[sane-devel] Umax Astra 610S

[redhat at emphanet.com]

Howdy folks..

Ok.. I took back the HP ScanJet 4300Cse yesterday and borrowed a UMAX Astra 610S
scanner instead, being that I'm needing to import images in for this lady's site
in a rush.  Anyhow.. I get it home and plugged into my BusLogic card and
everything checks out ok.  I scan a few images at 150 bpi in color no problem. 
Then after a few test scans (and being impressed that it's alive at last), I get
problems.  I notice that I can't scan over 95 dpi.  If I set it for a dpi over
95, it scans about an inch or less and it calls it done, spitting out an image
of only an inch or less of data.  Of course it scans the whole page no problem
if I set it for 95.

So I'm thinking:  Ok.. I wonder if the data connection between the scanner and
the rest of the SCSI bus is slow and getting buffer underruns, etc.  So I bypass
 my ORB and HP-9600 cdwriter and plug in the scanner directly into the BusLogic
SCSI host.  ok.. great.. now I can scan at 105 dpi (cool!  better than 95)..  So
I'm scratching my head and wondering what's up here.  For kicks I turn the SCSI
ID on the Scanner to 1 instead of 5 (for which the ORB drive is 6, and the
Burner is 4).  Then I plug everything back into the original chain (sequence). 
>From the Host adapter the chain is as follows:  HP-9600 burner, then ORB, then
UMAX scanner.  Ok.. another note:  The Umax Astra 610S uses a DB25 pin (looks
like a parallel port) setup.  My SCSI bus uses DB50(HD).  As you have guessed, I
have one of those cords that adapts from 50pin HD to 25 pin (for the scanner). 
I'm wondering if maybe the cord that I'm using is low grade or too long.  It's a
6 footer. 

Another thing.. I updated SANE-backend to 1.0.6 (since I noticed changes to a
few scanner libraries on the SANE web site (http://www.mostang.com/sane).  Hey..
just incase, right?  Also, updated Xsane to 0.80 (http://www.xsane.org).  But I
still have the same problem.  In all cases, I'm still using the same BusLogic
SCSI card and same cables.

If there are any SCSI pros out there who read this article and shake their head
in discuss of my stupidity, do share.  I'm not the pro with the SCSI specs. 
SCSI cables are expensive.  I just want to make sure I need a better cable
before I go and spend another lump sum of money on it.  I thought it was rather
odd that the scanner cable that I just bought is sort of thin for a scsi cable.
 They're usually pretty thick, but this one is dinky compared to the 50HD <>
50HD cabling I have for the ORB and BURNER. 

In Summary, I'm beliving that my dpi limitations are a direct issue with the
data transfer capabilities to the scsi host.  I have my doubts, but I gotta know
for sure if this is the issue.  LIke I said, cabling is expensive and I'm in no
shape to buy something I don't need.  I've researched the issues with the Astra
610S and I haven't seen a similar problem.  Another guy posted an ad about
having problems getting 300 dpi with LINEART setting...  He said his COLOR 300
dpi was fine, but max he could go in LINEART was 150 dpi.  Beats me.  This is
strange.  

Guess I otta send this off so I can get some answers hopefully.  

I hope sane becomes more savvy with scanners in the future.  What happens when
windoze finally dozes off?  Everyone will hit linux next right?  I hope it's
ready.  Some standardization (if a word) would be very cool with linux.  Having
to give each distribution special attention becomes time consuming.  I really
don't want to setup a seperate machine for windoze to just use a scanner here,
or a printer there.  Alright.. enuff of that, right?  I'm on it.

Any help would be fantastic.

Jordan Peterson