Scanner Repair: Info on Swapping Out and Replacing Old Parts

Earlier today, a long, narrow package arrived at our office. Suffice it to say, we were all very excited when it arrived, seeing how we had been paitiently waiting for it all throughout the past week. Inside, the package contained two replacement parts for one of our Colortrac scanners: a replacement glass piece and a replacement hold-up roller. Both of these parts are essential for the operation of a scanner, although the tasks which they perform are very different - if you're interested, take a second to read about how a glass piece and a hold-up roller help a scanner to work correctly.

The glass piece which we received looked fairly innocuous - long, thin, with black magnetic stripes running parallel on either side, it wouldn't really catch anyone's attention at first glance. But this three-foot-long piece of glass allows the laser inside of a CIS scanner to accurately capture its target image. If the glass is cracked, chipped, scratched or dirtied the image quality will be ruined. Conversely, clean, clear glass will yield a clean, clear image. Since the glass on our old part had a big crack running along the center, we decided it was time to order a new one.

The hold-up roller inside of a scanner also performs an interesting function - once a document is fed into a scanner, the hold-up roller dutifully performs the task which its title would suggest, by holding the document firmly in place. Hold-up rollers must be clean, level and unwrinkled, otherwise a document which is fed into the scanner may not be correctly alligned, or may be fed into the wall of the device and become damaged. Our old hold-up roller had become dirty after holding thousands of documents in place, which is why we decided it was time to change it out.

With both of these new parts installed, our Colortrac scanner is looking better than ever!