Imacon/flextight 848 firewire issue

[MingMingPhoto]

I don't know if this is the right pale to post this but I've gotten some amazing help form the communty here; I figure I give it a shot.

I bought an imacon 848. It works fine via SCSI cable and a really old machine, but I'm interested in getting the fire wire to work.

Does anyone have experience with this issue?

If so:

1) Where are some places I can get it repaired
2) Can I bring it to a computer repair shop and ask them to solder on a new Firewire Controller?
3) Idk the third question, But please feel free to give me any relevant information please!

 

[Richard Man]

Hasselblad is the only official place that will touch them. They just moved from NJ to CA

 

[MingMingPhoto]

Hasselblad is the only official place that will touch them. They just moved from NJ to CA

Nah, they don’t touch these anymore unfortunately.

 

[peoplemerge]

I’m guessing here but you might try a SCSI to FireWire adapter.
That or get a modern machine and install a SCSI card in it. The obvious route is a desktop, not laptop

 

[grat]

Don't use Windows 10. Apparently the driver for firewire has been resurrected for Windows 11. Linux has native firewire support.

I do not know what software is required, or whether it can be made to work on anything post Windows 7 without some form of emulation-- and if you do have a virtual machine / emulator, I'm not sure if you can pass the PCI firewire device to the VM.

All of this assumes the firewire connector on the scanner works-- if not, you're probably looking at staying with SCSI. Translating SCSI to firewire might work, but it won't improve the transfer speed.

 

[koraks]

Can I bring it to a computer repair shop and ask them to solder on a new Firewire Controller?

Haha, that would be something
No, that's not going to pan out. A computer repair shop will in all likelihood have not the faintest idea what your scanner is. Moreover, they generally don't do much soldering, especially not at this level of complexity.

What makes you think the scanner's controller is defective anyway?

 

[peoplemerge]

Why would you want FireWire? SCSI is a good interface, no?

 

[brbo]

If he wants to run the scanner on a modern Mac, SCSI is a dead end.

PC is another matter as you can still get a PCI-e SCSI card with a 64bit driver.

 

[peoplemerge]

Ah i see. Well, if the FireWire plug is physically broken, then yes, it could possibly be soldered. What else could be wrong with it is hard to tell if it’s fixable. I’ve had good luck sending items to my local electronics repair shop more computer repair, it really depends on what is available in your area.

 

[MingMingPhoto]

Haha, that would be something
No, that's not going to pan out. A computer repair shop will in all likelihood have not the faintest idea what your scanner is. Moreover, they generally don't do much soldering, especially not at this level of complexity.

What makes you think the scanner's controller is defective anyway?

so the scanner I read on forums has an incredibly common issue where the part on the board goes bad. Apparently it's a common issue as there were only three diff types of fire wire controllers (my terminology may be off) used at that point in time and nikon cool scans have the same issue happen.

Also the scanner has two fire wire ports, and both don't work, so likely it's a board issue

Why would you want FireWire? SCSI is a good interface, no?

No I think Fire wire is faster. It's 400 megabytes per seconf and SCSI is something like 20 (but it's measured in megabits not bytes) something like that.

I'm running a small photolab so I'm just interested in being able to prvide the best quality in a good amount of time. Also I'm letting people use the scanner if they are resposnible - so giving everyone a good ecperince is what I'm interested in

 

[MingMingPhoto]

Ah i see. Well, if the FireWire plug is physically broken, then yes, it could possibly be soldered. What else could be wrong with it is hard to tell if it’s fixable. I’ve had good luck sending items to my local electronics repair shop more computer repair, it really depends on what is available in your area.

Haha, that would be something
No, that's not going to pan out. A computer repair shop will in all likelihood have not the faintest idea what your scanner is. Moreover, they generally don't do much soldering, especially not at this level of complexity.

What makes you think the scanner's controller is defective anyway?

Are you sure about this statement? I feel like computers are computers and that's it. if A capacitor is fried of whatever then it should be as simple as to replace that capacitor. I could TOTALLY be wrong - like maybe they also need to have some kinda firmware for some parts or something, but I'm wondering if you're really sure. At the end of the day I guess it doesn't matter casue I'm gonna call and bring the scanner in anyhow

 

[koraks]

Are you sure about this statement?

Yup.
Where I live there are many phone repair shops run by mostly people from a foreign background living a marginal life who may be willing to take a chance, but even they favor repairs on common equipment like iPhones. Most won't have been near a FireWire interface or a film scanner. Actual computer repair places tend to keep repairs limited to swapping out components in desktops and laptops, and will rarely solder anything. Been there, done that for a decade or so - and yes, that was in an era when we occasionally took a fried main board to the importer and someone would manually solder a new chipset onto it. But those were the 1990s, and even those madmen only worked on stuff for which they had the full schematics and spare parts, not to mention it was still viable to have someone with an EE degree working in a place like that back then (not in an actual computer repair shop of course; virtually nobody knows the first thing about electronics there, not back then and sure as heck not today).
The FireWire interface in a scanner is not some kind of neatly delimited module with a 4-pin connector you can solder off and replace with a store-bought part. It's a bunch of chips and passive components strewn across a larger pcb with several other functions and your have to start by troubleshooting it with a scope and perhaps a logic analyzer to figure out where the problem originates and then pray it's a component you can still obtain.
I think you're underestimating the complexity of something that sounds easy enough; "oh, we'll just swap out the FireWire interface". There's a lot hiding behind an innocuous sentence like that.

You might be able to find a hobbyist who's willing to spend some time on this. I'm involved in something similar revolving around a Nikon scanner for a forum member here. There's no guarantee whatsoever it'll ever work and it sure as hell wouldn't be an economically viable enterprise to do repairs like these given the time they tend cost.

Don't get me wrong; I'd love to be proven wrong because that would mean you'd get your scanner fixed quick and easy and at low cost - provided its defective in the first place that is, because your observation that neither port works can still just as well mean you have another issue like a driver problem or an issue with the FireWire interface on your computer.

 

[MingMingPhoto]

Yup.
Where I live there are many phone repair shops run by mostly people from a foreign background living a marginal life who may be willing to take a chance, but even they favor repairs on common equipment like iPhones. Most won't have been near a FireWire interface or a film scanner. Actual computer repair places tend to keep repairs limited to swapping out components in desktops and laptops, and will rarely solder anything. Been there, done that for a decade or so - and yes, that was in an era when we occasionally took a fried main board to the importer and someone would manually solder a new chipset onto it. But those were the 1990s, and even those madmen only worked on stuff for which they had the full schematics and spare parts, not to mention it was still viable to have someone with an EE degree working in a place like that back then (not in an actual computer repair shop of course; virtually nobody knows the first thing about electronics there, not back then and sure as heck not today).
The FireWire interface in a scanner is not some kind of neatly delimited module with a 4-pin connector you can solder off and replace with a store-bought part. It's a bunch of chips and passive components strewn across a larger pcb with several other functions and your have to start by troubleshooting it with a scope and perhaps a logic analyzer to figure out where the problem originates and then pray it's a component you can still obtain.
I think you're underestimating the complexity of something that sounds easy enough; "oh, we'll just swap out the FireWire interface". There's a lot hiding behind an innocuous sentence like that.

You might be able to find a hobbyist who's willing to spend some time on this. I'm involved in something similar revolving around a Nikon scanner for a forum member here. There's no guarantee whatsoever it'll ever work and it sure as hell wouldn't be an economically viable enterprise to do repairs like these given the time they tend cost.

Don't get me wrong; I'd love to be proven wrong because that would mean you'd get your scanner fixed quick and easy and at low cost - provided its defective in the first place that is, because your observation that neither port works can still just as well mean you have another issue like a driver problem or an issue with the FireWire interface on your computer.

got you got you
yeah hopefully it works out! at the end of the day I'm able to run the scanner on my old scsi computer so it's not the end of the world

 

[grat]

Someone like Louis Rossman might be willing to try to fix it, but I don't know if he's got the parts. While he's apparently abandoned NYC for Austin TX, his repair shop is still open in NYC. They specialize in Macbook and iPhone, but they might be worth a call.

 

[MingMingPhoto]

Someone like Louis Rossman might be willing to try to fix it, but I don't know if he's got the parts. While he's apparently abandoned NYC for Austin TX, his repair shop is still open in NYC. They specialize in Macbook and iPhone, but they might be worth a call.

I actually gave him a call (his shop) and they closed to nyc store. They are finnishing all old orders and are moving soon to tx but they aid they would be willing to try if I provide the part and send photos and they'll charge me the same amount weather it works or does not sicnethey are relying on me o know the fautly part

 

[MingMingPhoto]

Does anyone know what the faulty part is?

 

[Richard Man]

Does anyone know what the faulty part is?

Pretty sure if it's just bad cap - and there were a batch of cheap caps that exploded with magic smoke during a couple years in the 90s - it would be well documented by now. I do not think this is the primary issue that affects the 848 and other Imacon. There had been enough people poking around. Unfortunately, no one has the schematic, so it could be bad PROM, bad cap, bad solder joints, and a dozen other things.

 

[koraks]

Does anyone know what the faulty part is?

That's impossible to tell in the absence of any concrete information on the problem, schematics of the device and measurements.

The reason why repairs like these are tricky aren't just because of the actual replacement that may or may not be done. It's finding the problem, first and foremost.

 

[MingMingPhoto]

Pretty sure if it's just bad cap - and there were a batch of cheap caps that exploded with magic smoke during a couple years in the 90s - it would be well documented by now. I do not think this is the primary issue that affects the 848 and other Imacon. There had been enough people poking around. Unfortunately, no one has the schematic, so it could be bad PROM, bad cap, bad solder joints, and a dozen other things.

So on the facebook group for imacon ppl there was mention of a nikon scanner that also had the same issue with firewire. Apparently at the time there were only three major firewire options for manufactures to choose from. It's likely the imacon and nikon have the same chip since they have the same issue. Apparnetly nikon had the same issue and the nikon people were able to find the issue and find out what the faulty part was.

That's impossible to tell in the absence of any concrete information on the problem, schematics of the device and measurements.

The reason why repairs like these are tricky aren't just because of the actual replacement that may or may not be done. It's finding the problem, first and foremost.

I feel you