Air-Platening Option on a Platen Scanner

[univurshul]

I recently set out-to to add an air-platen option on my scanning rigs. I had a versatile design that enabled scanning large books and media on a smaller cradle footprint by having a platen that was easy to disconnect, and camera posts that were able to splay and retract out. I also had clean, sharp cable-routing around the platen perimeter.

By simply dismounting the trigger from 2 frame bolts, unclipping the cable guides and removing the platen from the post, I was able to re-locate the trigger to the main board, and drape the trigger cable around the back toward the USB hub. Still have 2x camera firing with the air platen, still have 12" vertically mounted heads-up preview displays, still maintaining a steady workflow.

I've been using a set of hand clamps to flatten the pages; the clamps with rubber tips so far don't crease or indent/compress the page edges. So far, so good. These images were the initial mod, and the lights were my low-fat test bulbs to save power and halogen-life on my "interrogation/ballpark" lights.

Works great. Slow, but great. That's the point with some of the larger media: air-platening is like opening a vintage bottle--not very often. You want it transcribed, you might as well do it well & once.