Re: Looking to add support for Avision AV50F plus scanner

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 <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Sep 2, 2024 at 6:38 AM Ove Laurum <[email protected]> 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
>>
>