[sane-devel] searching for business card scanner compatible with sane

[m. allan noah]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 1:33 PM, Jelle de Jong <jelledejong at powercraft.nl> wrote:
> Hi Allan,
>
> m. allan noah wrote:
>> I have not seen any business card scanners with a 50 card input tray.
>> In fact, most card sized scanners are single sheet simplex. You might
>> have to move up to something like an A6 or A4 sized scanner to get
>> multi-page duplex.
>
> You are right. I think 50 page business card (250 g/m2) are a bit to
> much to ask, but but an ADF for 10 times A8 (74 в 52 mm) (250 g/m2)
> business cards would be nice.
>
> I also did some searching, and found that even the most sick priced
>>3000 euro scanners that do scan A8 (business card) sized media do not
> indicate that they are capable of scanning 250 g/m2 paper... So this
> seems to be an useless parameter to select a new scanner on...?

most desktop and larger scanners can handle the heavy paper.

> Last year I replaced my standalone HP ScanJet 6300c ADF scanner (support
> broke with a new sane version) with a new HP Officejet J5780
> http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=3301296
>
> This printer with ADF only cost 130 euro and scans very nice. I did have
> regression issues (HP messed up there code) with the network saned
> server systems. But support of Julien BLACHE has been really good so now
> I got a very usefull scanner setup togheter with my pct-scanner-scripts
> available in Debian. I manage a few hundred scans per week, duplex is
> not really needed, I got a nice software rearrange duplex feature.
>
>
> I looked a bit further and found the following two options:
>
> ScanSnap S300 (between 200 and 320 euro)
> http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/scansnap/s300.html
>
> ^^^ that looks like an useful addition to my scanner setup. I want to
> buy this one but I am so afraid I will not get the sane driver features
> I need because of an under developed driver. Are my fears justified!?
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6619498&postcount=11
> http://www.sane-project.org/man/sane-epjitsu.5.html
>
> If somebody can convince me that missing features that are supported by
> the hardware will be added to the driver then I will buy this unit...
>
> ScanSnap S1500 (between 420 and 496 euro)
> http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/scansnap/scansnap-s1500.html
>
> ^^^ this scanner is also an option but its lot of money. I got perfect
> results with a 130 euro all-in-one but no A8 scan support. Would 450
> euro be worth it? It driver seems to be developed with the availiable
> featurs. http://www.sane-project.org/man/sane-fujitsu.5.html

well- i wrote both of those drivers, so i guess i am in a unique
position to respond :)

the S300 is epson-based, and uses a rather dumb protocol. It also
requires a firmware upload, is entirely reverse engineered. It has a
smaller paper tray and is slower than other fujitsus.

Most of the rest of the fujitsu machines (including the S1500) are
much smarter, and I actually have documentation for them, and support
a huge list of options.

Unless you absolutely need the smaller footprint of the S300 (or the
ability to run on USB power), I would definitely buy a 'normal'
fujitsu. If money is an issue, see if you can still find an S500 or
S510, or buy a used or refurbished fi-series machine (fi-5110C,
fi-5120C, fi-6130). They show up on ebay quite often...

allan
-- 
"The truth is an offense, but not a sin"