A while back, I was given an Epson Perfection 2400 scanner, complete with the top light for scanning film negatives.  The only problem was that the power adapter had been lost to the ages, and I had no way of powering it.  I had a look at the weird connector, and stuck it in the closet, in my “to do” stack of stuff.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was spring cleaning that closet, and came across this scanner again.  I decided it was at the “keep or toss” phase, and since I still didn’t have a halfway decent scanner, I decided that I’d try and fix it.  Here’s the patient, in all its dusty glory!

On a close examination, it turns out that it takes 24v at less than an amp, but it takes it through a weird reverse barrel connector.  I searched for a while for the appropriate connector on a donor supply on the rack at goodwill, but was less than fruitful.  I had a 24v adapter that would power the thing, but couldn’t plug it in.  Then one evening, I was struck by a brainwave.  Remove and replace the connector on the scanner! An idea was born! Disassembly proceeded!

As you can see, things went rather smoothly! Disassembly was astonishingly easy — Two screws to remove the top housing, followed by sliding the carriage forward, unscrewing the RF shield, and picking up the board.  I only had to unplug the stepper motor cable, and I could lift the board up and lean it on the carriage to work.  I did run into some annoyances desoldering the old connector, as lead-free solder is really the pits to work with, but a little flux solved that right quick.  The new connector went on without incident, and I was able to put the whole thing back together.  The connector lines up perfectly, and the new power supply plugs right in!

All in all, I’ll call this a roaring success.  I’m even recycling too! (I pulled the power supply out of a dead linksys switch)

Here’s a photo of the scanner warming up the tube, and getting ready to eyeball some pixels!

Moral of the story: If you’ve got a strange power connector, see if you can replace it before you hunt all over hell and half of georgia to find an adapter that fits.