[sane-devel] SANE backend epson2 and Epson Perfection V700 Photo

[Claus]

Adolf Winterer skrev:
> Hello Claus,
> 
> Am Sonntag, 16. März 2008 00:00 schrieb Claus Boje:
>> Lørdag den 15. Marts 2008 skrev Adolf Winterer:
>> > Thank you for your answer, Alessandro.
>> >
>> > Am Freitag, 14. März 2008 15:17 schrieb Alessandro Zummo:
>> > > On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:50:27 +0100
>> > >
>> > > Adolf Winterer <adolf.j.winterer at inn-salzach.de> wrote:
>> > > > Can anyone on the list please help me with the following questions?
>> > > >
>> > > > 1. What is missing from the epson2 backend to reach the "complete"
>> > > > status for the Epson V700 Photo?
>> > >
>> > >  maybe some particular features of the scanner are missing. I myself
>> > >  don't own one, but given that is has been listed as good on epson
>> > > backend it should work well on epson2 too.
>> >
>> > I've not yet made up my mind. Maybe I just take the risk and buy the
>> > device.
>>
>> I took the risk with the epson 4990
> 
> When did this happen?

~2 years a ago

>> and ended up with the job to hack the 
>> backend, mostly because the firmware in the scanner made som funny things
>> and have some funny features too. I hacked the epson driver, but this
>> driver did not do the extended commands, but before I got the epson backed
>> update to the extended commands the epson2 driver from Alessandro came up,
> 
> Is this code included in the 1.0.19 backend release?
yes, but in Debian (testing/unstable) the epson2 driver i comment out i
   /etc/sane.d/dll.conf,
   very easy to enable again, maybe it is the same with other dis.

>> and it did the job for me, except for the funny buggy software of the epson
>> 4990 scanner, 
> 
> Wrong or old firmware file?

I don't know but I think wrong.
The problems with the epson 4990 is

-It do not report all resolutions back (only up to 3200 dpi)
-It have some special (and (one) undocumented) commands for the tpu if
you want to use the hole area.
-It sometimes reports error under "lamp warm up" (the drive fix that)

If you take the source (epson2.c) from sane and search for 4990 you can
se what special for 4990 it's not much.

>> which I have hacked today (it is in the driver now). Sow if 
>> your scanner not have funny firmware it proberly runs on epson2 
> 
> The 4990 model is listed with "complete" support both in the epson backend and 
> the epson2 backend. This is somewhat strange as with a support status of 
> "complete" this should never happen.   :-(

The "complete" in the epson driver is more or less my fault, because I
reported it complete before I found the problems with the tpu.
The only "missing" in epson driver I think is that you can't use the
hole tpu area, but there can be more, because I started to hack the
epson2 driver , and then stopped testing the epson driver

>> (if it use 
>> the ESC/I, but I think that both v700 and v750 use the ESC/I commands, but
>> don't blame me if I'm not right) commands, but . We can too ask epson for
>> the programmers manual, I did that with the 4990 and got them without
>> problems.
> 
> How did you get these programmers manuals? Whenever I read something about 
> scanner support I see "no documentation available" and "reverse engineering 
> with USB traffic sniffing".

I got them from here
http://www.epsondevelopers.com/home/guides_redirect, you need to ask for
them, but I got them without problems. You can get the epson 4990 and
4870 from me if you are interested


>> I don't know how much you can do, can you compile a packet your self ? - do
>> you programe/understand some c ?
> 
> I can read C programs to get the most basic idea what it should do, but this 
> is not nearly enough for driver development.   :-(
> 
> You offered a radically different view onto the support situation of the named 
> epson devices (4990 / V700). So I'm again a bit more uncertain about 
> purchasing one of these. But at the moment I'm lacking alternatives!

I chose the epson 4990 because I could get the technical information.

The biggest problem to help you is that I don't have a v700/v750 scanner.

Best

CLaus