Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly Goat Strings

Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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05.05.2014

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly JUN 15

Posted by gatohaus

Tips on taking a Canon Canoscan LIDE 20 apart. ( In most of these pictures I have already taken the scanner apart at least once.) PAGE_STATUS: Draft. Should break this into parts.

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I’m hoping to make a tolerable large format digital camera back for an 8×10″ field camera by modifying a Canon LIDE scanner. The LIDE scanners are: very common supported by open-source drivers very cheap on the used market are connected by a single usb cable for both power and data easily powered by a netbook lightweight a long-lived series with steady incremental improvements lessons learned on one series apply almost directly to most others

Overview The general idea is to strip out the optics and slap the scanner on the back of a field camera. The sensor is a linear array with a lenslet strip positioned directly in front of it. This strip will be removed, leaving the sensor at the bottom of a deep, dark channel with a narrow field of view in the scanning direction. As the sensor moves across the image plane, the incident rays will be occluded by the channel for a large portion Image by awrose via Flickr of the scan. So the channel must be widened. This might be tricky as the sensor is glued to the structure, cannot tolerate any flexure, and should not be touched by debris. The light source normally use to illuminate the object being scanned will need to be removed, disabled, or at least covered. The LIDE’ scanners use the glass platen itself as support for the sensor housing. I would like to remove the glass but there must be something to support the sensor housing. Maybe a large rectangle can be cut out of the glass.. or two strips cut out for the guides. The last bit of hardware is to mount the scanner onto the camera. I’ll get everything else settled before worrying about this to much. Software. Even the Canon drivers will continue to work until you yank out the light source. Once it’s out the

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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driver may just return a scanner failure notice, or lamp failure, or calibration failure. Afterward you’ll need to use something like SANE‘s free , open source drivers (assuming you’re using Linux). In the end you’ll either need to some basic programming using something like the underlying bits of SANE or you can buy a copy of VueScan. VueScan is available not only for Linux but even for more obscure systems like Mac or even Windows. And yes, it’s worth it. The part I haven’t started at all yet is building the image chain for this beast. Shouldn’t be too hard.

Imaging Expectations It’s gonna be noisy. Anything in the scene that moves will be distorted (linear array). B&W only. No idea where the sensor cuts off… ~360nm to ??~1100nm??… maybe 900.. dunno. Unsure if integration time varies with scanning settings or if it’s just fixed. Scan times for older models ~1min, newer models ~8sec. Output image: TIF up to 19000×26000 pixels, at ?10bit. Unsure about bitdepth.. Canon claims 16b, but I’ll call BS on that. It’ll depend on the noise. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was only 6 or 7 bit in the end.

Begin disassembly

Here’s the scanner, minus the cover. The cover is easy to remove by simply flexing the hinge a bit. -v2 Well, on the LIDE 25 it took a lot more pressure than the LIDE 20.

Remove platen retainers

A plastic retainer runs down each long side of the platen. They stop the platen from sliding forward which would free it. There are no screws. The plastic strips are held in place with tape along most of their length.

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Begin at the front of the scanner and pry up the ‘ovals’.

You can see coming at the sides of the ovals is a good place to work. (I initially started at the very end.)

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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Pull gently while slipping something underneath to separate the tape from the plastic. As I’m planning on removing the platen permanently, scratches were not a concern.

One strip off, one to go.

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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With both retaining strips gone, the platen will slide back with moderate pressure. Once back, the platen can be removed entirely.

Sensor and platform details

Move the platform toward the middle of the scanner. I did this by pulling the cable mid-scan. Ugly, but I haven’t had any problems. Notice the ‘rod’ and the ‘string’.

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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WARNING: There are two, free-floating plastic glides on the top of the platform. Collect these now.

Drive string

The ‘string’ is freed by unlocking the endpiece where the spring sits. On the bottom of the scanner (be sure not to turn the scanner over), next to the platform lock, you’ll see a small, round hole. Insert say a small screw driver and push gently to allow this ‘string lock’ to be freed. While pushing the screw driver, slide the string lock free.

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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You can carefully flip the platform over to see how the string runs through the gears. Separate the string from the platform. Be sure not to kink the string.

Sensor package removal

WARNING: There is a small spring underneath the sensor package. It will come free as you remove the package.

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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The sensor package pivots on a hinge on the platform. It can be worked free with very little pressure as it slides to unlock when slightly elevated.

Sensor detail

Here you can see the light guide and the lenslet strip. In this picture the light guide is just above the screwdriver tip and the lenslet strip is one of the black horizontal pieces. There’s a better shot of the lenslet placement a few pics below.

Here is the LED used to illuminate objects during scans. It seemed to be just butted against the light guide without adhesive.

Light guide removal

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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This is easier than I had expected. I gave each of the attachment points a gentle prying. Not enough to really see any movement. Then started prying at the end opposite the LED, switching to just pulling with my fingers as soon as I could get a hold.

Lenslet removal

Like the light guide, the lenslet strip is easy to pry out. The strip will be discarded, the only real concern is with possible damaging the sensor directly below while removing the strip. WARNING: There is nothing protecting the sensor but this lenslet strip. A note on cleaning the sensor… Don’t worry about a bit of dust getting on the linear array. But do make sure that your tools and particles of plastic created while working keep clear of the sensor. If you wish to clean the sensor use air. A small squeeze bulb is perfect. Do NOT use those old cans of compressed “air” from back in the film camera days. They contain chemicals that can contaminate the senor’s silicon. Ha! That turned out to be a non-issue. The sensor is embedded within some form of clear plastic or something similar. (pics and description coming soon)

LIDE 25

Related articles VueScan 9 Versatile Scanner Software: Better than Ever, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings (lowendmac.com) Share this:

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Posted on 15 June 2011, in ideas and tagged camera, flesh this out, Large Format, photog, scanner camera, VueScan. Bookmark the permalink. 9 Comments. Intro to Teaching →

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COMMENTS 9

LEAVE A COMMENT

twingo | 30 September 2011 at 00:22

the little spring in the cover open/close mechnism loose with me. would you happen to have a photo which shows how to reassemble this spring again? thanks

gatohaus | 5 January 2012 at 00:38

Sorry, but I tossed the cover right at the start.

Seder | 30 December 2011 at 16:55

Did you get anywhere with this project? I use a similar setup. I would like to discuss scanner cameras with you. You can see my work at http://www.sederburns.com.

gatohaus | 5 January 2012 at 00:37

Hi. I did get the point of testing it a bit and capturing images last Fall, and promptly got distracted. I should update this and wouldn’t mind working some more on the camera. Your gallery pics look great! Interesting use of time. Definitely things I’d never considered before. I wouldn’t mind knowing more about your camera(s). It probably would be non-difficult to remove some of the sensor noise (the horizontal streaks) but I like them as is.

Manfred | 3 August 2012 at 12:27

Thank u so much! got my scanner fixed in 20 minutes with this manual. You safed my ass and made my day. TANKS a LOT!

Vikalp Gupta | 7 November 2012 at 09:11

thanx buddy you have helped me in assembling it thank you very much for your unintentional work for me

Cliff Schuring | 22 August 2013 at 19:03

Hello and very interesting, looking at trying to make a x-ray scanner out of my Canon scanner. Have you gotten any further on the project, I wish to disable the light source and use the detector as the x-ray sensor and scan the image. Can you recommend the best open source software to do this. Thank you for any help you might be able to

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Canon LIDE 20 Scanner Disassembly | Goat Strings

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provide to make this easier

Rino | 20 September 2013 at 10:06

To remove the plate, NOT NEED UNSTICK SIDE BARS FROM THE GLASS!!!! Use a screwdriver to lift them from the hinge cover side, releasing the 2 tabs from the slots, keep them raised above the rear frame and then push the glass forward with the 2 sidebars glued. For subsequent interventions you can short the 2 tabs of half a millimeter. Rino

Aisa | 26 September 2013 at 06:23

The black and white string of my canon canoscan lide 20 was broken.. Can I replace it? Where can I buy that string?

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