Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

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Doranwen
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Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by Doranwen »

As far as I can tell, the parts list I found for this scanner lists the following lighting elements needing purchasing: https://www.instructables.com/Book-Scan ... ages-an-h/

30 watt energy saving lamp
clip on lamp holder
aluminium meat tin reflector

In the Instructable itself, he says this:

"I have used a 20 watt LED floodlight, which I got on eBay. You need to get one without the PIR motion sensor. This gives a very bright and even light across the surface of the book."

Later he mentions using a bicycle mount to attach the lamp to the tubing.

I haven't a clue about any of this. Is there more recent/different advice out there regarding the lighting that I should be taking into account? What exactly am I looking for to purchase? Am assuming Home Depot will have a lot of this (if not, I have to order online).
cday
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by cday »

Doranwen wrote: 04 May 2021, 12:04 In the Instructable itself, [David Landin] says:

"I have used a 20 watt LED floodlight, which I got on eBay. You need to get one without the PIR motion sensor. This gives a very bright and even light across the surface of the book."
Regarding the LED lamp the following considerations apply:

o You need a 'line' powered lamp rather than any other type.

o You don't want a 'PIR' lamp as it will not produce a continuous light output.

o You don't want a lamp described as 'RGB', which is designed to be able to output light of a selected color.

o Lamps are described as producing light with a specified color temperature, either 'warm' or 'cool' light which is closer to daylight', I'm not sure whether 'cool' light might be better, and that may depend on the camera used.

o The lamp shown in David Landin's Instructables article has a single silicon light emitting chip surrounded by a large reflector: that was the usual design when he wrote but lamps available now include a variety of designs using multiple silicon chips in a larger array which results in a somewhat smaller reflector. I suspect that the single-chip design in the center of a larger reflector will produce more even light although I can't be sure.

Checking Home Depot they do stock a potentially suitable design although it is a multi-chip design:

20-Watt 120-Degree Black Outdoor Integrated LED Flood Light

Looking on eBay, there are other multi-chip designs offered with even larger arrays that definitely don't look suitable. Searching on eBay, at least on the U.S. site, I found it difficult to filter results to display only lamps that meet the basic requirement among other types of lamp. Tantilisingly though, on the eBay U.K. site there are some lamps that not only look ideal but seem very reasonably priced, so it might be worth persisting.

My suggestion would be to spend some time searching on the eBay site for a lamp of similar design to the one shown in the Instructables article, which might also be less expensive than the above lamp, or otherwise use the above HomeDepot lamp and hope that the light produced is sufficiently even. On eBay ensure that any lamp will be shipped from the U.S. rather than China.

As far as I can tell, the parts list I found for this scanner lists the following lighting elements needing purchasing: https://www.instructables.com/Book-Scan ... ages-an-h/

30 watt energy saving lamp
clip on lamp holder
aluminium meat tin reflector

Later he mentions using a bicycle mount to attach the lamp to the tubing.
Are you sure those references were in the Instructables article, I don't see them, maybe in one of the linked videos?

Regarding mounting the lamp, I'm not entirely clear how it is suggested to mount it: the idea, I presume, is to enable the lamp's height to be adjusted while keeping it positioned over the center of the platen. In one of his later posts David Landin refers to needing to raise the lamp when he changed to a wider-angle platen. While it probably should be possible to follow his basic design, if necessary the lamp could probably reasonably easily be mounted at least temporarily on a separate stand constructed in any convenient any way, while the optimum position is determined.
Doranwen
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by Doranwen »

cday wrote: 07 May 2021, 10:50 Regarding the LED lamp the following considerations apply:

o You need a 'line' powered lamp rather than any other type.

o You don't want a 'PIR' lamp as it will not produce a continuous light output.

o You don't want a lamp described as 'RGB', which is designed to be able to output light of a selected color.

o Lamps are described as producing light with a specified color temperature, either 'warm' or 'cool' light which is closer to daylight', I'm not sure whether 'cool' light might be better, and that may depend on the camera used.

o The lamp shown in David Landin's Instructables article has a single silicon light emitting chip surrounded by a large reflector: that was the usual design when he wrote but lamps available now include a variety of designs using multiple silicon chips in a larger array which results in a somewhat smaller reflector. I suspect that the single-chip design in the center of a larger reflector will produce more even light although I can't be sure.
Good to know! Will keep all that in mind.
cday wrote: 07 May 2021, 10:50 Checking Home Depot they do stock a potentially suitable design although it is a multi-chip design:

20-Watt 120-Degree Black Outdoor Integrated LED Flood Light

Looking on eBay, there are other multi-chip designs offered with even larger arrays that definitely don't look suitable. Searching on eBay, at least on the U.S. site, I found it difficult to filter results to display only lamps that meet the basic requirement among other types of lamp. Tantilisingly though, on the eBay U.K. site there are some lamps that not only look ideal but seem very reasonably priced, so it might be worth persisting.

My suggestion would be to spend some time searching on the eBay site for a lamp of similar design to the one shown in the Instructables article, which might also be less expensive than the above lamp, or otherwise use the above HomeDepot lamp and hope that the light produced is sufficiently even. On eBay ensure that any lamp will be shipped from the U.S. rather than China.
Oof, I haven't tried to shop on eBay with my 'net. I guess I'll have to give it a try. I know I can do Amazon, but the Home Depot site, for instance, is almost impossible - all the pages display totally distorted and never load properly. It all seems to depend on how complex each site's pages are and exactly how they load.
cday wrote: 07 May 2021, 10:50 Are you sure those references were in the Instructables article, I don't see them, maybe in one of the linked videos?
I don't remember where I got that list! It was a spreadsheet, and it was linked *somewhere*. But not in the Instructable. In the Instructables article, it only has what's listed in Step 19: Lighting.
cday wrote: 07 May 2021, 10:50 Regarding mounting the lamp, I'm not entirely clear how it is suggested to mount it: the idea, I presume, is to enable the lamp's height to be adjusted while keeping it positioned over the center of the platen. In one of his later posts David Landin refers to needing to raise the lamp when he changed to a wider-angle platen. While it probably should be possible to follow his basic design, if necessary the lamp could probably reasonably easily be mounted at least temporarily on a separate stand constructed in any convenient any way, while the optimum position is determined.
Is there an issue with having the light permanently on a separate stand? Since the cradle isn't changing locations, the light would then be constant with the cradle the entire time… It'd save trying to figure out how/where to mount it, since I don't have a mount for it.
cday
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by cday »

I have had a further look at the eBay U.S. site and managed to filter the results that are displayed successfully using the search term "LED floodlight 20 watt -pir -par20 -r20" without quotes. I was surprised how few results that left, as was also the case searching on the eBay U.K. site, possibly as a product that is readily available locally, and with its size and weight not ideal for inexpensive shipping.

My feeling that the type of LED lamp shown in David Landin's posts, which has a single light emitter centered in a large reflector, is likely to provide the most even light is ultimately only an assumption, although I think it is likely to be correct, and David Landin commented on the even light output. It does seem, though, that the general design of LED floodlights has moved now to multichip designs within a somewhat smaller reflector, no doubt as production costs have been minimised as is normal practice when mass producing a product in a competitive market.

My current advice would therefore still be to purchase a single-chip design if you are able to locate one when you are ready to buy, otherwise to buy the HomeDepot design linked in my previous post, which looks a reasonable design for its type, unless you locate a better alternative elsewhere.

In the event that the light output for the lamp you buy is not as even as you would like, there is always the fallback of using the method advocated by dpc of adjusting for uneven illumination by imaging a blank white sheet to obtain a profile of the actual light variation.

Regarding the question of mounting the lamp, given some uncertainty about the optimum position with the various design changes since David Landin first posted, I was thinking that while testing mounting it on a separate stand which could be easily adjusted might be useful. I was thinking of anything that could be constructed easily using lumber or maybe pvc tubes. A separate stand could also be used for the final build if there were a reason for doing so, those are the sort of practical issues that your brother could consider when the time comes.
Doranwen
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by Doranwen »

Had to give up on Home Depot. I can load the individual product page that was linked (and that's a first, usually they display all distorted) but with my 'net I *cannot* get any browsing page to load whatsoever. I tried calling the local store and my call got dropped twice (first time almost right away, and the second time I'm not sure if they even got the SKU of that one product correctly - the employee kept missing one of the digits I said). So between the 'net and the cell service here, it's more frustration than i can manage, trying to get anywhere with looking at Home Depot's site. I'd have to go there in person - and the guy did say that most of their lights are only online, and they don't have computers for people to go browsing their products, I don't think. So it's sort of pointless. :/

Amazon *does* load OK for me, even with browsing (go fig) so I browsed the LED lights there and came up with this page of search results: https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=led+flood+ ... owse-bin_1

Of those, only this one looks like it *might* be what I'm looking for: https://smile.amazon.com/Trendmart®-Wat ... e-Lighting(Black/dp/B013O9WOX4/
It does appear to be a single-chip design, though it says it's Warm, which is not what you were suggesting (all the cool light ones seem to be multi-chip types). I can't tell about all of the other features or not, though.

EDIT: Just found this one: https://www.amazon.com/Trendmart-Outdoo ... 00ODUC97U/
Says it's cool white, it's 30 watt, looks like a single chip, can't see any sign of PIR, it has a standard plug… Any reason I shouldn't get this one?
cday
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by cday »

I've had a look at the links to lamps in your post, and also a brief further look at the lamps available both in the US and UK. It does seem to be difficult to find a single-chip design similar to the one David Landin used, and probably too late unless you can find one from a different source in the US before they quite possibly are no longer available.

One detail I noticed in the links is that the lamp weights shown are quite a bit higher than the weight of the HomeDepot lamp, a recently introduced product, something like 3.4lb versus 1.7lb. I expect David Landin's lamp was towards the higher weight, so a lighter lamp might be somewhat easier to mount. These lamps are designed for use outdoors, so that is a factor in their design, but the aluminium body also acts as a heat sink to dissipate the 20W or more power of the lamp.

As far as the color 'warm' or 'cold' is concerned, I have no strong basis for my suggestion that a colder light would be better, so don't put any weight on that. I have decided to start a new thread on that specific point not withstanding this existing thread, purely in the hope of getting some useful advice when so few members are posting now!


Doranwen
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by Doranwen »

Yeah, there's definitely a weight difference on the two I linked - the 20-watt one on Amazon (which looked to be single-chip, but I can't tell for sure) is only slightly heavier than the 20-watt one on Home Depot. The 30-watt one was significantly heavier, so if 20-watt is sufficient lighting, I'm thinking best to stick with that.

And I have options there - the 30-watt one I looked at has a 20-watt version that's also cool white: https://smile.amazon.com/Trendmart-Outd ... 00ODUC9CU/
(Same link as above, note that one can switch the wattage.) It's also approximately 2 pounds, which isn't much more than the Home Depot one.

So the real question IS the warm vs. cold, I guess… Unless there's some reason *not* to get the Trendmart brand lights. I can't order from Home Depot online with my current 'net so Amazon will be MUCH easier to deal with.

From what I can tell, I think the cool light will definitely be better - warm light is likely to generate a yellow-ish cast to things. So I'm inclined to purchase the cool white then. I can't wait weeks to decide because my brother will be here in mid-June and I'll need to have that sorted out and here by then.
cday
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by cday »

The Trendmart Flood Light you linked to on Amazon looks suitable but there is a problem: it is currently not available, and I would think that it has quite possibly been discontinued and likely will not become available again... :(

As there are currently relatively few LED lamps offered on eBay and Amazon, I would suspect that floodlights are readily available from local stores that stock those kind of items. Home Depot seems dominant but I imagine there are other smaller businesses that might still have one of the single-chip designs in stock. I realise you are quite limited in your location and with your poor internet, but perhaps you could make inquires as to which other types of business, such as other local retail outlets and maybe electrical wholesalers supplying electricians, might have one in stock in your area.

Does anyone in the US reading this have any suggestions :?:
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by dpc »

I've bought those single-chip floodlights on eBay in the past. I no longer use those though and have moved to lights similar to these.
Doranwen
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Re: Lighting for PVC pipe scanner

Post by Doranwen »

cday wrote: 11 May 2021, 09:53 The Trendmart Flood Light you linked to on Amazon looks suitable but there is a problem: it is currently not available, and I would think that it has quite possibly been discontinued and likely will not become available again... :(
That's odd, because it's in my cart and I could've purchased it just fine yesterday (still could,for that matter - if it weren't available, it wouldn't be still in my cart). It definitely does NOT say it's unavailable to me! Perhaps it's region-restricted?
dpc wrote: 11 May 2021, 11:13 I've bought those single-chip floodlights on eBay in the past. I no longer use those though and have moved to lights similar to these.
Interesting. What are your reasons for doing so? I note in the reviews for that particular item they say the light is very even but not as bright as they'd like, and some said that a tripod was needed to support the light properly, or that the mounting unit provided with it was not suitable. I can poke around Amazon to see if there's a better one out there but what exactly would I be looking for in terms of filtering/searching by?
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