A DIY Book Scanner In Every Hackerspace /DIY Kit

[mr.teecee]

Hi, I'm a newbie here and want to build a thing like this
I want to CNC the plans, BUT it is in US measures... Anyone tried to compute the sizes to EU-standards? Is there a wood in this thickness available here? (Specially in Hungary, but I think if it is available in the EU than it is available for me also here... )

Thanks in advance for Your reply!

[daniel_reetz]

We planned for this. "3/4" inch baltic birch is actually 18mm. All the rest of the measurements in the file are really irrelevant to the machine - once you load them in your CAM software, they're just digital points. Is there any other measurement that is causing a problem?

[mr.teecee]

We planned for this. 3/4" inch baltic birch is actually 18mm. Is there any other measurement that is causing a problem?

No, but I was unsure if a simple multiply-with-a-number is enough. For example if a wood with a specified thickness is not present I have to replan all joining places, which I do no plan to do if someone already done it and is kind to share it.
I've read a lot of pages about this and similar scanners, but did not find any information on this. Maybe it was too clear for others and not for me

I was not meant to be look so dumb

Thanks!

[daniel_reetz]

You don't look dumb at all - it's a legitimate question and one that deserves serious consideration.

In the version of the artwork here on the forums, beware of any slot that measures .71 or .72 inches. Those are slots where we tried to use the thickness of the plywood as a part of the design. If you see any slots like that, resize them a bit smaller than the plywood, and cut the mating part to match. That way you're not dependent on the thickness of the plywood at all.

The 1.0 version of the artwork will have all of the joints specified to a certain thickness that is not the wood thickness. I am working toward a 1.0 version but I do not have a release date and you should not wait for it.

[mr.teecee]

The 1.0 version of the artwork.

I have version 0.9.10
I'll check for version 1.0, also getting in contact with a CNC-owner on the next week.

Thanks for Your fast answers!

Anyway: why is a bicycle break used to trigger the exponation? Why not using an end-switch or an end-switch with a small amount of delay (~0,5sec seems not to long for me - while trying not even one of this scanner )

[daniel_reetz]

You're welcome to use a switch. The idea of using a bike brake is that we can trigger any camera which has a button.

[mellow-yellow]

This weekend, we -- the nonprofit Paper Upgrade Project (http://www.paperupgrade.org) -- assembled the Hackerspace Book Scanner as sent by Daniel. We used Rob's outstanding IKEA-like instructions, which I commented along the way. Assembly took roughly 14 hours, but I am not a hardware person, so that included time spent watching Youtube "drill press" (will not be necessary in later versions) and "pilot hole and counter sink" videos. I did cut myself (very minor) on the glass while flipping pages, so you might add some protective material near or on the glass edges there -- all of which I included in the comments to the instructions. Lastly, a big thanks goes to everyone who has contributed here -- you are wonderful!

[jcolon1100]

Hey Rob,

You and Dan are nuts, I'm reading this board for weeks now, at the beginning I think you will ask 20 or 50$ for the .dxf file.

Surprise it was there for free.

Are you from IKEA guys ? I was reading your instructions guide to assemble the book scanner tonight and it just remenber me those IKEA instruction guide.... really well done... Two thumbs up!!!!

I download the .dxf files last week and show it to some CNC owers in my area for a quote, all was impress with the numbers of parts on each board. Out of three owners, they all say the best wood to do this is Baltic birch plywood. So you right guys....

I got different quote from those guys, one ask 10 hours for programming at 40$ + 2 hours for cutting it at 40$ + the price of the baltic birch at 71.00$ for 5X5" sheet, this guy was in a small town and alone with a CNC router. The best price so far come from a guy in a middle town size with competition, 100 $ for programming + 60$ for cutting the two sheets and 52.50 for each sheets of 5x5 baltic birch.... The 100$ is one time fee after that, if I want an other one or somebody in the Montreal area, we will have to pay the cutting and the price of the sheets.... Let's get that scanner in every small organisation like ours.....

Again thanks for your help!!!

Fab52

PS. English is a second language for me, I read it well, but writing it like a first grade child.... so you may laugh or help me improved my English writing it's up to you .... I leave with that!!!

Hey Fab52,
I see that you found a guy that can cut the scanner parts, could you point me to him? I'd really appreciate it.
Also joyeuse st-jean!
Juan

[mellow-yellow]

I'm getting closer to the complete assembly of this Hackerspace Build. This video shows both mechanical and electrical (http://www.sakeoftruth.com/2010/04/usb- ... ject-pt-1/ using StereoDataMaker) triggers in operation.

Observations/questions:
1. I need to remove the green adjustable clamps (using them is handy while setting things up)
2. Any ideas on how to improve the fastener for the momentary switch?
3. Does this Hackerspace design prevent you from visually removing the spine from view (minimizes Scantailor errors)? With the new standard scanner, it was easy to adjust the camera up and down to avoid shots of the spine and adjacent page. In my setup here, I'm using a wingnut on a bolt, which imobilizes the camera against the support.
4. Blue light. The images from my camera seem blue, which I suspect is the halogen + my setup. Any tips to improve that?
5. Anything else that needs improvement?

[dpc]

Observations/questions:
1. I need to remove the green adjustable clamps (using them is handy while setting things up)
2. Any ideas on how to improve the fastener for the momentary switch?
3. Does this Hackerspace design prevent you from visually removing the spine from view (minimizes Scantailor errors)? With the new standard scanner, it was easy to adjust the camera up and down to avoid shots of the spine and adjacent page. In my setup here, I'm using a wingnut on a bolt, which imobilizes the camera against the support.
4. Blue light. The images from my camera seem blue, which I suspect is the halogen + my setup. Any tips to improve that?
5. Anything else that needs improvement?

1. The clamp wouldn't be necessary if the trigger housing were designed to clamp down firmly on the cable housing and prevent it from moving when you moved the brake lever. You might be able to wrap the cable with some white "hockey" tape and increase its diameter and then put it back in the trigger housing and see if that will keep it from moving. You may also need to add another screw to ensure that the two halves of the housing are clamped tightly together.

2. The position of that switch will need to change between books of various thicknesses, and perhaps even across a scan of a single book, so whatever you come up with will need some adjustment and perhaps pressing the switch with a small compression spring attached to the cradle platform and delaying the camera shutter trigger by 1 sec. or so? Honestly, I'd just put the switch on the handle near the brake lever where you could press it with your thumb.

3. You could get a longer bolt and put a spacer under the camera to move it up slightly, but according to Daniel, the camera mounting system was chosen to keep the camera set to the entire platen surface of one side so that the the DPI is constant (w/10mp camera you'll get slightly over 300DPI at 8.5"x11" pages). It's a "set it and forget it" mindset, as you can get things set up initially to where the gutter isn't in the frame of view and leave it that way no matter what size book you scan.
The other school of thought is to zoom in tight on the page withe every new book you scan so that you get the max DPI for the page. In order to do this you'll need a more advanced camera mount that allows the additional adjustment that you've mentioned.
Which you choose would depend on whether you have anything to gain by eeking out that last bit of DPI on smaller-sized books. If you're scanning mostly text, I don't think it would be worth the hassle to have to change the camera position all the time. If you plan on scanning a lot of graphics/images across a number of different page sizes, you may want that additional DPI. It's your call. I'd use some spacers and get the camera position where it would capture the larger sized books that I planned to scan with the gutter out of the frame, then throw a smaller sized book (paperback) in there and see if you can live with the same DPI across both.

4. That problem can be mitigated by using the camera's white balance settings, or you could do a post-process filter operation. Shoot a white piece of printer paper and tweak the settings until the image looks satisfactory.

5. Are you going to eventually paint the scanner flat black? Try this - put a piece of solid black paper in the cradle, push it up against the platen, and then shoot it to see what sort of interreflections/glare you're getting in your resulting images. Maybe you won't need to, or maybe you'll only need to do a few of the frame pieces and not the entire thing.