Your DS6878 beeps when something is wrong. Here is what each one means.
A cordless scanner that has stopped working has usually not broken. It has lost its pair, run its battery flat, or it is talking to the host in the wrong language — and it says which, in beeps, before anybody opens it up.
This is the 2010 Symbol unit on a cradle, the cordless one in the DS6700 family. We have been selling and fixing these since they were current. Ring us before you book anybody to come out — most of what is below is a setting, and we would rather tell you over the phone than send someone.
Four high beeps when you let go of the trigger.
That is a flat battery and nothing else. Put it in the cradle.
It is the single most common call we get on these, and on a unit this age it is usually the battery itself rather than the charge. A pack that has been in service for years holds less and less, and the symptom is a scanner that works for an hour and then starts complaining. The manual puts it plainly: replace the battery when you notice a significant loss of run time.
Two things worth knowing if you keep spares. Charge them between 0 and 40 °C — a van in a Sydney summer is outside that. And a spare that sits on a shelf for a year wants to be stored about half charged somewhere cool, 5 to 25 °C, out of the scanner. A pack left flat in a drawer for two years is usually finished.
A high-low beep means it has lost the cradle.
Bluetooth disconnection. Walk back towards the cradle first — it may simply be out of range.
If being in range does not bring it back, re-pair it: scan the PAIR barcode printed on the cradle itself. That is the whole procedure in the normal cradle-connected setup, and it is why the label is on the cradle rather than in the box. Check the cradle has power while you are there, because a cradle with no power looks exactly like a scanner that has lost its pair.
If the scanner was paired straight to a PC or a tablet rather than to its cradle, the reconnection has to be started from that device's own Bluetooth settings instead. The scanner cannot reach back to it on its own.
A long low then long high beep is a different thing with the same cause underneath: the device it was sending to is out of range or switched off.
It scans, it beeps, and nothing appears on screen.
The scanner is fine. It read the barcode and told you so. The problem is between the cradle and the computer.
Work through it in this order, because the cheap causes come first.
The cable, both ends
A cradle cable that is half out of the back of the computer gives you exactly this symptom, and it costs nothing to rule out. Unplug it and plug it back in rather than looking at it.
The host type it is programmed for
The scanner has to be set for the kind of connection it is actually on — USB keyboard, RS-232, keyboard wedge. If that is wrong it decodes perfectly and sends into nothing, which is why the beep fools people. You change it by scanning a programming barcode from the host chapter of the manual.
The pairing
Scan the PAIR barcode on the cradle, as above. A scanner that is charging happily in its cradle is not necessarily paired to it.
The cradle has lost the computer
If the first three are right, this is what is left — and the fix has an order that genuinely matters. It is the next section.
If characters do appear but they are the wrong ones, that is the same family of cause: the wrong host type, the wrong keyboard language, or CAPS LOCK on. A scanner sending a keystroke cannot tell what keyboard layout the computer thinks it has.
The cradle reset, and the order matters.
When the cradle has lost its connection to the computer, powering things off and on in the wrong sequence does not fix it. The documented order is:
Disconnect the power supply
Power out of the cradle first, before the cable.
Disconnect the host cable
The lead to the computer, out of the cradle.
Wait three seconds
Actually wait them. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that lets the cradle forget the connection it is holding on to.
Reconnect the host cable
Cable back in before power, which is the opposite of how most people would do it.
Reconnect the power supply
Power last. Give it a moment to come up.
Scan PAIR on the cradle
The pairing does not survive this, so it has to be done again afterwards. That is expected, not a sign it failed.
Power out first, cable in first, and a real gap in the middle. We have watched people do this four times in a different order and conclude the cradle was dead.
You pull the trigger and nothing happens.
No aiming pattern, no beep, no light. This is power, and there is one cause people miss.
The end cap over the battery chamber has to be done up properly. If it is not seated the scanner behaves like a dead unit, and it is the first thing to check because it costs nothing. After that: the battery itself, and the cables if the configuration uses a power supply.
If the aiming pattern appears but it will not read anything, look at the exit window. A dirty window genuinely affects accuracy. A damp cloth for particles, then a tissue with ammonia and water — no abrasives, and do not spray liquid into the window. On a warehouse unit this is worth doing before concluding anything at all.
And the ordinary one: distance. These have a working range and a barcode held too close reads worse than one held at arm's length. The decode ranges are in Chapter 2 of the manual.
The manual, all 556 pages of it.
This is Symbol's own Product Reference Guide, exactly as they published it in 2010. We host it because it is hard to find now and people need it.
The parts you are most likely to want: Chapter 3 for maintenance and the full beep table, Chapter 2 for decode ranges, and the host-type chapters for the programming barcode that matches your connection. Everything above is from Chapter 3, written out in plain terms.
All our Symbol and Motorola manuals, and what replaced each one →
What we would sell you instead.
A DS2278. Cordless 2D on a cradle, the same job as the DS6878, and it reads a barcode off a phone screen — which the 2010 unit was never asked to do.
We will say so honestly: a DS6878 that is working does not need replacing because it is old. Fifteen-year-old Symbol gear is still in daily use and we still support it. But a cordless scanner whose battery is finished and whose cradle has died is usually not worth two parts and a freight charge, and we will tell you which side of that line yours is on rather than quote you parts for a unit we would not keep ourselves.
Batteries and cradles for these are still available. Ask.
The whole current Zebra scanner range, corded and cordless →
Still not scanning? Ring before you book a callout.
Tell us the beeps and what the screen does. The same number since 1991, and somebody who has had one of these apart.