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I have a Symbol Technologies LS2208 USB barcode scanner plugged into my brand new Raspberry Pi 2.

I’ve installed Raspbian as the OS and everything seems to be working—It is recognized as an HID device—but the barcode scanner doesn’t seem to be sending any data to the Raspberry Pi. 

hid-generic 0003:05E0:0600.000F: hiddev0,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Device [\xffffffef\xffffffbe\xffffffa9\xffffffbe\xffffffa9Symbol Technologies, Inc, 2002 Symbol Bar Code Scanner] on usb-bcm2708_usb-1.3/input0

When I scan bar codes it doesn’t send ASCII chars. It “beeps” and then text editor is left blank.

I have tried re-configuring the scanner to do Simple COM port emulation. But after testing when it is configured this way - it doesn't even scan at all.

How can I get this scanner to send ASCII codes to my Raspberry Pi 2? How can I go about troubleshooting this device? Do I need to download a driver?

Giacomo1968
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ruben_KAI
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1 Answers1

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I found this thread and this thread that both seem to have a solution. Looks like you may need to use the USB barcode scanner in Windows at least once for some reason.

So here are the key steps from this thread:

  1. Download and install the Symbol Virtual COM Port Driver on a Windows box or VM.
  2. Configure the scanner to do “Simple COM Port Emulation” using the barcodes in the configuration guide.
  3. Connect the scanner to the Windows box, open hyperterminal and scan some barcodes.
  4. Do ls /dev/hidraw* on your Linux box
  5. Plug the scanner back into the Linux box and do ls /dev/hidraw* again there should be a new raw device /dev/hidrawX that was not there before.
  6. Now you can read the scanned barcodes from /dev/hidrawX.
Giacomo1968
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Zach
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  • Awesome - but the Symbol Virtual COM Port Driver is only avaliable for windows 98, 2000, and xp. I need to find one for win 7 – ruben_KAI Apr 22 '15 at 15:53
  • this one looks like it'd work in windows 7 http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm – Zach Apr 22 '15 at 17:39
  • This solution did not work for me - After I installed the driver and then configured the scanner to Simple COM Port Emulation using the code in the manual (found here: http://www.spiritdatacapture.co.uk/manuals/motorola/Symbol%20LS2208%20Reference%20Guide.pdf) (page 109) the scanner would not send ASCII codes on my windows machine - nor did it work on the Pi – ruben_KAI Apr 23 '15 at 16:40
  • Is it possible that it's broken or misconfigured? – Zach Apr 23 '15 at 20:06
  • No it works fine - it just wont work as a simple com port on my raspian – ruben_KAI Apr 30 '15 at 18:01