February 3, 2008

Canon MP210 and MP520 join the party!

UPDATE:

This article is now DEPRECATED.

For any Pixma device, install instead the latest Sane library.

Read the article on this blog here



May look out of topic here ?

Good news anyway for Canon Pixma MP210 and MP520 owners...

They will now be able to use their scanners with Sane frontends like Xsane, Kooka, ... as MP610.

Following some exchanges in this blog and the libsane mailing list, the driver updates made for MP610 appeared to be fully compatible with MP520 (message posted in this Blog by Thomas) and MP210 scanners.

The reason?

Simply, those 3 all-in-one use exactly the same USB protocol, at least for their scanner part.
Remember they were released by Canon at the same time ...

Let's congratulate this Canon's initiative, as a step towards device standardization is a major help for the programmers planet, a single driver working for at least 3 different models ... this is eden world!

Note: this latest driver version does not bring anything new to MP610 (uh ... what else could we bring anyway??)

Installation procedure

The procedure to install the pixma updated libsane driver is the same as for MP610, only the model PID needs to be correctly set in the udev rules for permissions:
  • Download latest 0.14.2u version of the libsane-pixma library, (either full package or patch for libsane-pixma 0.13.1 available) and follow the installation instructions given in this previous post.

  • When setting the permissions rules (see the same post) for MP210 or MP520, adjust the corresponding USB PID:
    • MP210 USB address: 04a9:1721
    • MP520 USB address: 04a9:1724

      This would give udev rules like for instance:
      # Canon PIXMA MP210
      SYSFS{idVendor}=="04a9", SYSFS{idProduct}=="1721", MODE="664", GROUP="scanner"

      or
      # Canon PIXMA MP520
      SYSFS{idVendor}=="04a9", SYSFS{idProduct}=="1724", MODE="664", GROUP="scanner"

  • Remember, to have udev take into account the rules changes, either unplug the USB cable, wait a few seconds, and plug it back, or issue the following command:
    $ sudo udevcontrol reload_rules

  • You're ready to scan! Select in your frontend (Xsane, Kooka, …) a scan resolution proposed, and start scanning:
    • for MP210: available 75, 150, 300, or 600 dpi
    • for MP520: available 75, 150, 300, 600, 1200, or 2400 dpi

Someone else has got another compatible model ? ;-)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Canon just released drivers for the scaner and the printer mp610 look for yourself at:

http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0028480.asp

You might need to use the form to select your model.

Nicolas said...

Yep, but Canon drivers are not compatible with Sane so you can only use them with Canon's scangearmp, and not with great frontends like Xsane, Kooka, ...

These drivers are limited (in the case of MP610) to 1200dpi, so you cannot get the full performance of MP610, at 4800dpi (maybe you don't need it) ...

It's up to you, whether you prefer to use Canon's proprietary software, or an open source solution ... Both are possible.

Rgds
Nicolas

Anonymous said...

Or better still, go to canon australia site to get the deb/rpm binaries for MP210 printer AND scanner directly. Yippe!

Unknown said...

Just a remark about the udev rules as shown in this post: Newer udev versions need "ATTR" inplace of "SYSFS".

Neto said...

does anyone know how to change the printer quality for mp210 in ubuntu

Nicolas said...

Probably the same way it's been done for MP610.
You pobably need to change a little bit the default ppd file provided in the Canon driver, to add 1200 dpi printing.
See the instructions for MP610 on where this file is located, and the section you need to change in MP210 ppd file is where you can read 600dpi. Add in this section an equivalent line with 1200dpi.

If you don't succeed, send me by mail your current ppd file.

Anonymous said...

Something like point number 5 in thread of Ubuntu forum?

http://ph.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php?s=d5148965a352454574056a45ecb31931&t=38995

------------------
5.Edit .ppd file
To allow printing quality options to be accessed through cups' printer properties you must edit as root the printer's ppd file.(This applies only to the ip4000. I don't know the settings for ip3000 or ip8600.Backup and try it)
$ sudo gedit /usr/share/cups/model/canonpixusip4100.ppd
Add these lines:
*OpenUI *CNQuality/Quality: PickOne
*DefaultCNQuality: 3
*CNQuality 2/High: "2"
*CNQuality 3/Normal: "3"
*CNQuality 4/Standard: "4"
*CNQuality 5/Economy: "5"
*CloseUI: *CNQuality

You can also replace these lines:
*OpenUI *Resolution/Output Resolution: PickOne
*DefaultResolution: 600
*Resolution 600/600 dpi: "< < /HWResolution[600 600]>>setpagedevice"
*CloseUI: *Resolution
with:
*OpenUI *Resolution/Output Resolution: PickOne
*DefaultResolution: 600
*Resolution 600/600 dpi: "< < /HWResolution[600 600]>>setpagedevice"
*Resolution 1200/1200 dpi: "< < /HWResolution[1200 1200]>>setpagedevice"
*Resolution 2400/2400 dpi: "< < /HWResolution[2400 2400]>>setpagedevice"
*CloseUI: *Resolution

Save the file
---------------

(little bit tweaked to get on this blog, so pleaase original...)

greets,

René

Anonymous said...

Or you could simply download. compile, and install the latest cvs source for sane. Worked very nicely on openSuSE 11.1 x86_64. As for printing, try the MP180 driver in combination with gutenprint-simplified.

Anonymous said...

That's amazing!

Jeff Payne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeff Payne said...

If you don't want to screw with installing additional packages beyond what comes standard on Ubuntu, try using the MP150 driver. I was able to install my PIXMA MP210 as an AppSocket/HP JetDirect queue (I have an AirLink 101 wireless print server) using the MP150 driver. This obviously doesn't help with scanning, but does give one an easy path to getting the printer working. Color and grayscale both work at 600 dpi.

Anonymous said...

I have owned probably 40 to 50 printers over the years and I have to tell you the MP210 is the most useless piece of garbage I have ever dealt with. Anyone who has one I wish them good luck.