Original Apple Scanner Refurbishment Guide

[RolandJuno]

I was able to remove the old gear from my Apple Scanner using a door panel removal tool to lift it up and off. The plastic itself feels sticky and is very brittle. The post either has old lubricant that has hardened or the plastic itself is oozing something because the post itself it also sticky making it very difficult to turn. This is likely why the brass gear starts breaking teeth on the plastic gear.



I took some measurements, guessed at others, used stlgears.com, and modeled a gear in TinkerCad for fun. I didn't really expect this to work on a FDM printer, but I tried it anyway with a 0.2 nozzle. After a couple of iterations, I installed it and reassembled the scanner. I made sure to clean the post and the brass gear from any gunk from the old gear or old lubricant.


First power up it was able to complete POST. I was then able to perform a couple of scans successfully! I still need to look at the scans more closely to see if they look correct.

The only thing I've noticed now is the gear makes an oscillating sound when it moves at high speed. My only guess so far is that my prints aren't perfectly square? Any ideas? Needs more testing.

I'll put the STLs here: https://www.printables.com/model/1625890-apple-scanner-carriage-gear

Hope this helps folks get their scanners working again.

 

[stynx]

I have printed the gear with a Elegoo Saturn Ultra 16K.
The quality of the print is very good and i am currently testing if the scanner still works.

 

[stynx]

Hope this helps folks get their scanners working again.

Thanks tom @RolandJuno for supplying the gear.
The scanner seems to be working normally now.
There is a bit more noise when the carriage is moving than i remember but the scan is good.
The oscillations you describe may come from the very little bit of give the gear has in the mechanism.
Maybe the original gear did have less or more give, idk.

I have a working Apple 16GS scanner again

-Jonas

 

[stynx]

Here is a direct comparison of the original 1988 Apple Scanner with the 2015 Epson Perfection V39 and a mobile scanner from 2022.
All scanners were set to 300dpi and grayscale (for Epson & Avision reduced to 16 levels in post processing).
The source was a part of a 1988 VHS cover (300% magnified)
Apple Scanner:


Avision MetaMobile 20:


Epson Perfection V39:

The Apple Scanner is surprisingly well at scanning Text and line graphics. I would even say that at low resolution (75-150 dpi), the Apple Scanner does a better job than the mobile scanner (Avision).

 

[adespoton]

I've stuck with the Perfection line of scanners for the past 25 years or so, so it's neat to see the comparison!

 

[joeventura]

It's super fine pitch, for those reading this later it's the large black gear down near the front LED end of the board that turns into chalk. Before moving things around, tearing it down you'd do best to lubricate the rails and don't force anything if completely stuck. Check this gear closely with a torch, you will likely see if the the smaller brass gear has sheared away at some of the plastic and eaten away some of the fine teeth, probably resulting in it tracking rough, then getting worse and put on the shelf and never touched again. In the case of mine, another chunk of this gear flew off and got caught under the black scanner head, resulting in it getting stuck even more.

So I'm down to one out of two scanners - which one should I resurrect?
- the original 4-bit Apple Scanner (broken gear, better condition)
- second edition 8-bit Apple OneScanner (good gear, tracks smooth but casing worse off)

Think I'll aim for the original model, continue to tear it down and see if any other plastic components have returned to chalk and the OneScanner an be a donor. If looks dicey I'll restore the OneScanner with best plastics etc.

Im in need of the same damn gear.

 

[Byrd]

Im in need of the same damn gear.

Hopefully you have a friend with a resin printer, or can have it made online. Ended up making one good Apple Scanner from two here, it works well and I've a spare green CFL from the other one which is handy.