[sane-devel] Need recomendation linux/sane compat scanner w/ fast 2bit/greys

[m. allan noah]

i must concur with garrick, fujitsu makes wonderfully beefy gear, except 
for the 4010/4110/scansnap! models, their bottom end 'toy' scanners. these 
seem flimsy and slow, and on the whole, cheap.

the 4120/4220 on the other hand, are absolutely wonderful, heavy, small, 
welbuilt machines, with excellent paper feeds, even for heavy stock. we 
now have quite a few of them in the field, each scanning a few hundred 
sheets per day, and are quite happy with the performance. they are a bit 
above consumer level, at ~900 bucks a pop.

sane support for them is 'basic' as i have not yet had a chance to finish 
a re-write that fixes some duplex and other scanning issues. but for b+w 
or grayscale simplex scanning, you should have no problems.

they have an ebay re-furb store, where they are ~550 bucks, but only a 90 
day warantee.

allan

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, Garrick Sitongia wrote:

> My vote goes to the Fujitsu 620C I just bought. Although I read that the 
> newer 4120 is even better, if you don't need the flatbed part. The main 
> thing I've been reading in the reviews is that the "home" models with the 
> ADF feature don't seem have a ADF that is as robust and trouble free as the 
> office models. An exception might be the Fujitsu ScanSnap!, but I don't know 
> if Sane supports it and it internally processes images to PDF's only. I 
> believe PDF images use JPEG encoding, because I have seen the JPEG type 
> distortion in them.
> 
> Unfortunately, the Fujitsu 620C is not perfectly supported by Sane. The 
> sp15c backend doesn't have the brightness/contast functions plumbed to the 
> frontends, and so I have hacked the code to make it read a file for those 
> values. This sp15c code requires someone's patient attention. The Avision 
> backend works, but for some reason I cannot get the brightness/contrast 
> effect to work as satisfactory as with the sp15c backend. So I am using the 
> sp15c backend, with the hack.
> 
> The major issue I have found is finding software for batch scanning. If you 
> have black and white papers all the same size, you are homefree. If you have 
> many items of considerable diversity, look for a scanner with an ADF that 
> will take multiple sized docs in the same feeder batch, so you don't have to 
> continuously adjust it by hand. I vaguely think I saw an ad for such a 
> thing. Also find software to do what you need for organizing your scans. I 
> have been writing my own perl scripts to control the scanner and do file 
> processing and saving. With a fast scanner, that is where the majority of my 
> time is spent, not scanning the documents. My issue with the 620C is 
> software, the hardware is excellent.
> 
> Don't forget to check Ebay and factory refurbished outlets for whatever you 
> decide to get.
> 
> Garrick
> 
> >From: Jeff Kowalczyk <jtk@yahoo.com>
> >To: sane-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
> >Subject: [sane-devel] Need recomendation linux/sane compat scanner w/ fast 
> >2bit/greyscale ADF
> >Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 18:33:42 -0800 (PST)
> >
> >After a long while of doing without, I may suddenly need a good scanner for 
> >a
> >collection of documents. I would like to find something with the following
> >characteristics, if anyone has tried a model that fits the bill.
> >
> >a) Linux and SANE compatibility exists today. Limited feature support OK.
> >
> >b) ADF (or ADF option) that has good paper-feed reliability
> >
> >c) USB (2.0/highspeed) or Firewire interface
> >
> >d) I really only care about fast b/w and greyscale 300dpi scanning through 
> >the
> >ADF, controlled by the command-line interface. Other scanning concerns are 
> >very
> >minimal, I could use a more common scanner for that.
> >
> >Hoping for something in the $400-$800 range (new, including ADF), depending 
> >on
> >how fast it is for this type of scanning. I'd also be interested in 
> >SANE-ready
> >models with very high scanning speeds that happen to cost a bit more
> >($1000-$2000). I really wish the HP 5550c had SANE compatibility, that 
> >model
> >seems perfect otherwise.
> >
> >Thanks if anyone has any recommendations.
> >
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