May 1999
SCAN Station
By Penny Lunt
People-friendly Powerhouse
You know youıre getting older when you appreciate being able to sit. That was one of the things I liked about the Copiscan 8100 from Bell & Howell (Arlington Heights, IL) -- I never had to get up as I tested it. It accepts paper from the easy-to-reach bottom tray and shoots it out the top tray. The 8080 and 8125 Copiscan models share this same design, as does the Fujitsu 3099. It makes them operator-friendly even though theyıre big and tall.
Thatıs not the only thing to like about this $31,995 duplex ($27,995 simplex) scanner. At 100 (landscape) pages per minute simplex/200 images per minute duplex (75 ppm/150 ipm portrait), the 8100 is fast. Itıs hard working, with an unlimited daily duty cycle. Some customers run the scanner three shifts and process 25,000 documents a day.
This scanner competes with the Kodak 7500 and 5500, as well as the 3510, a new 85 ppm/170 ipm (landscape) scanner priced at $23,990 for the duplex model. It also competes with the Fujitsu 3099, which scans 85 ppm/130 ipm (portrait) at $24,995.
The Copiscan 8100ıs front panel offers a lot of scanning options and itıs easy to use. You can toggle keys to change the scanner settings and start scanning without having to use any software.
The scanner met or exceeded its rated speed with each test (after I upped the prescan cache setting so that the PC wouldnıt slow it down). The paper feeding is very smooth.
Mixed documents worked fine. As with all these scanners, you have to make sure all your documents have the same leading edge before you scan. In a day of testing I had only one jam, that was during a mixed batch of thick, thin, small and letter-size pages.
The paper path in this scanner uses mostly steel parts. According to Bell & Howell, this is preferable to the plastic found in some machines because it minimizes the static that can cause jams and doublefeeds. This ruggedness, the unlimited duty cycle and the 500-sheet input and output trays add up to a heavy duty production machine.
I stapled two pages together to test the doublefeed detection, which worked fine. Itıs ultrasonic, meaning it measures sound waves bounced off the paper rather than paper thickness and/or length. Two pages stuck together would generate different echoes than one page alone. It should be able to detect doublefeeds regardless of differences in the paperıs thickness or length. When it detects a doublefeed, the scanner will either beep or stop, depending on the operatorıs preference.
The image quality was satisfactory, especially with black text on a white background. Four-point text came out quite well. The ACE board in this scanner provides some excellent enhancement options, all of them selectable on the front panel. The ıShipperı setting is good for forms with light print and shaded background. I saw a dramatic improvement when I used this setting, the background was cleaned up and characters were enhanced. ıRecogı gives you clean, clear characters on standard text pages.
The clamshell design lets you open the scanner and see everything inside. Stray paper clips, staples or bits of paper slide to the bottom and can be easily removed.
Two optional imprinters ($4,000 each) let you imprint the front and back of each page either pre- or post-scan. This is a new feature to the 8000 line.
The color dropout is very easy and effective. You simply slide a plastic filter (red, green or blue) into a slot. You can drop out one color in the front and a different one in the back. You change the filter setting and the ACE board setting on the front panel. I used the blue filter on a form with blue shaded boxes and the dropout worked perfectly.
Bell & Howell plans to ship this scanner with a version of Kofaxıs Virtual ReScan technology sometime in the future. We didnıt see this feature, and at press time the details hadnıt been worked out.
This scanner has a solid price/performance ratio. I would recommend it to people in production environments demanding high duty cycles.
Quick Scan
Bell & Howell
Arlington Heights, IL 847-357-0630
www.bellhowell.com
Scanner: Copiscan 8100
Price: $27,995 simplex, $31,995 duplex
Speed: 100 ppm/200 ipm landscape, 75 ppm/150 ipm duplex (portrait)
Duty cycle: unlimited
Resolution: 100 to 400
Duplex support: yes
Strengths: Sturdy design intended for heavy volumes, three shifts a day without stopping. A smooth paper path. Very few jams and doublefeeds. Easy on the operator both ergonomically and because of the front-panel operation. Easy, useful color dropout.
Weaknesses: The scanner is priced higher than the competition.
ProductInfo 202 at www.imagingmagazine.com
