| The most important factor here is the type of exposure lamp the machine uses.
This goes back a few years, but the Canon NP6016 was the first machine I came across with a fluorescent exposure lamp. Since Fluorescent & Xenon lamps produce very little heat, the optical cavity can be sealed. No fans to cool the blazing hot Halogen lamp. Most fluorescents even have a little heater to warm the lamp so that it can start quicker, especially in cooler temperatures.
With no fans blowing air (and dust) throughout the optics, this means that the optics can go much longer between cleanings.
Even though the NP6016 was a piece of crap, it was a vast improvement over a Mita DC142 or a Mita DC152, which had a squirrel cage fan directly over the mirror array, and had to be cleaned constantly.
I had one of these NP6016's in a lumber yard, and I went from two visits a month to 1 every six months. And before the optics were dirty enough to notice the scanner would start to slam into the end of the cavity (the home position switch would become blocked).
So I guess the theme here is that any machine with a fluorescent or Xenon lamp will outperform any other machine with a halogen lamp in a dirty environment. =^..^= |