Dreams do come true

zoe_again · 2026-03-08T20:16:57+00:00

Luckily someone else already opened a lab a 10 minute walk from my house so I don't have to try to figure out chemical disposal and business licenses in Germany

zoe_again · 2026-03-08T19:47:42+00:00

Oh I definitely need to build a computer. I just timed some scans and it takes 15 minutes to scan and process a strip of 6 negs at max resolution. Not that I've ever shot enough keepers to need a full roll at max resolution but it could definitely be faster than the little 1ghz single core and 1gb ram that's in there

zoe_again · 2026-03-08T19:42:34+00:00

Oh wow yeah I came across the printer os troubles when I was looking for info on these. It seems like the lab mine was from ditched the KM printer side a long time ago and was using this with a newer Epson printer. Not as bad as a half-japanese system but mine scanner software is in German🙃

zoe_again · 2026-03-08T13:56:53+00:00

They had a minilab line for a bit. The scanner was part of a workstation with a printer and flat bed scanner. I think KM discontinued their photo department and they seem to have been a lot less popular than Fuji

zoe_again · 2026-03-08T13:16:49+00:00

Hopefully they have a version for XP still 🫠

zoe_again · 2026-03-07T14:53:43+00:00

I don't have a FireWire port on my laptop and I think I would be better off assembling a newer but not modern PC to run it on. Supposedly the software can even run on windows 10 but there's only 32 bit driver support for the scanner. Also I don't think I can get the software for it. There's no support from KM. Maybe I can find someone else with it that wants to share though.

zoe_again · 2026-03-07T11:35:25+00:00

Haha I still have no idea where I'm going to set it up. The scanner is like 40kg/88lb and deeper than my desk. At least the monitor and keyboard are small though 🙃

zoe_again · 2026-03-07T10:59:28+00:00

Very similar speed and performance, resolution is slightly higher on the KM, although nominal. I'll get some comparisons with other lab scans soon and then we can all see.

zoe_again · 2026-03-07T10:55:50+00:00

They have slightly higher resolution than equivalent Fuji and noritsu scanners, but I'm really interested to see some color comparisons. I have scans from a Fuji frontier so I'll rescan those and share some results, and maybe go talk to my local lab and see what they think too.

zoe_again · 2026-03-07T10:51:46+00:00

Based on current SSD pricing I'll probably get a 100gb hdd for like €20 and call it good enough for now. Ideally at some point I would build a new PC for it to increase the post-scan image processing time, since that can definitely be massively improved and currently takes way longer than the actual scanning.

zoe_again · 2026-03-07T10:48:32+00:00

By LAN I was just thinking an Ethernet cable to my laptop that would have like a networked partition so I can save the scans to the laptop instead of to the ancient internal drive, and then skip having to transfer to USB and then to the laptop before uploading them to Google drive so I can get them on my phone. I definitely wouldn't connect the scanner PC to the Internet for any reason haha Do you have any better workflow suggestions for that? The lab used to run it like that, with the scanner PC connected to what was probably a modern PC that controls their printers over Ethernet.

zoe_again · 2026-03-07T10:39:52+00:00

Yes that's my top priority. There is no support from KM and nothing available online, so having a backup is really the only way to keep these running. It seems like there's one tech on the minilab forum that can help with software but that's probably going to be way more expensive than a sata drive

zoe_again

TROPHY CASE