What is a barcode scanner?

The barcode scanner is also called a barcode scanner or a barcode reader. It is called one of the three barcode devices because it has the function of scanning barcode labels and two-dimensional codes. In addition, there are barcode printers and data collectors.

The barcode scanner is composed of laser source, optical scanning, optical receiving, photoelectric conversion, signal amplification, shaping, quantization and decoding. Different parts of the original play a different role, small scanning gun why can sweep out the bar code label information? As long as we understand the composition and working principle of the scanning gun, it is easy to know.

Laser source is an important part of barcode scanner. The scanner component laser has the characteristics of low power consumption, high reliability and good stability, small size, can be directly modulated, and is made of metal oxide.

The optical scanning system is a software device inside the scanner, and the laser light emitted from the laser source can form a scanning line or a scanning pattern through the scanning system. Omni-directional bar code scanners generally use rotating prism scanning or omni-directional scanning technology, which has the advantages of compact structure, high reliability and low price.

The optical receiving system is an important part of the internal system of the scanner. Scattering occurs when the scanning beam is reflected on the bar code symbol, and the light receiving system receives the scattered light. Laser scanners generally use a backward receiving system.

Photoelectric conversion and signal amplification are important components of the conversion of light into electrical information in the internal system of the scanner. The output energy of the laser source is small, and the frequency of the bar code signal can reach several trillion to tens of MHz. The last part is decoding, and the final electrical signal will be converted into bar code recognition, thus completing the whole bar code scanning process.

Where can bar code scanners be used?

1. Commerce: Among commercial activities, supermarkets, clothing stores, bookstores, etc. should be the most widely used places for scanning guns, which can be seen everywhere and can be used for cash register with POS system.

2, public utilities: such as tourism industry, government law enforcement units, insurance industry, etc., involving data collection is usually applied to barcode scanning gun related products.

3. Logistics industry: in the logistics industry, the bar code of the outer packaging of the product is collected by scanning gun, which greatly improves the work efficiency and reduces the error rate. Such as the most popular logistics, express delivery, postal, warehousing, freight, etc;

4, manufacturing industry: in the production and manufacturing industry, the scanning gun is the most frequently used, the purpose of using the scanning gun is to collect bar code data in the production line, through the scanning gun to collect data for statistical analysis and processing.

Barcode Scanner Development History

With the expansion of the application field of bar code technology, people's demand for bar code technology is also increasing. People not only require bar code technology to solve the problems of computer data input speed and data input correctness, but also hope that bar code technology can solve other problems such as printing more information on a smaller area. In the late 1980 s, a new bar code that can represent more information on a smaller area was produced, which is the two-dimensional bar code. Two-dimensional bar codes mainly include PDF417 code, Code49 code, Code 16K code, Data Matrix code, MaxiCode code, etc. They are mainly divided into two categories: stacked or stacked and chessboard or matrix.

The internal structure and working principle of bar code scanning gun

The scanning gun scans the bar code through the light source, and identifies the bar code through the huge difference in the light reflected by the black and white bars of the bar code. It uses the photoelectric original to convert the detected optical signal into an electrical signal through a circuit board (commonly known as a scanning gun decoding board), and finally converts it into an analog digital signal. It can be transmitted to the computer, which is the barcode content we want.

In the whole process of the scanning gun from collecting the light source to decoding analysis and converting it into the computer input signal, if the bar code cannot be correctly identified, the light source line will be on all the time. This is actually the process of decoding the scanning gun all the time. If the decoding is successful, the light will automatically turn off.

Common flat scanning gun is usually composed of light source, optical lens, scanning module, imitating digital conversion circuit and plastic shell. It uses photoelectric elements to detect the optical signal into electrical signals, and then the electrical signals through the imitation of digital converter into digital signals transmitted to the computer for disposal. When scanning a picture, the light source shines on the picture and the reflected light passes through the lens to gather on the scanning module. The scanning module converts the light signal into an analog digital signal (I. e. voltage, which is related to the intensity of the received light) to indicate the dim degree of the image number. At this time, the analog-digital conversion circuit converts the analog voltage into a digital signal and transmits it to the computer. The color is quantized by 8, 10 and 12 bits of RGB three colors, which not only disposes the signal into the picture output of the above-mentioned bits. If there is a higher number of quantization bits, it means that the picture can have a richer level and depth, but the color scale has exceeded the recognition ability of human eyes, so for us in the distinguishable scale, the effect of scanning with a higher number of bits is that the color is too natural and more picture details can be seen.

There are three types of common interfaces for scanning guns:

(1)SCSI (Small Computer Standard Interface)

(2)EPP (Enhanced Parallel Interface)

(3)USB (Universal Serial Bus Interface)

There are four main types of photosensitive equipment used by scanning guns on the current market: photomultiplier tubes, silicon oxide barrier CCD, semiconductor barrier CCD, and touch sensitive equipment (CIS or LIDE).

The resolution of the scanning gun should be judged from three aspects: some optical, some hardware and some software. That is to say, the resolution of the scanning gun is equal to the resolution of its optical components plus its own resolution obtained by the analysis of the disposal of hardware and software.

What are the common types of barcode scanning guns?

1. Hand-held scanning gun. Hand-held scanning gun is a product formed by technology introduced in 1987. It looks like a bar code scanning gun used by supermarket cashiers in their hands. The vast majority of holding type scanning gun using CIS technology, optical resolution of 200dpi, there are black and white, gray, color a variety of types, of which the color type is generally 18-bit color. There are also individual high-end products using CCD as a photosensitive device, which can achieve bit true color and better scanning results.

2. Platform scanning gun. Also known as flat-panel scanning gun, desktop scanning gun, most of the scanning guns currently on the market belong to flat-panel scanning gun, is now the mainstream. The optical resolution of this type of scanning gun is between 300dpi and 8000dpi, the number of color bits ranges from 24 to 48, and the scanning width is generally A4 or A3. The advantage of the tablet is that it is like using a copier, as long as the upper cover of the scanning gun is opened, whether it is books, newspapers, magazines, photo negatives can be put up to scan, quite convenient, and the effect of scanning is also taught in all common types of scanning guns.

3. physical scanning gun (not a physical scanning ability of flat scanning gun, a bit similar to a digital camera), there are mainly used in the field of printing and typesetting roller scanning gun and many other small roller scanning gun. This is an intermediate product of a handheld scanning gun and a platform-type scanning gun (new products have emerged in recent years because it is a built-in power supply and is called a notebook scanning gun). The vast majority of this product uses CIS technology, with an optical resolution of 300dpi, with color and gray levels. Color models are generally 24-bit color. There are also a few small drum type scanning gun using CCD technology, the scanning effect is significantly better than CIS technology products, but due to structural limitations, the volume is generally significantly larger than CIS technology products. The design of the small roller is to fix the lens of the scanning gun, and the moving object to be scanned is scanned through the lens. When operating like a printer, the object to be scanned must pass through the machine and then be sent out. Therefore, the scanned object cannot be too thick. The biggest advantage of this scanning gun is that the volume is small, but due to the use of a variety of limitations, such as scanning only thin paper, the range can not exceed the size of the scanning gun.

Others include large format scanning guns, pen scanning guns, bar code scanning guns, and negative scanning guns for large format scanning.

bar code scanning gun how to buy?

The purchase of bar code scanning gun mainly considers three factors, the working distance of the bar code scanning gun, the label size of the bar code scanning gun and the bar code density of the bar code scanning gun. The working distance of the barcode scanning gun refers to the distance between the scanner and the barcode label when scanning. The barcode label size refers to the entire width of the barcode when scanning to determine the maximum supported scanning distance of the barcode scanner. The barcode density of the barcode scanner simply refers to the minimum width that can read the data.