Miniscan HPE
Miniscan is a beloved scanner model, since 1998 when I first saw it and finally, I added 4 in my collection recently. The clean and repair was a piece of cake! The fixtures are so compact and with such great optical system and capabilities... I love them! I dedicate this section for them, with moments of their restoration.
The Little Big Scanner
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Miniscans light source is the powerful HTI300 lamp, which makes it one of the brightest scanners for its size!
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It has two wheels, which allows you to create 36 color combinations in total. The second -effects- disk, has two frost filters, 3F prism and a deep, impressive Ultra Violet filter.
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The six gobos are rotating and indexable
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Double blade shutter provides very fast strobe effects and gradual, clear dimming.
Their restoration experience
The Miniscans I found had a huge 'lighting career'! In their earlier times, they operated on an open-air venue, just for the summers. Their first owner had added special air vents, because he didn't like the light spill which was coming from the fan under the lamp section. And that's is true, their only disadvantage is the unusual amount of light which comes out of the chassis. Then, they were exposed in the high temperatures of the Greek summer sun and the dust. After many years, when the club was closed, their second owner got them, who rent them in to various clubs for the winter season and / or used them on temporary installations for events and concerts. Happily, he was very careful with the fixtures and the damages on the chassis were minor.
Their external condition were normal, but they were pretty dirty inside. I believe that the maintenance work that happened in the past, were never detailed. All the stepping motors were the original, which means that they were never replaced. Only the two fans had been replaced, no one looked like the original fan. Usually I don't plug in fixtures that I recover, because the dirt and the long time absent operation may cause a new malfunction or cause a bigger problem, if there was one before. But with these scanners, I broke my rule. Of course I visually checked first the boards and cables. All the scanners worked properly (except their tilt motors, which malfunctioned), but the brightness were so low, that the deep colors ( created buy combining two color filters) were almost invisible. The gobos had tones of dust on them, which almost blocked completely the light output.
The only broken motor as I mentioned above, was of the tilt movement and I believe the reason of that is because it was the only directly exposed motor (in humidity, dust, sun...). In all the 4 scanners, that motor needed to be replaced. Their rotor were almost completely demagnetized. Other than that, everything was working just fine.
The hardest part to clean, on every fixture I have worked for, is the electronic board (s). They require a lot of time and caution, especially when the crucial ICs are not fitted in to bases, which allows taking them out for the cleaning process. Miniscans board were in a very bad condition, as a yellow layer of dust, nicotine and oil covered most of their surface. Happily, Pulsar Electronics had special bases for all ICs, so cleaning them, was not a big challenge.
The only way to clean properly the boards, was to wash them with warm water and a special spray which removed that thick oil and nicotine layer which was covering the board. I washed them twice, or even three times using a paintbrush and then, dry them completely with hot air. They became like brand new. I've cleaned the crucial ICs (processor, ROM and stepping motor controllers) with isopropyl alcohol. From the electronic board, I have replaced the main capacitors, as they were about to explode.
Every effect and motor on the Miniscan is fitted on to a single module. One of the reasons that these lights are awesome. I had experience from cleaning my Claypaky Stage Light 300, which is the 'moving head version' of the Miniscan. I knew what I was going to deal with. I've completely disassembled the module and cleaned in detail each part. It is impressive that a so compact module can produce a huge amount of effects: 35 color combinations, multiplied projection with prism and wash effects with the two frost filters! I have to mention also the amazing, deep UV filter which I have seen only in Italian fixtures. I think that each light of such size, should provide such amount of effects. The Miniscan model was the leader on this part!
The lenses were in a good state. Only some minor scratches, because probably the previous owners didn't care about the material they used on cleaning them and the lamps optical system seemed intact, like no lamp explosion ever took place inside the fixture. Only a white small spot on the condensers lens center, which is quite normal for a 22 year old fixture, with thousands hours of operation, in extremely high temperatures.
I washed the chassis, in detail (I really don't remember how many times I washed internally, for all the dirt to be cleared). I painted the chassis only externally, to give it's former deep black appearance and new stickers with the Claypaky logo and the model name were installed.
Since 2011 when I started do that kind of job, it was the first time that I spent only one month, for a complete restoration and repair of 4 fixtures and I almost couldn't believe that I finished them so fast! Now, I have installed them in proper, dedicated positions in my room and I control them with the powerful Martin M-PC software. The abilities, speed, smoothness, projection brightness and quality are so awesome, that you can't believe these fixtures were made in 1997 - 1998. Definitely Claypaky knows how to create everlasting quality!
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