[sane-devel] RS232 Scanner

Ekkehard Morgenstern ekkehard at ekkehardmorgenstern.de
Thu Jul 31 11:03:10 UTC 2008


Hi Dan,


> I'm working on getting a RS232 scanner working on Linux. I see that
> Sane has some support for serial port scanners but not much. The
> scanner is attached to a POS system for retail sales and runs RHEL5.

The scanner's OS is Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

How big is the machine? What type of scanner is it? What types of objects 
does it scan?

> Unfortunately, I have no documentation for the scanner, I'm not even
> sure of the brand. There's a logo on the front which is 'G' followed
> by a globe symbol, followed by 'T' so it could be 'GOT' or 'GT'. There
> does not appear to be a model number although there is an
> identification place which is written in Chinese.

So, it's an industrial scanner? ;-)

It might be a custom piece of hardware or a low volume product (manufactured 
in small numbers).

You might want to find out who sold the machine and if there's any proof of
purchase that might contain additional information. Perhaps you might have 
to contact the company that sold the machine.

> Does anyone have any expertise in RS232 scanner protocols? All my
> searching on the web reveals results for barcode scanners which appear
> to work very differently from image scanners.

Yes, I've worked with various types of industrial scanners.

There's absolutely no standard for RS-232 communication, so every device
has its own protocol. 

Without the manual, it might be difficult to figure out what the
machine is doing.

If you can figure out the name of the manufacturer or its reseller, you 
might want to contact them for detailed information. Perhaps the scanner
came with a manual that the customer still has lying around somewhere. 
Invoices and other documents might also contain information. The best 
solution might be to talk to the customer.

Best regards,

Ekkehard.


On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 10:26 +0100, Dan Scott wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm working on getting a RS232 scanner working on Linux. I see that
> Sane has some support for serial port scanners but not much. The
> scanner is attached to a POS system for retail sales and runs RHEL5.
> 
> Unfortunately, I have no documentation for the scanner, I'm not even
> sure of the brand. There's a logo on the front which is 'G' followed
> by a globe symbol, followed by 'T' so it could be 'GOT' or 'GT'. There
> does not appear to be a model number although there is an
> identification place which is written in Chinese.
> 
> I have a compiled diagnostic application (no source code) which can
> control the scanner and I have tried logging the system calls using
> the 'ltrace' command, so that I can figure out the protocol. I have
> tried writing a program to mimic the diagnostic application which
> sends the same commands to the serial port but the scanner does not
> respond.
> 
> Does anyone have any expertise in RS232 scanner protocols? All my
> searching on the web reveals results for barcode scanners which appear
> to work very differently from image scanners.
> 
> As a final note, I am trying to use the scanner for OMR - the
> diagnostic application returns an array of data relating to the marks
> entered on a slip of paper - if that is any use. Also, I can attach
> the log file of system calls made by the diagnostic application if
> that will help anyone.
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dan Scott
> 




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