Review on Plustek OpticFilm 8100-35mm Negative Film/Slide Scanner with 7200 DPI and 48-bit Output: Bundle Silverfast SE Plus 8.8, Supports Mac and Windows by Anil Jaimes

Let me start by saying that I have had several scanners over the years and did extensive comparative research before purchasing the Plustek 8100. My research has shown that this is probably a very good scanner for the money. After receiving the scanner, this seemed to be true. I read that the controls were complex and had a steep learning curve, which was fine with me because I don't mind reading and testing things until they work as intended. This scanner worked flawlessly for the first three months. Everything changed in the fourth month. I have literally tens of thousands of 35mm color slides and black and white strips. The scanner started to work and after 8-12 scans it started to malfunction and showed horizontal stripes on the image. I did a little research and found comments from Plustek that it could be electricity. I made sure other nearby devices were disabled and bought an interlock on the ring shield to try and eliminate unintentional electrical pulses. It had zero impact. I contact Plustek and a week later they emailed me to say it could be electricity and that I should make sure there are no other devices working nearby and they told me to get the right one Use cable (I only used the cable that came with it). with the device). I immediately unsubscribed and described the defect and my attempts to fix it, saying I'd like to know about a replacement. That was two weeks ago and they still haven't responded. Okay, I'm used to only doing 8-12 scans before it starts to lag and needs to be powered off for 2 hours to recover. A new problem appeared today. I get a line of pixels through each image. The line is NOT a scratch and I've heard other users have had the same issue. So now I'm REALLY fed up. I have thousands of images to scan (commercially) and can't handle a scanner that is so temperamental and problematic, on top of that the customer service is seriously sloppy. Maybe I have a push-pull driver? I can't know because their website doesn't allow you to download and install updates. It takes me a long time to write such a negative review. They earn it.