[sane-devel] Looking to add support for Avision AV50F plus scanner /usb sniffer

[Ludwig Jaffe]

Hi all,

there is a "logic analyzer" orginally based on a cyprus semi USB-I/O, and now further developped into better hardware, called salae.
And there is the "friendly" chinese copy cat, that provides you with a clone HW for a fraction of the original cost. Look at ebay or alibaba you should find a good clone around 80USD.
The small device is called salae, and people hack with it.
E.G. reading out the key of windows bitlocker from a tpm while booting. :-)

Here  you find a USB sniffer that I did not test, but would give a try.
https://github.com/saleae/usb-analyzer

Have fun.

On September 4, 2024 3:27:49 PM GMT+02:00, Ove Laurum <laurum.tech at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hello and thanks for your responses.
>
>The effort does not dissuade me, it will have to take the time it takes, in
>the meantime I will just have to retain a windows VM for using the scanner.
>
>Luja, Yes, I did Open up the scanner, but all chips were covered with
>stickers and pads, so I have not yet tried to take them off and read the
>chips.
>The one visible number "MBA691 100/103 MP 00485509*103*AB1501160083" looks
>like it's referring to the Circuit board.
>I did not see anything looking like a tty/rs232 port, as you can see in the
>image of the circuit board from the original email attachment.
>Well, there is what looks like a place to solder in a 2*4 connector in one
>place, hard to tell what the purpose may be. It's just called J6.
>But before I do any of that, I have been looking for some wiki that has a
>list of scanners and their chips/circuits listed, or where would I find a
>list to compare with?
>Also fyi, the scanner is at least 10 years old but works fine on Windows
>10, I have not tried Windows 11.
>
>Ralph, I was trying to find where the source code is, GIT hub? or
>somewhere else? so that I can take a look at the code for some examples of
>backends. I assume it's written in C.
>I found
>https://www.commandlinux.com/man-page/man-page/man-page/man5/sane-avision.5.html
>
>So I will start there trying to figure out how to read logs for the scanner
>as per your suggestion.
>
>The other thing I will have to do is to trace a successful scan operation
>on Windows.
>My goto tracer would be wireshark, I know I can trace USB ports in Linux so
>I assume that is possible on Windows as well to get a trace of
>successful scanning.
>But is there a better tool to trace the USB traffic on Windows for the
>purpose of establishing some form of API?
>
>Thanks again.
>
>Ove
>
>On Tue, 3 Sept 2024 at 19:02, Ralph Little <skelband at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 2, 2024 at 6:38 AM Ove Laurum <laurum.tech at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello.
>>>
>>> I am new to sane but hope to find some guidance on how I can help adding
>>> this printer to sane supported devices.
>>>
>>> I am trying to use a scanner "Avision AV50F plus" on Linux (Ubuntu).
>>> I do not see it listed as a supported scanner by sane.
>>> Also after installing xsane it is not recognised, see command line output
>>> at the end of the mail.
>>> The scanner works fine on Windows with Avision driver and SW and Button
>>> Manager SW.
>>> I have attached screenshots from Windows Device Manager.
>>> I also attached a photo of the circuit board of the scanner as well as a
>>> pdf  product sheet of the scanner.
>>>
>>> I would be grateful for any advice on:
>>> a: has anybody else tried, failed, succeeded in adding support, if so
>>> what is your experience?
>>> b: what is the recommended process for me to follow?
>>> c: how do I know if this can be added to an existing backend, or if I
>>> need to write a new backend.
>>> d: any advice on how to trace the driver/scanner communication on windows
>>> to reverse engineer the protocol?
>>>
>>>
>> Many Avision devices use a specific prococol supported by the avision
>> backend.
>> It might be worthwhile adding the identity of this scanner to the backend
>> and having a look at the diagnostic output set using the SANE_DEBUG_AVISION
>> environmental variable set to some highish number (e.g. 50). Early on,
>> IIRC, the backend queries the device for capabilities. If the device gives
>> some kind of proper response to this request then that would be the best
>> place to start.
>>
>> But it is not for the faint of heart.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Ralph
>>
>>
>>> Looking forward to contributing to sane.
>>> Kind regards
>>> Ove.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Command Line Output:
>>>
>>> $ sudo sane-find-scanner
>>>
>>>   # sane-find-scanner will now attempt to detect your scanner. If the
>>>   # result is different from what you expected, first make sure your
>>>   # scanner is powered up and properly connected to your computer.
>>>
>>>   # No SCSI scanners found. If you expected something different, make
>>> sure that
>>>   # you have loaded a kernel SCSI driver for your SCSI adapter.
>>>
>>> found possible USB scanner (vendor=0x04a9 [Canon], product=0x190f
>>> [CanoScan], chip=GL848+) at libusb:001:004
>>> found possible USB scanner (vendor=0x0638 [AVISION], product=0x2b6a
>>> [AV50F Plus]) at libusb:001:003
>>>   # Your USB scanner was (probably) detected. It may or may not be
>>> supported by
>>>   # SANE. Try scanimage -L and read the backend's manpage.
>>>
>>>   # Not checking for parallel port scanners.
>>>
>>>   # Most Scanners connected to the parallel port or other proprietary
>>> ports
>>>   # can't be detected by this program.
>>>
>>> $ sudo scanimage -L
>>> device `genesys:libusb:001:004' is a Canon LiDE 220 flatbed scanner
>>>
>>> $ lsusb
>>> Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
>>> Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0627:0001 Adomax Technology Co., Ltd QEMU Tablet
>>> Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0638:2b6a Avision, Inc. AV50F Plus
>>> Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04a9:190f Canon, Inc. CanoScan LiDE 220
>>> Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
>>>
>>

-- 
Phone numbers: 
+49   176 79038607 [DE]
+359 899159711      [BG]

-- 
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin (1775)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/sane-devel/attachments/20240908/d3246f52/attachment-0001.htm>