Making external PSU for Nikon supercoolscan

I've got a nikon supercoolscan 8000 and 9000.

The PSU inside the 8000 gets hotter than the one inside the 9000. They look different, but are interchangeable. Perhaps more temperature limiting measures were taken with the 9000.

Regardless, after scanning for a while the temperature inside the unit rises and this causes the film to increasingly bend. This is especially annoying with the 35mm holder, that can't hold a piece of 35mm film flat to save its life. Same for the MF holder.

So I've been thinking about a non-destructive mod to remedy this problem... quite simply by taking the entire PSU out.


The PSU will be put into its own external box. The PSU connects to the scanner mobo via a simple 8-pin micro jst connector.

This mod should be non-destructive and thus reversible if you ever want to sell the scanner again, because you can just connect your own female micro JST connector to the main board and solder from there.

From here on it should be simple. To the JST connector I solder a 8-pin DIN socket. Then a 0.5 or 1m 8-pin din cable can be used to connect to a socket on the new PSU box. The socket is then soldered to an other 8pin micro jst connector and finally plugged into the PSU.

The box can be made from simple plexiglass I suppose, with ventilaton holes and a hole to press the on/off button.

Have nothing else to do anyways since quarantine.

Your opinions? Is this madness?

Any other unit or carrier mods for the supercoolscans that you have tried?

I assume the scanner box has a vent fan? Would upgrading to a more powerful fan be any less complicated / costly than pulling out the power unit?

It does not have a fan.

I am afraid adding one will cause dust to build up.

I always prefer the isolation of power supplies to the rest of electronics when practical. Of course if you are designing this after the fact you will have to make sure the external connector meets/exceeds the power requirements as well as fire and safety considerations. I know that getting safety certifications for this modification is very costly particularly in EU.

Of course if the PS is generating more heat then designed then perhaps there is another underlying problem?

hi, had a similar experience with my Konica Minolta Elite 5400 II. Reason was inadequate design of passive cooling of the scanner. Too few and too small holes for proper ventilation. Distance between bottom side and table insufficient too. Result was a significant increase of chassis temperature during longer operation. Solution, increased space between chassis bottom and table using felt gliders and especially increased the size and number of ventilation holes in the chassis. Never got any overheating issues anymore afterwards, the chassis now remains cool and I also don't get any dust issues due to the additional and larger ventilation holes. During non operation the scanner is protected by a dust cover.