Help tuning ScanPro20's

[seanharrison]

What's that? Rob is local to you, and has offered to assist, and you're still here talking to us? What the hell dude?

Pack those scanners up and *run* over to Rob's place. He'll get you on the right track in no time at all. (Be sure you have enough time to take him out for a beer afterwards though. You'd be amazed at what you can learn from him over a pint or two!)

Adam, Yeah, I am going to do that, it will really help me

I don't use Mamba much these days, but I'm pretty sure that there is a "shift" setting in the output settings window that will adjust your color shift point-by-point. Rob will be able to verify this, as he also has Mamba and has made quite a few shows with it.

I am thinking about buying Mamba, Seems like very good software for the none pangolin people!

I wasn't able to run my scanpro 20's at the full 20K speeds, but they perform pretty well at around 16-18K once tuned. I was never able to get the text at the bottom of the ildatest readable, but since the SP20's are somewhat cheap they aren't going to be the best performers to be honest.

Yeah, I have noticed they dont seem to like working around the 20k mark, They seems great at 5k, still need a fair bit of tuning tho.

Thanks Dan

There must be considerable variation in the quality if the factory tune on SP20s. I have a set that was tuned nearly perfectly from the factory and remains very well tuned (even at 20k), but I've heard of other people that have not had the same luck.

I know quiet a few people who also seem to be having the same issues, Most people have resolved this by dropping the speed and hours of tuning tho.



Overall, I think they are good for the money, but once i have saved up i think i will go for a pair of DT-40's, I hear really good things about them


Sean

[stanwax]

I agree with Things that you will never get the text to read right but they are great value & though I can still get them I dont tend to keep them prefering to get people into DT-25 which are 1000 times better (though dearer - but not 1000 times ) Better quality of build great driver card, and 2 year warranty means they sell themselves.
Sean if you you do pop over I can easily demo dt-25 or 40s for you so you can see whats what for future.
As for the blanking it should be done in software dead easy - yes its in Mamba and most others I believe

Rob

[seanharrison]

Well its taken a while, But i think i am getting somewhere now,


I have some photos too


First, Thanks for Rob(Stanwax) for tuning my scanners :-) I wouldn't have been able to tune them with the signal issues i was having....

After they where tuned i was still getting a strange image. I really don't know what was causing this as it was working fine at Robs, Using the same setup and dac etc, but this is what the error looked like,



Since i knew it was not a tuning issue, i checked over all the cables, wiring, and different software, but No Luck!

I gave up, and sat there pissed off thinking it might have been an issue with my DAC. A few days later i got a parcel in the post, I forgot i had ordered one of DZ's ILDA Breakout boards. Currently i was using the ScanPro DMX Board's DB25 to connect the scanners to the DAC. But i thought i'd give it a shot with the DZ Break out, And Success!!!!

It still does not explain what was going on tho, As it had worked fine with the DMX board at robs,


I still have the blanking issues to resolved, but as the only software i have is the EasyLase EasyTest Software, Popelscan and and an old version of Spaghetti this is not alot i can do about that as yet, EasyTest does not allow me to change Blanking Offset, Spaghetti does but this damages the scan speed and Popelscan's offset seems to work really well.

As soon as i find another job i will buy mamba :-)



Well here is the results,

EasyTest @ 20K (100% Software Gain)



EasyTest @ 20K (50% Software Gain)


EasyTest @ 10K (100% Software Gain)


EasyTest @ 10K (50% Software Gain)


Spaghetti @ 20K (100% Software Gain) With Blanking Otimization


Spaghetti @ 20K (50% Software Gain) With Blanking Otimization


Spaghetti @ 10K (100% Software Gain) With Blanking Otimization


Spaghetti @ 10K (50% Software Gain) With Blanking Otimization



And this is a reminder of how it looked a few weeks ago,





I think that's a massive improvement I'm very happy with that. The Spaghetti 20K 100% seems to look the best, even the ILDA TEXT looks okay! Shame about the two lines running off the top the the centre circle, I'm not sure what that is!


I think thats the best i am going to get it for budget scanners, But if anyone knows of anything else i can change to make it look better, let me know!




Sean

[seanharrison]

Okay so Rob has explained to me that the Gain %'s mean nothing, And i understand why now, I have done another few photos now with the scan angles.

And here's my results, All Images are scanned at 20K with a 15° Scan Angle.

1) EasyTest 20K 15°




2) Spaghetti 20K 15°




3) Spaghetti 20K 15° with Blanking Optimization turned on



I have tried larger scan angles but this damages the center circle making it a kind of diagonal oval, so 15° seems to be optimal, Lowering the scan angle destroys the detail of the image breaking lines.

Any idea's why i am getting these strange lines coming from the top of the centre circle ?

[ElektroFreak]

carmangary, the guy that writes Spaghetti, told me that as long as blanking optimization is enabled in Spaghetti that circle will look just like that. Nothing to be done, I'm afraid. Mine does that same.. It's just inherent to the program for some reason. It has no bearing on overall frame quality, though. All my frames look great..