Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Built a scanner? Started to build a scanner? Record your progress here. Doesn't need to be a whole scanner - triggers and other parts are fine. Commercial scanners are fine too.

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GenioDiabolico
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by GenioDiabolico »

dpc was on the money. I got my Siconi mat and then scanned a book. It held MUCH better than my previous mat. By holding it in place reliably it meant that I scanned faster and that the output was more consistent and thus had better results out of Scan Tailor and OCR. Thanks for the suggestion.

One of the things I did was lower the camera so that I could get more book in frame without having to digital zoom. Looking at Mohib's original video I think I went overboard. My camera is now low enough that I need to be careful not to hit it with the platen. I think I am going to raise it a bit and see how that works for the next experiment. The last one was completely acceptable in terms of the final output. Now I'm working on throughput to make this more viable. I'm checking settings on my camera app which I think is reacquiring focus too often (Camera FV on Android) and looking for other ways to get something like the 20 pages/minute dream. I'm closer to 8 right now, which is brutal for long books.

I started writing a blog post detailing my experiences building and using this. I'll post a link when it is up.
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by Konos93a »

the most difficult part with mohib scanner is that you have to keep the same circumstance in every photo. this is difficult for reasons . but since you read english don't care so much

1 you need more source of lights in different directions and you have only one, and even you have more you need and from your side so you have difussion of the light due the plexi glass that you cant manage. that will have some letters under the plexi-glass more blur.take same pictures with and without plexiglass. is one issue that may change the focus spot of your smartphone and you will need recapture pages.

2 if not using much tape or something that will keep on the book stable it will move some pages and you will need to recapture. i see that you face that with a Siconi mat .if you move a little bit the plexi glass whine camera capture or focus maybe you will get a blurred photo.

3 now a systemic issue in mohib scanner. lets say that you take a glass of mirror and put it between plexi glass and camera. if you see from the screen in the middle the lens of the camera that means you have 90 ankle .like you close one eye and watch you eye in a mirror it means you are perfectly opposite .that change in every capture due to the ankle of the movin blexi glass. so you need to fix that .i used abbyy finereader 12 straighten text line command .that mean 6 more steps in my method or 40 more minutes for a 600 pages book. the trick with the mirror helps me reduce the procession time of the images.

4 take a meter and check every 50 pages the distance .keep the distacne stable move camera .if the move is not vertically you need to focus again in the middle of the page. use scan talior experimental to scale the cropped images them in the same level.

5 you need with the same distance and ankles of light to capture a whole book. that means that if you want same results you cant because you will have to recapture missed or blurred pages with different camera-glass distance.

6 maybe you will have compatibility issues with the bluetooth trigger every 100 pages. i am not sure ,i haven't use it yet but try a selfistick jack .

All the issues i referred is because i read the photo and not ocr because i scan greek books. ocr here is not acceptable to read. so i tried to optimize the quality of the images. a good way to check quality is with abbyfinerear command detect the optimal resolution. more than 300 dpi is the same ocr. more than 500 dpi looks the same in the human eye .take a bunch of photos in any distance to see which one is better. and take 3 photos before you start capture a book to see if you are satisfied with the result.

personally when i scanned a 250 pages book i had to recaptured 30 pages and put their images in the right place in the folders.i also had a headacke because i had 2 lights in front of my eyes for 40 minutes. anyway i remember spend 4 hours in a book that need less than 1 with a 2-camera classic diybookscanner to get digitalized.

cheers and good luck
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by Mohib »

Hi GenioDiabolico,

Sorry for the delay in reply, but for some reason I'm no longer getting notifications from the forums when a thread I'm watching is updated so just happened to take look after realising I'd not heard anything from the forums for a while and saw all this activity regarding my scanner.

Firstly, very happy to see another person giving my design a go, and looks like you've got it built very nicely.
GenioDiabolico wrote: 22 Aug 2018, 10:11 I have built this design. I've scanned one paperback and one hardback so far to get the feel for it. It works after a fashion, but I'm still trying to solve the issues of physical drift of the book as I turn the pages.
In my original version of the scanner I used that same sticky shelf liner I can see in your pics. It sort of works but not the best as it drifts and the book drifts too. Eventually I found a thin (1/8" thick) rubber floor mat at a local hardware store (see details here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401#p20514) and just covered my entire table with it. My various monitor stand and other clamps attached to my table (including the TIFLIC Manfroto Clamp) hold it in place so the drift of the mat was solved. See the pic below and other pics earlier in the thread.
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You don't need to cover the whole table but just one end is sufficient (as per the red overlays in the pics) to handle the scanner in different positions.
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As for the book drift, as you can see in my video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU6H7dEzTMY) of the scanner in operation at a pretty good clip (22-25 pages a min, with hardback or paperbacks), its more a matter of developing a feel to hold the book in place with a gentle but firm touch. I find it's not really a problem when it moves (usually a slow drift to the left as it's pushed by the left edge of the platen when you bring it down and push it into the gutter).

As long as you're not zoomed in fully, then a little drift is ok as long as the full page is still in the image because ScanTailor will find the page content.

I find I need to lift the book back into view every 25-35 pages, and it's usually just 10-20 seconds to get it back into position as long as you're able to easily see the screen of your camera so you can check when it's back in place.

Paperbacks are the hardest to keep in place as you reach the last 15% of the book as the back cover really wants to snap the book closed when you lift the platen. I find the best approach there is to make sure when you tilt the platen up, make sure the right edge "digs" into the rubber mat a bit so it doesn't move, so then even if you have to totally lift the book off to turn the page, you can put it back in the right place quite easily because the left edge of the platen, which will register the book's gutter into position, is still in the right place (mostly :) ).
GenioDiabolico wrote: 22 Aug 2018, 10:11 As I tweak the details, I will post a big blog wrapup and link it from here. I have all the other OSes from Mohib, so I needed OS X and Android equivalents, bash scripts and such. Ultimately I will document everything.
Looking forward to your updates.

Sorry you're not using Windows and iPhone, but perhaps you can use Parallels on the Apple to run the software.

As for the camera software, as long as the software has the key features I mention in the documentation (repeated below for reference), almost any camera software is ok.

Required camera software features:
a. High resolution files (hi-quality -- i.e. low compression -- JPG is sufficient) because without this option, the image quality will be poor for OCR.

b. Full manual controls
• white balance,
• shutter speed,
• focus lock (i.e. not when the shutter is to be triggered, but a permanent focus lock at same point for all pictures), and, optionally, manual focus,
• ISO setting. Manual ISO setting is important and should be set low (50) to reduce grain and keep image quality up.

c. Efficient and fast to change the above manual controls (i.e. not a lot of opening and shutting down panels).

d. Less than 2 second wait time between shots.

e. Step zoom in increments (1.1x, 1.2x, etc.), not continuous zoom (for easy resetting the zoom to a consistent value if needed).

f. Click sound when shutter is tripped.

g. Works with Bluetooth triggers.
Apparently not all iPhone camera software works with Bluetooth triggers and all software that does, does not work with all Bluetooth trigers. In general, it seems, the key to ensuring Bluetooth triggers work, is to see if the volume controls can be used as a shutter release (as on the default iPhone camera app) because Bluetooth triggers "press" the volume control. If you choose other camera software, double check it works with the Bluetooth trigger you purchase.

h. On screen grid (useful but not necessary).

i. Software should keep its settings between activations (useful but not necessary).
Last edited by Mohib on 20 Sep 2018, 01:13, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by Mohib »

GenioDiabolico wrote: 31 Aug 2018, 07:52 dpc was on the money. I got my Siconi mat and then scanned a book. It held MUCH better than my previous mat. By holding it in place reliably it meant that I scanned faster and that the output was more consistent and thus had better results out of Scan Tailor and OCR. Thanks for the suggestion.
This sounds interesting. I remember Daniel mentioning these way back when I first posted my original design 4 years ago but never got around to testing them. These look a little thick so I'm wondering if you have several Siconi mats under the book so it stays level and doesn't rock. Or perhaps that's not an issue.
GenioDiabolico wrote: 31 Aug 2018, 07:52 One of the things I did was lower the camera so that I could get more book in frame without having to digital zoom. Looking at Mohib's original video I think I went overboard. My camera is now low enough that I need to be careful not to hit it with the platen. I think I am going to raise it a bit and see how that works for the next experiment.
One of the great things about this design is that's easy to experiment with various configurations. You're able to get quite a bit of adjustment with the macro focus bar, moving it to one end and the camera to one end also. You can also try a longer (8" or 12" macro bar instead of 6"). You'll see in the video it's in various places, specifically because I use it to move the camera to avoid digital zoom.

If you built the design per my dimensions you should be able to use the 6" macro bar at any position without the platen hitting it, but you may need some digital zoom. Point and shoot cameras that project a long lens may not work at the lowest position on the macro focusing bar.

Another option is to do this, and deliberately keystone the image. You lose some quality when image processing to de-keystone, but you can go closer to the book and reduce/eliminate digital zoom.
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I was experimenting with some well rated, but moderate priced, clip-on 2x lenses but they don't work too well. Unless you get it exactly right, the quality at the edge is quite low and doesn't OCR too well. So about 1/3 of the field of view is wasted so you end up having to move the camera further away and defeat the purpose of them.

One thing I noticed in your pics, it seemed like you had the main scanner post on the same side of the table as you're standing. If that's so, don't you find that it comes in the way with your hands and arms when lifting the platen? Or do you have one hand on each side of the post?
Last edited by Mohib on 20 Sep 2018, 01:16, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by Mohib »

I'll try and find a Greek book from my library and do a test, but a lot of the problems you say you are having I don't find I have at all.

As I mentioned 4 years ago when I first posted the design, I developed this scanner primarily for OCR (using Abbyy Fine Reader) after processing the images through Scan Tailor. As you can see from the detailed tests I've posted in this thread (with just an old iPhone 4s) and also in my video, I'm getting close to 100% OCR accuracy. No blurred images, no shaken images, no out of focus images, and that's going at full speed of 25 pages a minute (1500 pages an hour). Perhaps its just a matter of practice, as I will admit you need to scan 2-3 books to get the hang of the scanner as it's not simply "mechanical" but requires learning a little skill to using it effectively.
Konos93a wrote: 04 Sep 2018, 19:43 1 you need more source of lights in different directions and you have only one, and even you have more you need and from your side so you have difussion of the light due the plexi glass that you cant manage. that will have some letters under the plexi-glass more blur.take same pictures with and without plexiglass.
I've scanned dozens of books (well over 5,000 pages) and never had any of these problems. If you're scanning for OCR and processing via Scan Tailor lighting is not an issue at all. Any reasonable lighting is sufficient.
Konos93a wrote: 04 Sep 2018, 19:43 2 if not using much tape or something that will keep on the book stable it will move some pages and you will need to recapture. i see that you face that with a Siconi mat .if you move a little bit the plexi glass whine camera capture or focus maybe you will get a blurred photo.
Yes the book can move, but I've never had it move while taking the image. It only drifts as you turn the pages. I've never had a blurred image from the book moving while taking the image. Theoretically all kinds of things are possible (moving the plexiglass, moving the book, table wobbling, etc.) but in practice nothing happens if one is just marginally careful.
Konos93a wrote: 04 Sep 2018, 19:43 3 now a systemic issue in mohib scanner. lets say that you take a glass of mirror and put it between plexi glass and camera. if you see from the screen in the middle the lens of the camera that means you have 90 ankle .like you close one eye and watch you eye in a mirror it means you are perfectly opposite .that change in every capture due to the ankle of the movin blexi glass. so you need to fix that .i used abbyy finereader 12 straighten text line command .that mean 6 more steps in my method or 40 more minutes for a 600 pages book. the trick with the mirror helps me reduce the procession time of the images.
I'm sorry I don't understand what you're explaining here but there's no need whatsoever to be so precise with taking the images if you're processing the image with Scan Tailor.

If you're not planning to process the images with Scan Tailor, before OCR, I would not recommend using my scanner design.
Konos93a wrote: 04 Sep 2018, 19:43 (From your first point): is one issue that may change the focus spot of your smartphone and you will need recapture pages.

4 take a meter and check every 50 pages the distance .keep the distacne stable move camera .if the move is not vertically you need to focus again in the middle of the page. use scan talior experimental to scale the cropped images them in the same level.

5 you need with the same distance and ankles of light to capture a whole book. that means that if you want same results you cant because you will have to recapture missed or blurred pages with different camera-glass distance.
I've done extensive focus tests with books upto 6" thick and posted the results here. Most important with all book scanner is manual focus and/or focus lock. Most point and shoot cameras and phone cameras have very good depth of field and so you can easily scan 50 pages (i.e. turn 50 page leaves), so about half of the 100 sheets of paper in a 200 page book, without needing to refocus and no loss of OCR quality. Refocusing (depending on your camera or camera software) is about a 20-30 second process.
Konos93a wrote: 04 Sep 2018, 19:43 6 maybe you will have compatibility issues with the bluetooth trigger every 100 pages. i am not sure ,i haven't use it yet but try a selfistick jack .
Using the Bluetooth trigger I mention in the documentation, I've had no real problems. Once in a while I might need to reconnect the phone and trigger but this happens once or twice every 2-3 books. I have no other Bluetooth hardware anywhere near me, so perhaps that helps avoid conflicts.
Konos93a wrote: 04 Sep 2018, 19:43 All the issues i referred is because i read the photo and not ocr because i scan greek books. ocr here is not acceptable to read. so i tried to optimize the quality of the images. a good way to check quality is with abbyfinerear command detect the optimal resolution. more than 300 dpi is the same ocr. more than 500 dpi looks the same in the human eye .take a bunch of photos in any distance to see which one is better. and take 3 photos before you start capture a book to see if you are satisfied with the result.
As I said I'll try and find a Greek book from a library and run some tests.
Konos93a wrote: 04 Sep 2018, 19:43 personally when i scanned a 250 pages book i had to recaptured 30 pages and put their images in the right place in the folders.i also had a headacke because i had 2 lights in front of my eyes for 40 minutes. anyway i remember spend 4 hours in a book that need less than 1 with a 2-camera classic diybookscanner to get digitalized.
Again I've not had any problems with lights, and generally never use 1, let alone 2 lights, when scanning as I process all images through Scan Tailor. I regularly scan 250 page hard books in about 15-20 mins (start to finish, including covers, flipping the book around, etc.) with no bad images.

My feeling is that, like cars, there is a very strong personal component to what scanner design a person may find suitable for them. I found most of the designs on these forums -- though very brilliant in many cases -- not fitting my temperament or construction skills and resources (tools, workshop, etc.) , and so I developed the TIFLIC scanner. It meets all my original design criteria and works very, very well for me (as can be seen in the videos) both from a simple construction point of view and from a results point of view (speed, quality, portability, flexibility, etc.). Just as other designs didn't suit me, perhaps the TIFLIC scanner just doesn't suit you and other designs will work better for you.
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by GenioDiabolico »

Thanks for the reply. I posted my blog last night, long discussion of the ins and outs of my experience. I also posted my bash script equivalents of yours to GitHub in case anyone wants to fiddle with them.

http://evilgeniuschronicles.org/2018/09 ... okscanner/

https://github.com/evilgeniuschronicles ... ok-Scanner

Using the Siconi mat, I don't adjust the book at all at any point. I push it down as hard as I can at the beginning, and it holds all the way through. I am standing on the same side as the arm but that is not generally a problem. I'd rather have it like you do but the right side of my desk has no lip to clamp it to.

Looking at the timestamps of my most recent run, I did right side batch of 204 pages in 18 minutes, the left side also in 18. That gets me to ~680 pages / hour but that is all in from beginning to end of the main scan run. A few files just didn't take so there were a few minutes of figuring out the missing ones and filling in. If you are adjusting the book every 30 pages, what is your actual realized throughput from beginning of book to end?

I have tried to get it so that ScanTailor can do all its work on automatic. My first few attempts when it was drifting a lot were labor intensive, now I just let ScanTailor place the boxes and they almost always work. The end results are quite positive and getting better.

Thanks very much! I appreciate any feedback people can give me.
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by Mohib »

GenioDiabolico wrote: 26 Sep 2018, 10:00 Thanks for the reply. I posted my blog last night, long discussion of the ins and outs of my experience. I also posted my bash script equivalents of yours to GitHub in case anyone wants to fiddle with them.

http://evilgeniuschronicles.org/2018/09 ... okscanner/

https://github.com/evilgeniuschronicles ... ok-Scanner
That's a really nice write up! I'm sure it will help a lot of people. Below I've given some feedback on some of the points you raised that might help others.
GenioDiabolico wrote: 26 Sep 2018, 10:00 Using the Siconi mat, I don't adjust the book at all at any point. I push it down as hard as I can at the beginning, and it holds all the way through.
This is good news. I think I'll have to look into it. After Daniel mentioned something similar way back (here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3007) I looked into them but never got around to testing them.

I also found this product (that uses "nano-suction"), but it seems they only sell it in bulk and I hadn't found a retail supplier for it then (perhaps there is one now). They say 6" square will hold 10lbs vertically:

http://www.everstik.com/index.html#strong
http://www.everstik.com/everstik-nanosu ... works.html
GenioDiabolico wrote: 26 Sep 2018, 10:00 I am standing on the same side as the arm but that is not generally a problem. I'd rather have it like you do but the right side of my desk has no lip to clamp it to.
Have you tried the back of your desk (as you'll see where I have it for when I'm not using the lamp). You'll may need to add the extension pipe to push the camera forward so it's nearer you and you're not having to lean over the table to get the platen under it.
GenioDiabolico wrote: 26 Sep 2018, 10:00 Looking at the timestamps of my most recent run, I did right side batch of 204 pages in 18 minutes, the left side also in 18. That gets me to ~680 pages / hour but that is all in from beginning to end of the main scan run. A few files just didn't take so there were a few minutes of figuring out the missing ones and filling in. If you are adjusting the book every 30 pages, what is your actual realized throughput from beginning of book to end?
Back here:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401#p20508
I posted the time stamps from my first real test with this new design (i.e. using the smartphone and Bluetooth trigger) as compared to the original version using a point and shoot (with no focus lock). I did 122 right hand pages of the book in 8.2 mins.
Mohib wrote: 26 Mar 2017, 03:56 Just did my first real scan test of a hard cover book (right hand pages):

122 pages in 8.2 mins (start to finish, all in) (time stamps attached)
= 14.9 pages/min
= 892 pages/hour

That 8.2 mins includes twice pausing scanning to adjust the macro focus rail a few mm down (per the reasons given in my original post for my scanner).
Today I'm faster than that because:

a) I've had more practice and am able to scan without moving the book as much (and, from what you've said, the Siconi mat now all but eliminates the book shifting), and

b) I don't need to adjust the macro focus rail (which I used to adjust to try and keep the page image scale consistent but now I normalize the image scale with the software scripts). Also there was time wasted refocusing after adjusting the macro focus rail.

I think b) accounted for about 45-60 seconds of the 8.2 mins, so say 45 seconds to be conservative, that would put it upto around 985 pages/hour on my first test.

I think the Scioni mat will probably cut off another 30 seconds of fiddling with the book and take it upto about 1050 pages/hour or about 17.5 pages/min.

So that was back then on my first real test.

One thing I think that makes a big difference is your own state of mind and the scanning environment. Given the human element involved, since you are "part of the scanner" machine, a clean, clutter free, obstruction free desk with ample elbow room that allows for fluid page turning without any distractions that you have to focus on makes a big difference. I think having the scanner post in the front, rather at the back, would slow me down quite a bit. You might want to try moving it to the back of the desk or trying another desk or dining table that allows it to be clamped to the side.

Practice since then has let me learn how to "pre-click" the blue-tooth trigger. So I actually press the button while I'm still bringing the platen down so the slight delay between when I click and when the camera shutter fires is eliminated. If you look closely in the hard back test, in my video, you'll might just be able to notice me doing this "pre-clicking" in the last 5 pages.

You mentioned similar a delay in your post (along with time lost from autofocus):
Configuring your camera app so the camera is snapped as quickly as possible helps. Mine takes too long and adding a second per photo adds at least 5 minutes to a 300 page book. I’ve tried different autofocus options to speed this up. Thus far I have had limited success.
Manual focus or focus lock is essential in cutting down camera delays (and was the big delay I had with my point and shoot in my original design).

Pretty much all scanners that have a max rating of x pages per min will lose about 25% of that max speed when scanning a full book due to all kinds of things that pop up (pages sticking, fatigue, etc.) So I think 1,100-1,200 pages per hour (18-20 pages per min) is probably the best I think will be possible with the TIFLIC scanner (assuming hardcover books).

I've timed videos of many twin camera setups I've seen here on the forums, and they manage about ~1,000 to 1,400 pages per hour (IIRC Daniel's scanner was clocking in at about 1,600-1,700) because a lot of time is wasted between turning pages (because the motion to lift and drop the platen is quite large and time consuming). Note also, these would be around their top speeds as timed from a brief 1-2 min scanning session shown in the videos and not the actual net speed from doing a full book with any complications that may arise (stuck pages, etc.).

So given TIFLIC's simple construction and single camera operation, I think the top speed at around 1,500 pages per hour and a net speed of 1,100 to 1,200 pages per hour is an excellent result.

You also mentioned in your post:
I have tried to get it so that ScanTailor can do all its work on automatic. My first few attempts when it was drifting a lot were labor intensive, now I just let ScanTailor place the boxes and they almost always work. The end results are quite positive and getting better.
That's good to hear. Yes, ScanTailor is very good and the better the original images the better job it does.

Now, more from you post ...
... pick 6 holes if you want to buy exactly what is in the plans. It would be possible to in fact do 4 or 2 holes, depending on the flexibility you desire from your platen. In practice, I’ve been using mine for two weeks and have yet to move the handle to different holes. It costs $2 per hole drilled, so I gambled $8 on future flexibility.
I rarely move my platen handle also. I usually have it attached to the holes closest to the centre (i.e. attached to hole #1) because that lets me provide the most even pressure on the page and also have enough leverage to press the page flat at the spine too. The main reason for the extra holes was to get rid of handle reflections (if you're not processing with Scan Tailor) as I explained here:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401&start=20#p20553
All of this will be presented below. Mohib’s plans are sufficient to build a scanner but what they lack is an Instructable style “Step 1 – do this” flow. I will attempt to put a little of that in.
Yes I know that's missing from the instructions. I was planning on writing them up, but never finished it. However, I do have quite detailed, step by step, instructions in my original version, though they need to be adapted to the new version as there's less to do. You can get the original instructions here:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3007&start=20#p17780
This is where those times spending 10 minutes finding me the right 17 cent screw got repaid, as I ultimately dropped around $100 in materials and tools there working on the scanner.
I hear you! I spent hours at the local hardware stores looking for various nuts and bolts, and going through lots of iterations till I finally got the right ones!
One of the parts in question was the barrel nut. This is those little things you find in Ikea style flat pack furniture, cylinders with a slot for screwdrivers on the ends and a threaded hole through the center. The plans call for two with 1/4-20 threading and a length of 1 1/2", which are hard to come by in the US. The plans cite a supplier in the UK but shipping is prohibitive for these things. I wanted to avoid that. Luckily, True Value had the same thing but in 3/4" length. I decided to experiment with this and only buy the UK version if absolutely necessary. Spoiler Alert – the 3/4" version worked.
Yes the barrel nut is a problem to get. I got mine from Ikea after a lot of begging at their spare parts dept! :) Glad to hear the 3/4" version worked because I never tried it. However, I can see how it would make getting the steel cable attached a problem since the 3/4" version can't anchor into holes in both sides of the 45 degree elbow. That's sort of essential for the handle for the cable to stay in place when the handle is not attached to the platen itself.
... I won’t lie to you, the platen handle is by far the most challenging part of this whole thing. The steel cable holding it together is the worst bit of that so once you make it past that, it’s all downhill.
Assuming you have the 1.5" version, I had posted this "assembly video" of the platen to show how I get the cable in place:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401&start=50#p20658
I also went through the plans and ordered most of the things from Amazon, such as the tripod ball head, the focus rail and the star knobs. Where I think Mohib is crazy is in not using affiliate links to Amazon because he’s just leaving 4% of all those purchases on the table. I’ll list out all the stuff here with my affiliate link because I am not crazy. If Mohib ever lets me know of an associate ID for him, then I will swap them out for his because he deserves the money more than me. However, someone does deserve it.
That's kind of you, and once I've figured out how to get setup and have my affiliate account I'll let you know. 4% will pay for coffee! :)
Step 3 – Drill a 1/4” hole in the center of the 1 1/2” PVC caps. Threaded rod will go through these. From the photos in the diagrams, it looks like the cap that connects to the clamp has extra holes and extra bolts in it. I did not drill these holes and had a few bolts left over from the original manifest. I am not sure what to do with these, so I ended up skipping.
I had some incorrectly drilled holes in them, but there is really just one extra hole needed in the cap that fastens to the Manfrotto clamp (see page 29 in the PDF instructions). That extra hole is for that small M5x20 (20mm length) and goes into the Manfrotto clamp to prevent the pipe cap from turning because if it does, I find it ends up unthreading the rod and the whole thing gets loose.
A note on the color of the materials: careful readers will note I mentioned getting white PVC parts for the camera arm while noting those parts are black in the photo of my camera arm. I found early on that the white pieces showed up in reflection on the platen, so I spray painted them black.

... Mohib lists his LED lamp as optional in the original plans but I found in my early tests that I wasn’t getting enough light on the book and it was very subject to shadows.
Ok now with respect to reflection, lights, focus and OCR, I did extensive tests (see posts below (and more in the threads after the ones below) for results; some are with my original scanner and point and shoot camera).

In general I found that if you're post processing with ScanTailor, as long as the light is "reasonable" and you're not getting a real "mirror like" reflection, they all disappear. As you can see from the images in the posts below, I'm not scanning in a darkened room, using daylight or general incandescent room lighting (without worrying about white balance), have lots of reflections and even the camera shows up in the image, but it all drops away during Scan Tailor processing without any impact on OCR.

Lighting tests
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3007&start=20#p17723

Reflection tests
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401&start=20#p20549

Focus tests
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401&start=40#p20576
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401&start=40#p20580

OCR tests
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3401&start=40#p20615
GenioDiabolico
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by GenioDiabolico »

Thanks for the input. I will fiddle with the configuration of the arm and see if I can get it connected to the back of the desk. At this point, I'm looking for any speed ups I can find so will be fine-tuning all that. I'm firmly in the ~600 page/hour range and want to get that closer to 1000.

FYI regarding the barrel nuts: I have the 3/4" PVC for the handle and the 3/4" barrel nuts do work but are a bit scary in that they basically are flush with the edge of the outer part of the pipe. IOW, there is only the thickness of the PVC holding them in. I am going to London next month and had one of my colleagues order 5 packs of 4 of the barrel nuts you recommend with the free shipping. I'll bring them home, take a few for myself and happily send out tiny envelopes with 2 nuts to anyone in the USA who requests them.

The MAIN GOAL of all this effort is to get paper books of moderate value that I still want to read OUT OF MY HOUSE! I now have a little stack of books by the front door and every time we go to the library, we take them and drop them in the donation box. I have plenty of collectible ones I'll always keep and signed copies, but the riff-raff going away will allow more room to treat the special ones as special. Watching my shelves slowly go from spilling over with triple stack disheveled piles to manageable makes the whole thing worthwhile.

THANK YOU!
dpc
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Location: Issaquah, WA

Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by dpc »

I have the 3/4" PVC for the handle and the 3/4" barrel nuts do work but are a bit scary in that they basically are flush with the edge of the outer part of the pipe. IOW, there is only the thickness of the PVC holding them in.
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that the ends of the cross dowel are flush with the outside diameter of the 45 degree PVC fitting and you're worried about horizontal movement of the cross dowel (perhaps the hole is slightly larger than the cross dowel diameter)? If that's the case, why can't you just epoxy the ends of cross dowel to the fitting and be done with it (or put a wrap of tape or inner tube around the outside of the fitting)? You don't need to remove that cross dowel once it's correctly oriented in the PVC fitting, right? Personally I think the flush fit is cleaner than having the cross dowel extended beyond the OD of the fitting.

Also, I don't know if you have the cable run inside the PVC parts of the platen arm from Mohib's design, but instead I'd use small diameter shock cord instead of a steel cable (similar to collapsible tent pole design). The elastic shock cord doesn't require such tight length tolerances and is far easier to install. I'd also permanently glue the 90 degree elbows to the top cross member of the handle, and glue the 45 degree elbows to the vertical members. There's no advantage to be gained by those elbows dangling loose.
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Mohib
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Re: Original ~600pg/hr, very portable scanner now achieving ~900pg-1100pg/hr

Post by Mohib »

Hi DPC,

About my using a cable vs. gluing everything, a while back you had asked:
dpc wrote: 15 May 2017, 19:57 What's the purpose of that cable that's threaded through the PVC tubing? Is that just to hold the individual pieces together?
Perhaps you missed my answer:
Mohib wrote: 15 May 2017, 20:05 Yes, to avoid gluing parts so they can be reused with a larger platen (i.e. a longer cross bar and cable is all that's needed) and also let me remove the break leaver since it's not stuck in the platen handle (which is why in my current incarnation with the blue-tooth trigger the break lever is gone!).

Although, I think if you glue everything except the 90 degree elbows and the horizontal cross bar (i.e. the piece you grip with your hand), the cable would not be needed to hold it all together, but still let it be dismantled to remove the brake leaver or use a larger platen).

Mainly, I didn't glue anything because I wanted to

a) avoid having to ensure everything is perfectly square for gluing (because I can never do it properly! :) ), and

b) I wanted to be able to experiment with various configurations, handle sizes (which I reduced by 1" from my original version when I moved to the 45 degree elbows), platen sizes, vertical post heights (which turned out to be very useful and let me do this: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3411#p20590 ), horizontal post length (which I actually extend when using a lamp to keep it's reflection off the platen), etc..
Basically, by not gluing anything, it's like having a Lego or Mechano "scanning kit" that you can build and reconfigure to work better or for different types of documents. :)
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