The assembly took me 2-2.5 hours. First time assembling anything made from acrylic. I originally tried some GE 100% Silicone Sealant, which was all Home Depot had in their acrylic section, but it became quickly obvious that it was inappropriate. There are a few plastics places in the area, so I picked up a tube of IPS Weld-on #16 solvent cement for acrylic.vitorio wrote:Hi, all, I'm here because there's a bunch of out-of-copyright design books that I'd like to liberate.
I didn't see anyone here talking about it, so I ordered this book scanning platform to try it out and get my feet wet in this whole business: http://www.ponoko.com/design-your-own/p ... m-kit-3150
It's an all-acrylic scanning platform, laser-cut and sold through Ponoko, an on-demand fabrication service, for $70. It's hard to tell in the photos, but it does come with a secondary platen to hold the pages open with, and they recommend photographing in a dark room with a single light source above the book, and a curtain above the camera to reduce reflections.
Here's what it looks like before I take all the paper off the acrylic and glue it together: http://vi.to/scan1 (housecat for scale)
I was hoping it'd work without glue, so I could transport it flat and assemble it on site, but some of the parts are too small for that. Still, all acrylic means it's light, at least. Assembles very quickly. I picked up some silicone something-or-other at Home Depot and I'll assemble it properly soon.
There's only a platform for a single camera, and there's no built-in lighting, and I don't know the quality of the acrylic, but I'll post the results in the right forum once I get it put together and I try it out.
I'm kinda holding out for the bklib kit (bookliberator.org), as that seems to be a lot more compact than the usual designs here, and I'd rather buy a kit than build something from scratch (I'm not really interested in the build, I'm interested in the digitization), but I may do it myself if they take much longer!
If I had to do it again, I'd probably go for the can with the syringe applicator; I got quite a bit on my fingers. In-progress:
Assembling the platform is a little tricky, mostly around the platens, everything interlocks and wasn't always obvious (as a novice) where exactly the parts would sit against each other.
I've also decided I don't like interlocking parts; I'd like something that bolts together. The tolerances on the acrylic are just too tight, and one part, which holds the platens together, broke:
Finally, here it is as the adhesive sets:
I'm not entirely sure it'll be terrible structurally robust, but we'll find out. I'll keep this thread updated as I try it out.