeds traditional scanners. Drums are the traditional scanners, flatbed scanners came along way later. I used to operate an Itek 300, 310, 320 and the later 400 series. Scanning to film, ah, those were the days.