So, I acquired old dusty HP6200c color scanner. Or, speaking in English: colour scanner. It was half working and driving me crazy. But I managed to fix it. So if you have old HP scanner, read this:
1. Main problem- not old lamp, but special calibration line on the glass. Maybe the time, maybe storing conditions made the white color look yellow. So scanner hardware detects lamp failure, and here goes never-ending “warming lamp” message. I turned over the glass, and the detector can see quite new white line. The only small problem, that now scanner didn’t calibrate the color of the glass. But who cares. I could be possible to draw new calibration line…
2. SCSI problems with AHA-2940 form Adaptec. Sometimes, the SCSI ID is lost. The problem is sold reprogramming new ID. Just look HP manuals. It is very simple- unplug cable, turn on the scanner and count flashes. 1 flash = id0, 2 flashes = id1, … 8 flashes = id7. Then release the button. The scanner must quickly flash selected id.
3. Settings in windows’ control panel are ignored. So if you want to turn of the lamp, of just set quick start, you must start small program from original HP software. It is called “hplamp.exe”. Just start it, go to control panel, select desired lamp type. The “hplamp.exe” software will store your settings in scanner NVRAM. Now you can delete this program from your windows start-up.
4. ADF device is not hot plug. You can freeze your windows XP by plugging it.
5. As every old device, you must clean it. Just disassemble it. ADF cleaning is very simple- just clean all rubber rolls with windows glass cleaner. Also, I recommend to use some oil in scanner. After it, the noise during scanning is about 50% less. Notice that detector is moving not very straight- you can adjust it by moving small plastic filler, but it is unnecessary. I think scanner has some software to compensate this missalignment. Just look how this scanner is scanning 1200dpi…
HP5P is better than HP6200C.
That’s all, folks. (c)2005 by Savel.