Announcing the Archivist Quill

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jck57
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by jck57 »

Semi-automatic operation should be relatively easy to do. I would use a cheap windshield wiper motor, adjustable speed control, and a deadman foot-switch. Lift would be adjustable for different book sizes thus saving time.
dtic
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by dtic »

duerig wrote:motorized system .. automatic up and down motion ... takes the human muscle out of the system which is a big win.
Unless a part of full automation a motorized platen may slow things down. I say add a treadle and keep the handle for hand fine tuning. The (counterweighted) up moves should be no match for leg power. It looks like you could simply add two of the same kind of bearings to the back side of the frame and pull a string through each and then down through a gap between table and wall to a treadle, for example two wood t-shapes, a metal hinge and two hooks to secure the strings. The counterweight can be relocated to the top of the treadle where it doesn't block the view.

Full schematics attached :D
t.png
t.png (295.62 KiB) Viewed 19720 times
aku
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by aku »

On page-turning.
Recently seen on MakeZine http://makezine.com/2016/02/10/robots-g ... e-fingers/.
Page pickup via electro-adhesion (In the video).
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Antoha-spb
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by Antoha-spb »

Hi Jonathon,

Your design is truly great! A few questions if you don't mind:

how thick are the aluminium profiles that you use?

what is the distance from each camera to the semi-platen it captures?

do you use zoom on cameras?

are focusing and zooming set via CHDK?

Thanks and regards,
Anton
duerig
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by duerig »

dtic, when I was imagining a treadle, I had pictured turning the whole thing around and attaching it to the handlebar. I can see that having the handlebar in front and available for minor adjustments would be a win, though. How would you rig the rope? Right now there is a single pulley in the center. One option would be to have two separate ropes attached to the cradle lifter and two different pulleys in the center. Is this what you had in mind? I am slightly worried that with the different magnitude of forces on the handlebar side vs. the treadle side that this would make the cradle more likely to twist. Your actual treadle design is simpler than what I had envisioned. I think I might try it out. :)

aku, that does look pretty cool. It would make it easier to get just one page at a time. I look forward to seeing it get out of the lab and into the hands of ordinary makers. :)

@antoha-spb, Thanks! I am using 20mm aluminum beams. The distance from the camera to the platen side it points at is about 550mm. It will vary slightly depending on the camera and how you mount it. I do use some zoom. So far I have found about 20%-30% zoom works best on ELPH 160 cameras. The zoom and focus are all done via CHDK. See https://github.com/Tenrec-Builders/pi-scan for the software. Zoom is a setting and focus is fixed once at the beginning of each session and then locked.

-D
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Antoha-spb
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by Antoha-spb »

Thanks again.

I am asking about cameras because I didn't yet realize if the quality of shots (Canon PS A1400) depends on zoom factor. I made a series of test shots and found no quality issues with sharpness, noise and barrel when zooming up to 50%-60% of its 5x range.

And since every pixel counts, how much of width and height of the image (in %) do you leave for margins (when digitizing the book of a maxumum size)?
aku
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by aku »

aku, that does look pretty cool. It would make it easier to get just one page at a time. I look forward to seeing it get out of the lab and into the hands of ordinary makers. :)
Well, doing a Google search for https://www.google.ca/search?q=diy+electroadhesion has quite a bit of results, instructables, robotics, etc. So, makers seem to be able to use it already.
dtic
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by dtic »

duerig wrote:two separate ropes attached to the cradle lifter and two different pulleys in the center. Is this what you had in mind?
Yep. Though another alternative is to remove the current handlebar and put a small handle on the front side of the tray only for very small fine tuning since the main lift is done by the treadle anyway. But when you're using the treadle to lift the tray upwards to the fixed glass wedge you might not need to fine tune the motion by hand at all. I've only used a treadle for the reverse case, lifting a glass wedge up in order to get in and flip the page and then release to let it fall back down. Then hand pressing down the last bit helps flatten the book page.
low_48
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by low_48 »

I hadn't logged on for a while, just catching up. Any plans to make an oversized unit? Or plans to offer an electrical only package? I plan on scanning vintage newspapers.
duerig
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Re: Announcing the Archivist Quill

Post by duerig »

low_48, I do hope to have a larger model at some point. I will probably aim for 24" tall by 17" wide or so. But there are a lot of unanswered questions. One of the big questions is how to scan large items at high DPI. The cameras I am using now are 20MP and on a platen that size, you end up with 200 DPI max. For a newspaper with small type, that seems very low indeed. So let me know if you have any ideas.

I am happy to sell just an electronics pack. Just contact me at help at tenrec dot builders if you want to talk details. I changed the store because the old way was causing confusion and very few people were interested in an electronics pack without a kit.

-D
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