I would reach out to one of these 3rd party companies with one of these scanners and just talk to somebody. Even better if you can find one locally to talk to someone personally. If they are a large corporation with evilCorpOverlords, move to the next one to see if you can find a smaller company. Just talk about your project with them. I would be shocked if you didn't find some like minded person that would be willing to help get the scans done for you.
I worked for large post facilities that would most definitely have told you to pound sand. I've also worked for smaller facilities that used the same equipment. We frequently would take on projects like this, especially if we were slow. It made those boring times in between projects much more interesting. Sometimes there was also something we learned in the process that made us even more experience for future projects. I've pushed to accept some of these jobs personally.
At the end of the day, what's the worst that could happen from the conversation? They say no? Volunteer to come in and work with it yourself during off times or other types of ideas. Show them your passion for it, and get them excited for your project. You'll be amazed at what the community will do for others.
I reached out to a few people over a couple of months while testing the scanner, including a couple of third party service/repair shops. There are also dedicated user groups around these scanners that are all happy to help and give tips. They were extremely helpful but the conclusion was indeed that the Firewire port or main board is on the way out.
It is possible to fix it, and the third party service/repair shops do have the parts and expertise (some of them are former Hasselblad service employees). The problem is the cost. To quote: "The problem is when the FireWire port dies the only repair that is ever proven to be effective has been to replace the entire main board. I currently have sufficient parts to replace this should you wish. The price to completely refurbish the scanner and replace the main board is 2800+ VAT "
So 5,000 Euro for the scanner then 3,500 Euro for the service/repair. That's a little bit more than I'm willing to drop on this project, especially given the other factors - it might need repair/service again in 12months time, the discontinued software and needing old OS/computers to run it.
> when the FireWire port dies the only repair that is ever proven to be effective has been to replace the entire main board
You aren't talking to the right person... A circuit board is a set of components and wires... With enough expertise, it's always possible to find and replace the faulty component/wire. Someone who says the whole board needs replacing simply doesn't have the expertise.
It would be like hiring a builder to fix a window frame, and them saying "the only fix is to just knock the house down and buy a new one".
Sometimes the expert time required to find the fault isn't worth it when a whole new board is cheap... But that isn't the case here.
I agree with the thrust of what you're saying and OP should definitely take the board to someone who will do board rework and see what they say.
But I don't agree with:
>With enough expertise, it's always possible to find and replace the faulty component/wire.
That depends on what's happened. If it's an ASIC or something else complicated and application specific that's died, then the thing is probably toast unless you can find another board that died of a different cause.
It really depends on what exactly is broken. If it's a BGA chip, it's much easier to just replace the whole board, because almost no one has the facilities or expertise to replace BGA packages on a board correctly. If it's a connector or a capacitor, you can do that with a soldering iron if you have some skill. If it's some little 14-pin SOIC package (with 0.5mm pin spacing) and you have a hot-air rework tool, it's trivial to replace it. Of course, most hobbyists don't have hot-air rework tools (they're not expensive though).
I think parent poster meant asking them to scan images for you, rather than repairing a scanner. You mention the average cost for that in your post, but maybe going for someone who's doing it as a one-off rather than providing it as regular service could shrink down the price.
A fair guess is mechanical strain on the port. The first one should do is to implement some kind of strain relief, like putting a donor Firewire port on a separate board or plate, like in desktop PCs.
you'd be surprised at how accomodating and chill people are in Switzerland (the writer mentions living there).
i needed a couple prints for a birthday and my local shop was closed, so i went to a business that printed ads, banners, fliers, etc with incredibly expensive professional xerox printers. they printed what i needed, had me pay a fair price (less than the shop), and let me use their facilities for cutting/finishes.
I often got the sense, when living in Switzerland, that if there was a designated process for something it would nearly always be followed to the letter, which at least provided a great deal of certainty (although rarely the process didn't benefit either party). If there wasn't one in place, people seemed to operate using a healthy dose of understanding and common sense. This is true virtually everywhere but to varying degrees, with the two seemingly melded together more in some societies.
I worked for large post facilities that would most definitely have told you to pound sand. I've also worked for smaller facilities that used the same equipment. We frequently would take on projects like this, especially if we were slow. It made those boring times in between projects much more interesting. Sometimes there was also something we learned in the process that made us even more experience for future projects. I've pushed to accept some of these jobs personally.
At the end of the day, what's the worst that could happen from the conversation? They say no? Volunteer to come in and work with it yourself during off times or other types of ideas. Show them your passion for it, and get them excited for your project. You'll be amazed at what the community will do for others.