While looking behind my computer desk to check my line connection, I leaned on my scanner and broke the glass. But that's beside the point. I need to replace the scanner glass and need to find out about its properties.

I'm told that the way the glass broke indicates that it is tempered.

I'm told that the glass needs to be colorless.

I'm told by a glass company that tempered glass does not come colorless.

The manufacturer will replace the glass for $85.00, but they can't tell me anything about the qualities of the glass because the actuall engineers are in taiwan and that information is proprietary anyway.

I found a local glass company that will cut me a piece of tempered glass for $37.00, but it will have green tint to it because all tempered glass has a tint.

What are the properties of scanner glass? Is this tinting thing just a red herring?

Any help is appreciated.

Rick C. ryecyix@yahoo.com

-- Rick Castillo (ryecyix@yahoo.com), July 05, 2001

Answers

Additional Information.

The glass broke in long arcs.

I don't think the glass is really tempered. But this colorless issue seems to still be a problem. Where can I get colorless glass? Does it really need to be purely colorless, or can it just be mostly colorless.

-- Rick Castillo (ryeciex@yahoo.com), July 05, 2001.

Q. So what is my email address anyway?

A. ryecyix@yahoo.com

-- Rick Castillo (ryecyix@yahoo.com), July 05, 2001.

The Glass & Mirror outlet, Inc identified the glass as standard 1/4" plate glass. It cost $9.50 for a piece 10 3/4" x 16 5/8". There is a plate glass called 'starfire' that is clear but its much more expensive and wasn't what the manufacturer used. I went with the cheap solution.

Now to put it in a safe place.

btw. The scanner is a UMAX Astra4000U

I removed the shards by busting out as much as I could with a hammer then taking out the smaller pieces by holding a single sided razor blade in a pair of needle nose pliers and pushing slowly underneath the double sided tape. By wedging the pieces of glass up I was able to grasp them with a pliers and pull them the rest of the way off.

Then I cleaned off the sticky residue with Goo Gone.

I'm left with one quesiton that is probably also not an issue. There is a piece of plastic that spans the scanning surface opening near the end where the scan head rests and, divides it into two openings. HERE ___________ /_ | || | | || | |___________||_| Open/ \Open

The large area is where scanning takes place. The small area is of unknown use. I noticed that the double sided tape under this bar was black and partially covered by a glossy white paper so that a ribbon of just a few millimeters thickness was available to do the job of sicking to the glass.

The glossy paper was a little more glossy than the underside of the lid. I wonder, is the glossy paper there for calibration purposes? And, does the little opening have something to do with this calibration action?

-- Rick C. (ryecyix@yahoo.com), July 06, 2001.

All the flatbed scanners I've seen, (and taken apart) have a calibration strip under the glass at one end of the platen. This is usually a white piece of plastic or card which gives a white reference through the glass. In this way any colour or absortion of the glass is automatically compensated for. You should retrieve the calibration strip and replace it between the glass and the scanner casing, in the same position that it was originally.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), July 17, 2001.

Thanks a ton for your confirmation of the purpose of the glossy paper. I distroyed it when I pulled the broken glass off.

I'm going to replace it with some equally glossy white as possible paper from Paperwarehouse. I don't suppose you have an opinion on why the tape behind the paper was black. That tape seemed to have a mat finish or the texture of crepe paper.

I'm going to stick a narrow strip of black crepe paper along side the white paper just incase it was part of the calibration process. I think the purpose would be to get a non-reflective contrast.

I noticed they were not to carefull about getting the white paper straight and it didn't cross the full width of the glass. It stopped about a half inch from the edge.

Thanks again.

-- Rick C. (ryecyix@yahoo.com), July 17, 2001.