[sane-devel] Mustek ScanExpress A3 USB 1200 PRO

[Daniel Stender]

Jay Anderson wrote:

> I'm trying to get this scanner to work. I'm on Ubuntu 8.04.
> 
>> lsusb
> Bus 003 Device 005: ID 055f:040b Mustek Systems, Inc.
>> sane-find-scanner -q
> found USB scanner (vendor=0x055f [Hewlett-Packard.        ], product=0x040b
> [USB2.0 Scanner            ], chip=SQ113) at libusb:003:005
> 
> In my searching I found http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/mustek_usb2-backend/.
> 
> I found another thread
> (http://www.nabble.com/Mustek-ScanExpress-A3-600-USB-Pro-td14698028.html) which
> suggested trying the latest backend snapshot
> (http://www.sane-project.org/snapshots/) and changing the ProductID and VendorID
> to match what this scanner has. I've done that rebuilt and installed (make &&
> make install).
> 
> After this xsane comes up and can communicate with the scanner. When I preview
> the image it comes back with garbage -- multi-colored vertical stripes (when I
> scanned an image it also came back with garbage). So it is similar enough to
> control the scanner it seems.
> 
> Has anyone else had any luck with this scanner?
> 
> I'm willing (though I'm not sure how able I am) to spend some time digging
> around in the code to figure it out a bit more. I don't really know where to
> start so any pointers here would be useful. Thanks.
> 
> -----Jay

Don't know what this means for the 1200 DPI model, but the state of affairs concerning the ScanExpress A3 600 is that there is a Mustek driver here:
http://www.mustek.com.tw/apprg/countdriverdownloadtimes?LINK=ftp://ftp.mustek.com.tw/pub//driver/A3IIIU2/600DPI/Linux/1LV1019/libsane_1.0.19-1_i386.deb&DRIVERFILEID=447
http://www.mustek.com.tw/apprg/countdriverdownloadtimes?LINK=ftp://ftp.mustek.com.tw/pub//driver/A3IIIU2/600DPI/Linux/1LV1019/sane-backends-1.0.19-2.i386.rpm&DRIVERFILEID=449

These are RPMs (i386) including a customized mustek_usb2 driver (libsane 1.0.19). It was impossible for me to get these drivers running (suspected to
be quick'n'dirty) and also I would like to run other scanners in addition. I've written several time to Mustek to give free the source of their
mustek_usb2 with no reply at all.

Maybe it's a good idea to keep on with the enquiries to give away their source, BTW it has been discussed before on the list
(http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/sane-devel/2008-August/022583.html) that their driver packet injures the GPL of Sane.

Another way would be naturally to make a driver on our own, begin with a USB sniff within Windows and to manipulate mustek_usb2 to begin with. But I
do not have any experiences with that.

Greetings,
Daniel Stender