Paradigm ImagePRO Ci40m HD TCP/IP setup

I was a bit puzzled that a long time customer called me to come set up a scanner. My first thought was that this must be another one of those scanner/copier things and a complicated front panel had defeated him, so I offered to try to help him through it on the phone.

"No", he said, "It's pretty straight forward. A little unusual - you have to put an IP on the device AND into the program, but it's pretty obvious how to do that. It just doesn't work."

I was still reluctant. Maybe he picked an IP address already in use, maybe he had a bad cable, a bad switch port? No, he checked all that. Maybe it's just defective? He agreed that last was at least possible, but would I please just come look at it?

OK. I drove out there yesterday. The scanner turned out to be a Large Format type for engineering drawings - specifically a Paradigm ImagePRO Ci40m HD. As he said, there was nothing complicated about the TCP/IP setup - the device itself had a front panel that let you plug in an IP address and the accompanying software had a configuration utility where you could tell it what IP you had used. As he said, simple enough. And as he also said, it didn't work.

Okey-dokey. I double checked all the bad cable, bad port, ip conflict stuff. Nothing wrong there. The scanner would work if you hooked it up to a USB cable, but that had to be very short and where he wanted to put this was a long way from the desktops that would be using it. We needed TCP/IP.

I had sent my customer off to find a support number for the manufacturer. I was convinced we really needed an RMA, but you always have to start with support. While I was waiting, I stared grumpily at the software interface and its little window that told me once again, no, I can't see any scanner. Aaargh.

Because I had nothing else to do, I clicked on a tiny little "i" in the left hand corner of the window. To my surprise, this opened up to a connection window that was somewhat similar to the configuration utility, but obviously different. For one thing, this windows said that we were intending to use a USB cable. I'd already told the configuration utility that we wanted TCP/IP, but here this was apparently still set for USB. I clicked TCP/IP, saved it and tried restarting the software again. Still no luck.

I was just curious as to whether my selection had stuck, so I want back into the little "i". Yes, it still said TCP/IP. I decided to click on it's "settings" button. No point, really, as I'd already made the IP settings in the configuration utility, but heck, I was still waiting, right? So I clicked "Settings".

The IP address was blank.

Yeah, blank. I blinked twice. I blinked again. Still blank. I sighed and filled in the address. Saved it, quit out, restarted and.. scanner connected, working, ready to pull in documents.

Absolutely amazing. A hidden configuration utility that you need and a visible utility that does nothing. Excellent programming, guys!

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5 comments

Fri Apr 16 13:26:17 2010: 8425   MarkBelanger




Instead of beating up on those programmers, you should be buying them a beer.

Their slapdash interface earned you a couple hundred bucks in service call fees.






Fri Apr 16 13:33:41 2010: 8426   TonyLawrence




You sound like my wife :-)

I know - it's money. I'll deposit the check.



Fri Apr 16 14:37:00 2010: 8427   BigDumbDinosaur




That's why people like us exist: to find hidden setup screens. It has nothing to do with technical training, just curiosity. :-)



Fri Apr 16 14:44:08 2010: 8428   TonyLawrence




You might be right. But don't forget idle time and fidgeting. If I hadn't been waiting for the support number, I might not have found this. I HOPE the support folks would have directed me to that (but you never know).

By the way, the device is also off-putting in that it puts up an error about 100Mb Ethernet. I assume that it could only negotiate a 10Mb connection (though it SHOULD have been able to get 100) and that's why. As scanners like this take their sweet time anyway, 10 or 100 hardly matters so I didn't bother to investigate that.

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