Hello, I am relatively new to linux and have posted a couple of times. I am interested in the small mobile document scanners, also known as pass-through or sheetfed scanners.
I have made a small web page that attempts to summarize the sheetfed scanners that are available http://sites.google.com/site/sheetfedscannerslinux/. This is meant to complement the supported devices section of the Sane webpage. Also, I have recently purchased several of these on eBay, when I could get a really good price. I wanted to offer these to the Sane project as my contribution. If a Sane developer is interested in any of these, email me and describe your experience developing Sane. I will send you the scanner and it is yours to keep. You can use it or abuse it however you see fit. All I ask is that you put a driver into the Sane project for that device. I will pay for postage. I will try to pay any customs fees or VAT, but you may have to pay this. Here is a list of what I have available: Visioneer Strobe XP 200: This has a GL646 chipset, so it could be adapted to the genesys backend. It is powered through an external 17 volt power supply. Mine fits North American style sockets. Visioneer Strobe XP 300: This has a GL842 chip, so it could be adapted to the genesys backend. It can be powered through the USB cable. It also can be powered through an external power supply for faster scans. It is a duplex scanner (scans both sides simultaneously). The scanner that I have does put a black line down the middle of one of the sides that it scans, which is probably due to a bad sensor. This should not affect the ability to develop a driver, but it may decrease the value of the scanner to you. Visioneer Strobe Pro: The chip inside appears to be a proprietary Visioneer chip. A whole new backend would probably have to be written. The only advantage to going through the trouble of doing this that I can see is that these scanners are really cheap on ebay. This scanner needs an external power supply. Pentax DS Mobile: This is supposedly the same as the syscan Travelscan Pro 2300. I won a lot of 10 of these on ebay and I expect that at least one will work. This has a LM9832/3 chip and should be adaptable to the plustek backend. Visioneer RoadWarrior: This has a GL842 chip, so it could be adapted to genesys. I have one of these that I paid full retail price and I am emotionally attached to it. I could loan it out for a few months, but I'd like to eventually get it back. Also, someone may already be working on this device. This device is powered through the USB cable. Visioneer OneTouch 5800 USB flatbed scanner: I have one of these that I don't want. It is pretty heavy, so I only want to ship this in the United States. Realtek RTS8801C chipset. -- Jack McGill
