Cleaning a cheapo film scanner

[Llamarama]

Hello everyone, I've just spent an afternoon scanning about 500 negatives in one sitting. Annoyingly on every scan theres a U shaped hair or fiber in the exact same place on each scan. There's probably more than one, but thats the only one I noticed.

I'm guessing that it's probably stuck to the scanners lens rather than on a camera lens as it's on scans that I took with different cameras.

Short of dis-assembling the whole unit (Which was a present from my nan and grandad for my birthday ), is there a good way of cleaning it? I was going to use some compressed air or an air duster to get it out, or at least into a part of the scanner where it won't be a nussance. Is this a good idea or not? Thanks - Mike

EDIT: It's a veho VFS-008, thought that might be useful to say.

 

[Trail Images]

I do a lot of transparency scanning on a dedicated flatbed. About every couple months I will pick up dust debris that leaves a color streak across the images. In each case it was a result of a particle I suspect on the scanner element as near as I can tell. I would merely blow very lightly with compressed air into the scanning bay area and it has resolved the problem every time. This is the same scanner I've had for several years now, so thankfully it is resolved each time by this method. Of course the next scanned image after the cleaning is previewed at 100% + to make sure the area lost the streaking. Good luck.

 

[Llamarama]

Thanks, I'll get it seen to tomorrow