[sane-devel] Genesys Backend and Umax Astra 4700

[Stéphane VOLTZ]

Le samedi 24 juin 2006 12:44, mfi3 a écrit :
> Hello Stef,
>
> If only You want to spend Your time on this, I will be happy if I can
> help. I am tired of having Windows only becouse of my scanner. If You
> like You can contact me directly and send tools You have written about.
> But before that I would like to know how dangerous it can be for my
> scanner. Testing unfinished drivers can damage scanner, right ? How high
> is the risk ? Is there possibility to avoid / minimalize it ?
>
> Regards,
> Michael

	Hello,

	during development, "wrong" commands will be sent to the scanner. So in 
theory anything bad can happen.  But the most likely problem is possible 
troubles with the motor which can receive incorrect settings, making it 
running at too high speeds. Or moving past the physical limits of the 
scanner. Both could damage motor or the belts and gears.

	However, this didn't happen to me with the few scanners I hacked. My HP3200C 
did disturbing grinding noises a numerous times during development, and I 
even had to open it to manually reseat the belt and head. But it is still 
working.

	When developing, I get the scanners at hand to hastily unplug USB or power 
cable when things weren't going the way they should. I didn't break any. But 
can't tell I'm lucky or that these scannners were strong enough to survive.

	And I last, I remember to there was a thread in sane-devel about a scanner 
where the transparency unit got too hot and then broke. Sensors failures are 
a risk too.

	So my conclusion is: while hardware failures are a low risk, they do happen 
and you know  it only after the things are done ...

Regards,
	Stef