Specifications

Colortrac 24120 Product Sales Guide 5
3.1 Technical Highlights
Helical lead screw engineering is at the heart of the new flatbed. The optics are carried back
and forth along the length of the scanner by revolving the lead screw. A precision engineered
runway inside the scanner ensures that the optics are moved with the maximum accuracy. The
progress of the optics is slower than the paper speed in a sheet feed scanner at 5.6 mm/sec
(0.22 inches/sec) but for the perceived market targeted by this machine the speed is quite
adequate. The speed is kept low for two reasons, to ensure maximum optical stability and also
to allow for the data to be written to disk at 600 dpi without data buffering problems at the
computer and/or its interface.
The product is built using a strong extruded aluminium frame containing the runway and optics
assembly. This is attached to a second, wheeled table frame that serves to raise the scanner to
a comfortable working height as well as providing room for lightweight storage of work-in-
progress documents.
The top of the flatbed consists of a single piece of 6 mm thick float glass. A small control panel
and liquid crystal display allow the operator to manually move the scanning head if required.
The panel also has some engineer access levels for scanner maintenance and adjustment.
The glass scan surface is designed to deflect slightly under the weight of heavy scan objects.
This would cause scanning errors in any normal multiple camera scanner but this is
automatically compensated for ‘on-the-fly’ in the 24120 using a new technique developed
specifically for the flatbed. The result is perfect scans every time whatever the weight of the
object being scanned.
Data interfaces are in line with current Colortrac practice and the 24120 supports 400Mb/s via its
IEEE-1394 Firewire
TM
interface and 40MB/sec via the legacy 68-pin SCSI III
TM
interface. In
practical terms there is very little difference in the data throughput capacity of these two
interfaces and as always the final performance of the machine will depend of the performance of
the attached computer. Both options are available but will only operate in an either/or
configuration. This means that the flatbed user should not connect the SCSI and Firewire to one
computer at the same time. The scanner and software support the new Still Image Interface
(STI
TM
) for an easier software installation and this will support a computer connection over SCSI
or Firewire (Windows 2000, XP and ME only). Using a 2.4 MHz computer with a typical 40GB
hard disk the Firewire connection will permit the scanner to scan at 600 dpi in RGB at a
continuous speed without pausing.