Test equipment service manuals: Microfiche transfer

[Nymrod121]

Morning,

I've had a load (!) of microfiche slides gifted to me and was wondering if there's anybody with experience of having scanned microfiche slides into an appropriate computer-friendly format?

I've got one of the old 'sit-up-and-beg' type readers (ground-glass screen, halogen lamp, magnifying lens - the usual public library/Kew National Archives type of thing) that came with these so viewing isn't a problem - but I'd rather think in terms of scanning them to hard storage so I can print them out.

Thanks in advance,

Guy

[Boater Sam]

I have never tried this but believe it is possible with a flatbed scanner provided it will do 4800 dpi minimum.
You need an opaque sheet of black paper or card the same size as the bed, it is to prevent light entering the scanner. This is the mask.

Cut a hole the exact size of the fische in it.

Open scanner, put in mask and fische and shine a strong light down onto the scanner. Scan and store on PC, enlarge.

Good luck!

[tri-comp]

It may also be worth asking what kind of service-manuals ?
If for consumer-electronics very much is available already and it may not be sound investing a lot of time in the project.
Consumer-electronics isn't maintained for very long except some few brands and models.
If what you have is about test-equipment, things could be very different.
Test-equipment live for very long and manuals are always in demand.

Photograph the screen? There are plenty of commercial scanning companies that will do it, no online prices though.

[M0FYA Andy]

Guy,
When you say 'microfiche slides', are these the type which are a piece of 35mm(?) film sandwiched into Hollerith computer card, or a continuous film-strip, or something else?
I'm not sure how it affects the answer, but at least we'll know exactly what we're talking about!
Andy

[Boater Sam]

I was thinking that if Guy has a normal type sliding carrier viewer that they are the postcard size things, like the 'phone books were on years ago.

[Nymrod121]

Thanks everyone for these helpful replies.

M0FA Andy & Boater Sam - you're bang on the mark with your descriptions...

merlinmaxwell, I had a go at photographing the screen but the results weren't particularly promising. I've had some eye-watering estimates for commercial companies!

As you can see there's quite a lot to go through. A mate of mine has done a rough guesstimate, having mic'd up 100 sheets and taken measurements of the stack sizes in the storage drawers:

"4,800 documents; 31,000 sheets; assuming an average of ~80 slides per sheet => 2.5 million pages"

It needs automating, without a doubt.

Guy

[Boater Sam]

Or, overhead projector and digital camera on a tripod?

To scan that lot is a life's work, fische is a stable storage medium if taken care of, why go to the trouble of copying on to a volatile medium like a hard disk or paper?
Store them as they are and scan as required. Chances are that you will only ever need less than 1% of them anyway.
Sam.

[Nymrod121]

Good point!
I must say that personally, I find it easier to work from hard copy rather than PDF on a screen ... specially with some of the HP manuals available from the eDebris Boat Anchor Manuals Archive (BAMA).
Guy (or should that be 'Jim' - as in 'Phelps' - ??)

[emeritus]

As an experiment I did once try copying frames from that type of microfiche that I came acoss at work. My elderly Epson scanner (1200 dpi max, non-interpolated) with film attachment wasn't up to the job.

I have 10 x 15 mm negatives on 16mm film that I used to take with a subminature camera. As my 1200 dpi negative scanner doesn't do them justice, I knocked up a copy jig using a camera lens from a Zenith 3m camera as a close-up lens to almost fill the frame of my digital camera. This worked very well, and copying is much faster than using a scanner: frame image, click, move to next frame, and repeat. . However, snapping individual frames from such a large collection would be impractical.

[Heatercathodeshort]

As mentioned. Well worth checking what is actually on the slides. It's a great deal of work if there is very little of interest.
I don't want to see you ending your days in the Victorian Home for Faded Electronic Engineers picking through Microfiche files whilst being fed bread and milk. Good luck with them anyway. John.

[trh01uk]

Guy, I have managed to scan fiche type material in the past. In my case it was a roll of film with a long series of images. It was only possible at the highest resolution on my flat bed scanner, and the results were far from wonderful. You really need a digital microfiche scanner to do it well - certainly if you have huge numbers of manuals.

But like others on this thread, you have to consider whether its worth the bother at all. Are the manuals actually of any interest? EBay always has hordes of HP and Tek manuals (original paper copies) available. Scanned copies are about for many items - including some direct from successor companies to HP. I doubt whether you have anything on there that isn't available elsewhere.

Richard

[MotorBikeLes]

I also have many microfiche, the postcard sized ones mostly. Ford Granada, some BMW635, many Ducati spares lists, many hundreds of Grundig service manuals (radio, TV, Stenorette etc etc) and a large of NordMende stuff. No valve stuff though.
I have an Ex Ford service department reader plus a small unit with both mains (LV) and sealed lead battery operation.
I have tried many years ago with a scanner (incorporating negative scanning) but no use at all. I have considered photo-ing the screen display, but am dubious.
I like Emeritus suggestion, possibly worth a try, and I could maybe use lenses rescued from a BIG professional microfiche scanner printer my pal found at the local amenity site. It had faults, we fixed some of them, but eventually had to cry off. I pulled the lenses and lamps and returned the rest whence it came.
Les.

[Radio Wrangler]

Had it been on 35mm stock, I could have done it. I have one of the Nikon professional scanners. But the folk using large format film and 5"x4" cameras have taken to the Epson V7000 flat-bedscanner. It scans at photographic wuality good enough for professional users from 35mm slides, and it can cover A4 size images. If you can find one of these beasties you'll have no probles other than file sizes!

David

[Philips210]

Hi.

I have an Epson V600 scanner which is very useful for 35mm slides and also negatives and wonder if this could be adapted for scanning the microfiche slides?

Regards
Symon.