- can get things flowing faster with the Kodak i2600 Scanner.
- lets you extract critical information from documents at the point of entry
- It decreases processing time for information that needs to be shared for review, reference, approval, and legal and compliance reasons
For the record, my comments below are only for the Smart Touch software that is part of the installation CD. In the same package there is an additional CD with more advanced Kodak editing software, but since my goal was to scan everything directly as PDF files, I have been using only the Smart Touch software. In Windows 7, the Smart Touch software gets launched from the lower right side of the taskbar, and since the i2600 scanner can be controlled from software, there is no reason to use any of the buttons on the scanner, except the power button.
PERFORMANCE STATISTICS: The scanning and processing speeds seem to depend not only on the scanner but also on the computer that is controlling the data traffic. I have verified that in the Black and White or Grey Scale modes, when the resolution is set to 300 dots per inch, the Kodak i2600 scanner scans approximately 50 sheets or 100 double-sided pages per minute when I am using a relatively new computer like the quad-core Intel Windows 7 computers with 4 GB memory. (This was by using with the Kodak Smart Touch software that is in the installation CD.) Separately, I have also tested the Kodak i2600 with a faster computer that I have personally built from the following components: 6-core AMD Phenom-II CPU that uses an ASUS motherboard with the newer USB-3 ports, a 10,000 rpm hard drive and Windows 7 Ultimate edition, and for this computer in many cases the scanning speed for Black and White or Grey Scale at 300 dpi resolution was close to 60 sheets (120 double-sided pages) per minute, which is significantly faster. On the other hand, in very old computers with limited memory and slower USB ports, the scanning speed can be slow. The PDF file compression is very good: when you use the Smart Touch software in the Black and White mode at 300 dots per inch, a 500 page PDF file is often smaller than 30 MB for the average font size and density. But if you scan in the gray scale or color mode the PDF files are much bigger than black and white mode. The black and white PDF files at 300 dpi resolution are very readable even though gray scale mode definitely looks better, but for my purposes I have scanned the great majority of my documents in black and white mode instead of gray scale because I wanted to save space, only for the portions of documents that contain photos I have used gray scale or color. Thanks to the excellent data compression for the black and white mode at 300 dpi resolution, the grand total of more than 600,000 pages in my new PDF files now take less than 25 GB memory on my portable flash drives or portable hard drives. Scientific diagrams, graphs etc, can be scanned in the black and white mode without any loss of readability when 300 dpi resolution is used: as long as the resolution is not set below 300 dots per inch, only photos significantly lose quality when scanned in the black and white mode,and in the latter case gray scale or color must be used. For resolutions higher than 300 dpi the scanning speed is much slower even in the black and white mode. After the last page of the document is scanned, the Smart Touch software processes the scanned data into a PDF file. As long as you are creating regular PDF files, the processing is very fast: The processing of a regular PDF after a 500 page document has already been scanned in the black and white mode at 300 dpi resolution, is often taking less than a minute in a reasonably fast/new computer (a few pages take only one or two seconds to process into a PDF file after they are scanned). But if you configure the Smart Touch software to create a "searchable" PDF file, then the processing of the PDF file takes a long time because there are a lot of complicated calculations to create such a PDF file.
SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY: The version of Kodak i2600 scanner software that I have received in the installation CD was 1.5.3. And there is also the Kodak Smart Touch software (the one you would normally launch) that is simultaneously installed when you use the installation CD. This works very well in my Intel Windows 7 computer, and the software never crashed in the Intel computer, but when I used the same Kodak Smart Touch software with the more unconventional computer with the AMD Phenom-II CPU which uses an Asus motherboard with different drivers (the home-made computer that I have mentioned above), in some rare instances the software of Kodak i2600 did crash. When I asked this question to the technical support department of Kodak, I was told that it is a good idea to update the software of the scanner to its latest version for compatibility, which has the newest drivers from their website. And sure enough, after I downloaded and installed the latest versions of the Kodak i2600 software and Smart Touch software, this time the rare software crashes in the computer which has the AMD CPU and Asus motherboard, were resolved and it is working as reliably as the more common Intel computer.
I have downloaded the latest version of the i2600 software update from the Kodak website.
Once at that website for the i2600 scanner, you must click on "support" and from there you must download the following two items: 1) The Update for i2600 scanner drivers, and 2) i2600 Smart Touch drivers.
You must install the latter two items on top of the original software that was shipped in the installation CD, because the updates include only the drivers, not the full software, meaning that you must first install the original CD.
CLEANING SUPPLIES AND MOVING PARTS: The cleaning supplies and moving parts actually last hundreds of thousands of pages before they are replaced when they wear out, and therefore these expenses are not significant for long term scanning. This in contrast with the inkjet printer cartridges that do not last more than 500 pages. However, to avoid paper jams and to make sure that documents are readable, it is important to clean the i2600 scanner as recommended in the User''s Guide, and when the gray colored rubber roller wheels are worn out, they must be replaced to avoid paper jams. These supplies can be found at Amazon, but I bought these supplies from the Kodak website (from the Kodak i2600 web page, go to "scanner supplies" sub-page).
A) Cleaning supplies: These include 1) Staticide Wipes, 2) Roller Cleaning Pads, and 3) Transport Cleaning Sheets. These last for a very long time, but only the third item (the Transport Cleaning Sheets) is absolutely crucial because unlike the gray colored roller wheels which can be removed and cleaned manually, the red colored rubber wheels cannot be removed directly and cleaned manually by opening the scanner, and this is why the sticky paper of the Transport Cleaning Sheets is important to remove dust from these red colored inner wheels. One pack of Transport Cleaning Sheets contains 50 sheets, but so far I have used only half a package when I scanned more than 300,000 sheets (600,000 double-sided pages). You can probably get away with cleaning the rest of the scanner by using methods other than the staticide wipes and roller cleaning pads, but the boxes of staticide wipes and roller cleaning pads that I bought seem to last a long time, since I have used only a small percentage of these while scanning more than 300,000 sheets. Recently I could see that at the Kodak website the Transport Cleaning Sheets and Roller Cleaning Pads are out of stock, but these can be found at Amazon. The glass window of the camera inside the scanner must be kept clean because paper is often dusty, and depending on the quality of paper, some dust from paper accumulates after scanning thousands of pages.
B) The following moving parts are replaced when they wear out: 1) Feed Rollers, 2) Separation Module, 3) Feed Module. From these, only the Feed Rollers are worth purchasing ahead of time, because I can see that the Separation Module and Feed Module do not wear out easily, only the Feed Rollers wear out at a visible rate (these are the 6 gray colored rubber wheels in the machine). The box of Feed Rollers that I bought contained 12 of these gray colored rubber tires and 2 pre-separation pads. The pre-separtion pad is a stationary plastic component (not a moving part) that also wears out due to direct friction with incoming paper, and so when you replace the Feed Roller tires, you would also replace this pre-separation pad. According to the User''s Guide, the nominal life of the Feed Roller tires is 125,000 sheets, but I was able to wait until I finished scanning nearly 250,000 sheets (500,000 double-sided pages) before I have changed these 6 gray colored feed roller tires and the pre-separation pad, which means that since one box of Feed Rollers contains 12 tires and 2 pre-separation pads, this would last for a long time.
HOW TO AVOID PAPER JAMS AND WHAT TO DO IF A PAPER JAM OCCURS: In my experience, paper jams are extremely rare, and occur almost always due to bad paper or too much dust accumulated in the scanner, as I could verify when I scanned more than 300,000 sheets within 100 days. During normal scanning only one sheet at a time is supposed to enter the scanner. If more than one sheet at a time enter the scanner, the software stops the scanner and reports this error as a "paper jam." In my experience this kind of paper jam occurs when the paper is unusually bad, when the sides of the sheets are so torn that they stick together, or some kinds of paper are so coarse that the texture of the paper is powdery or "furry" in such a way that the sheets become too slippery for the rubber tires to guide these with precision, and in the latter case more than one sheet at a time can enter the scanner accidentally, causing the paper jam. But it is possible to compensate for this kind of bad paper by keeping the wheels of the scanner extra clean. Another cause of paper jam is when too much dust accumulates on the rubber wheels, which makes these roller wheels slippery and unable to control the flow of sheets. This is why the scanner wheels must be cleaned periodically with the Transport Cleaning Sheets (and also with the Roller Cleaning Pads more rarely.) When paper jam occurs, the machine stops, but if the document has many pages, there is no reason to restart scanning from the beginning. You can tell the software to process and build the PDF file for the portion of the document that has already been scanned. But before you start scanning the remaining portion of the document, you must immediately open this PDF file and write down the number of the last page in the PDF file. This is because when there is a paper jam, the software can skip processing the last page that was already scanned, and for this reason, when you restart scanning the remaining portion of the document from where you stopped, you should make sure that you start from the missing page. Then you can merge the two PDF files by using your PDF editor. Opening the i2600 scanner is very easy, and since the paper in the scanner travels a straight trajectory, the "jammed" paper that is stuck in the scanner is never damaged or wrinkled by the machine, and it is very easy to find and rescue these jammed papers to restart scanning again. Finally, if the paper quality in the document is absolutely terrible, one extreme measure to avoid paper jams for the case of unusually bad paper, is to divide the stack of paper into smaller stacks: for example, instead of loading a stack of 75 sheets, if you load only 15 sheets at a time, this will prevent paper jams in these rare cases of extremely dirty or torn paper.
One of the complaints against Kodak i2600 that I have read is that the holder tray at the bottom of the scanner captures less than the 75 sheets that can be loaded in the feeding tray at the top of the scanner, but after having scanned many thousands of sheets from various types of documents, I can say that this is true only when the paper quality is so bad that the scanned sheets that are leaving the machine start curling around themselves or sticking to each other, leading to overcrowding and scattering of the scanned sheets. If the paper quality is good and when the holding tray at the bottom of the scanner is completely unfolded and extended, this holding tray routinely captures at least 150 scanned sheets without scattering these.
My only complaint is that the paper feed tray capacity at the top of the scanner is only 75 sheets, because many of my documents contain more than 250 sheets. But the software of the i2600 scanner easily handles big documents that have more than 75 pages because you can add another stack of sheets when the first stack is finished, as the software will ask you if the end of the document has been reached. There are competing scanners with paper feed tray capacity at least 200 sheets, but these scanners are many times more expensive, and so for this price, the i2600 scanner is absolutely excellent, probably the best in its class.
I can see that the maximum of 75 sheets that can be loaded in the feed tray of the i2600 scanner is calculated according to the regular quality paper used in printers. Note that some papers are so thin that 100 sheets can be loaded into the feed tray, but some papers are so thick that only 50 sheets can be loaded. Note that if you try to squeeze too many sheets in the feed tray, this will often cause a paper jam because when the stack of sheets is compressed too much, the rubber wheels in the separation module are unable to separate the pages and several sheets can enter the scanner at the same time.Purchased this scanner to replace an aging Visioneer scanner that I used for the office. The Visioneer has a 1000 page daily duty cycle, so I figure that Kodak''s 4000 pages is a good size upgrade. Compared to the Visioneer Strobe XP450, this one is a night and day difference... It had better be, knowing the price is about 50% more. Scanner scans papers super fast... 150dpi color pdf takes about two seconds.
Of the hardware features, I found one that is slightly lacking The feeder is advertised as 75 pages. This part is true, but the holder at the bottom that holds the scanned paper, holds maybe half as much. When putting 50 pages in to scan at the same time, it drops the papers neatly into the tray at first, but once the scanned papers start stacking up, the scanned paper, as it comes out of the scanner, will start pushing the stack of paper all over the place, causing a huge mess... In another words, if you plan walk away after starting a 75 page scan job, you''ll come back to a floor full of paper.
I felt that the software interface needed improvement. Even though the scanner has pretty good default settings, I still needed to tweak a few things to optimize the scans. I have a pretty strong computer/IT background, and it still took me quite a big of time to adjust the settings before everything was perfect. The interface was not as good as Visioneer''s OneTouch, there are settings hidden within multiple layers menus that you''ll have to look for.
There was one problem I encountered that almost caused me to return the scanner to Amazon. When I first started scanning papers, I noticed that the computer would spend quite a bit of time processing the scanned docs. For example... if it takes 30 seconds to scan 15 pages, computer requires 30 seconds more to process and safe the PDF''s. I called over to tech support, clearly stated the problem, but they were unable to help me.. Just read off the script... "have you reinstalled software. have you installed all the software, etc." I was pretty pissed off... in fact, I had started to pack the scanner up before I decided to give it one more shot.
I saw that the scan setting was on "PDF Searchable" so without thinking much about it, i changed it to "PDF" and scanned some paper. Luckily, this did the trick.... 30 seconds dropped down to about 2 seconds. Kodak, you are so lucky. I almost returned the scanner and bought another brand. Instead of convincing me to reinstall the software, I think your tech should be trained about different scan settings, which ones will take a lot of processing, which ones will scan fast.
Overall, with my many years of IT experience, it still took me about 2 hrs to get this up and running to a point where I can scan the thousands of pages in each month. Overall, I recommend the scanner. But hope Kodak can improve upon the bottom tray in future product releases.
Read Best Reviews of Kodak i2600 Scanner Here
This scanner has been one of the most frustrating installations I''ve ever experienced. I''m a computer administrator, so this is no dummy issue. The scanner initially installed OK, but after a few days it suddenly stopped working and refused to scan. When I called Tech Support (receptionist: rude, condescending, impatient) they insisted that the software cannot be installed while AntiVirus software exists on the PC. They would not help me unless I uninstalled the software, uninstalled antivirus, and started over. When this did not fix the problem they suggested that I try another PC or reformat the PC I was using. Again, they would not help me until I did what they wanted. It did in fact cause the scanner to funtion. So make sure that in a world with tons of malware everywhere, that you have no AntiVirus software installed so that your scanner will work.Then my boss purchased the flatbed accessory. When you push the "scan" button on the flatbed, that does not cause the software to scan from the flatbed. No. It causes it to scan from whatever preconfigured setting you have chosen from the main scanner. And when you go in to configure the preconfigured settings, there is no way to get some of them to use the flatbed and others to use the feeder. So you''re forced to have the software display the settings every time you scan something so that you can click two-deep into the menu structure to select the device that you want to use.
And so far, nothing I have scanned from the flatbed has successfully formatted and saved as a file. It just gets an error and stops until you give up and click "close"
This scanner is extremely fast and does a pretty good job, if only I could get it function in a normal business environment. It was expensive enough that I imagine I''ll be banging my head against the wall trying to get it to function for years to come.
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EXTREMELY FAST scanning a double-sided document in 1 second! Blink ... it''s done!! Your document goes through it like a taco from Taco Bell goes through your body ...immediately! Hell, just throw the taco in the toilet right after you buy it bc that''s where it will end up in 5 minutes. Sorry for digressing. As for the flaw, we did notice that it failed to save certain documents at times (couldn''t figure out why; it wasn''t a certain style or color or something specific to that document or photo). And then one time, it suddenly failed to scan. Had to reinstall the software and driver. For the most part, it ran like a champ ... blazing speed ... side by side with Michael Duane Johnson!!Save 24% off
I have an older 1210 model and the 2600 series is way faster and better. The only drawback is the tray size is a bit small for the price which is why i am not giving 5 stars.
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