Moonboy's First Build

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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Moonboy242
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Moonboy's First Build

Post by Moonboy242 »

Build Type: Single Camera, manual platen, adjusting cradle.

Compared to translucent's awesome pro-build my first build (well second really) is very simple.

I used MDF for the base and cradle, leaving room off to one side for a potential platen mount. The articulating arm for the camera mount is Pine, and the camera mount itself is composed of steel brackets and mending plates, with wingnuts and standard nuts securing the camera and providing friction for the arm. I'm using A Canon Powershot 2S IS with a 2 second timer to "get er done". There's room at the opposite end of the rig for a second arm and a second camera.

The cradle itself is two halves that can slide away from each other to accomodate different spine sizes, with pins used to anchor them in place. Foam sheets from an arts and crafts store protect the book cover and spine.

My platen is acrylic cut in two and then joined with pine triangles at a 45 degree angle. I cut the acrylic myself with a circular saw, but Loews will do it for free. I'm using the good old fashioned "Left Hand Mod 0" platen system to raise and lower it between pages. I went with acrylic because it was in expensive and I've worked with it before to make laptop coolers. Lighting is provided by a standard tin worklamp (120 watt bulb) hanging from the ceiling of my garage.


Moonboy's build, with the Alpha prototype barely visible on the floor in the background.
Moonboy's build, with the Alpha prototype barely visible on the floor in the background.
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Last edited by Moonboy242 on 05 Sep 2010, 20:05, edited 1 time in total.
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Moonboy242
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by Moonboy242 »

Scanner Workflow

1. Cue up a long playlist on my home stereo

2. Place book in cradle and scan starting with the beginning of the chapter.

3. Depress camera button, wait 2 seconds for the click, lift platen with one hand, turn page with the other. Repeat. Enjoy music playing in the background.

4. Once I've gotten all of the pages on the left (or right) side scanned I rotate the book and repeat from the beginning with the other half of the book. Enjoy the genius of David Gilmour.

Very low tech, but effective. I'm averaging about 10 pages a minute.


Processing Workflow

1. Transfer scans to laptop via SD card.

2. Open JPG images in Thumbsplus. Check DPI, batch rename first half of book scans starting with odd numbers. Rename second half with even numbers.

3. Open Scan Tailor and begin processing as per the Vimeo tutorial. Cue up some Dire Straits and go back to scanner to scan next chapter(s) while Scan Tailor does its thing.

4. Open final output in Thumbsplus and print as a single PDF file named "Chapter Whatever" using PrimoPDF and custom postscript output.
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Moonboy242
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by Moonboy242 »

Tools used included a circular saw, a drill, and a nail gun to tack my angles. The hardest part was measuring the holes for the cradle pins. A drill press is highly recommended for the articulating arm pin holes as any deviation in hole placement will create extra processing at the back end. I didn't use one, but it would have made it easier if I had.

Total build time (including painting and measuring of pieces) was about three hours.

Total build cost about $40.00 with the platen being more than half of the total.

The prototype. This was my first ever attempt. I built this in about one hour using scraps of wood in my garage.
The prototype. This was my first ever attempt. I built this in about one hour using scraps of wood in my garage.
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daniel_reetz
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by daniel_reetz »

Whoa! Excellent, clean build quality! Looks like a New Standard-style cradle... does it hold up well to hand-operation?

Thanks for posting this!
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Moonboy242
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by Moonboy242 »

Thank you... Everything I know I learned right here!

It's a very stout build. Heavy base, and the cradle is nice and firm. My arm is pretty much the only real dynamic stress component in the whole build. The articulating arm is solid with little vibration, and the 2 second timer actually negates any movement.
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spamsickle
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by spamsickle »

I'm curious about that new-style cradle too. I'm still adjusting the book as I scan, and I'm concerned that these "spine lies flat" cradles wouldn't work as well as my current system near the front or the back of the book. What I'm doing is a pain, and makes it less likely that I'll get consistent shots from one end of the book to the other, but the experiments I've done with a 1.5" book just now suggest to me that what I'm doing might still be better than making a new cradle.

At the beginning of the book, I have the spine laying flat against the left side of the cradle. I get a nice 90-degree angle, and the spine-most margin on the left-hand page is easily visible. If I press the spine flat, the pages on the right-hand side of the book bow up, and even if I was pressing down with a platen, I can see that there would be some situations in which some of the margin I can see with my cradle would be cut off by those bowed-up pages in a spine-lies-flat cradle.

The middle of the book is the worst for margin visibility -- I want the spine to lie flat there myself, and even so the pages on both sides bow up a bit to make it difficult to see all of the inner margin.

Even so, letting the book adjust seems to work better near the front or the back of the book, while being equally bad in the middle. I think putting a round section of pipe in the cradle and letting the book roll around it as the pages are turned is the best compromise I've found to date. The spine lies flat against the left side of the cradle at the beginning of the book, flat against the right side of the cradle at the end of the book, and is horizontal in the middle of the book. I think different diameters of pipe might be better for different widths of book, but I haven't tried that yet -- I've used a 1 or 1.5-inch pipe, because that's what I had available.
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Moonboy242
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by Moonboy242 »

Funny you should mention the spine of the book. I built the adjusting cradle because the space between the two halves can be widened or narrowed to accomodate different sized books and my collections ranges in size from thin magazines to "Medium Octavo" (6 inches thick!) dictionaries. Where I have noticed some problems is along the center margin where text meets the middle of the book. This only occurs in books where that margin is roughly half and inch or less. Text creeps closer to the center of the platen almost exactly as you describe spamsickle. The solution that I have found to work is i use a thinner platen when I see margin shrinkage occur.

My standard platen is 1/4 inch thick acrylic because it has the weight necessary to consistently flatten pages (particularly in paperbacks) without the cost and hazard of having to lift glass with one hand. I shift to a 1/8 inch thick platen when I think there may be inside margin issues.

As an aside, I have replaced the blue foam sheets with a vinyl arts and crafts mat cut in half and sized to fit the cradle. This gives me a printed grid with exact measurements so I can know when print media is centered on the cradle. I also use this grid to calibrate / align my camera mounts when I start a new project.
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univurshul
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by univurshul »

That's some clean work right there. Looks like years of precision scanning.
Moonboy242 wrote: My standard platen is 1/4 inch thick acrylic because it has the weight necessary to consistently flatten pages (particularly in paperbacks) without the cost and hazard of having to lift glass with one hand. I shift to a 1/8 inch thick platen when I think there may be inside margin issues.
You should also try a 1/16" platen too. I made one from polycarbonate MR10. Scanned The Bible, almost zero margin at the bind-reveal: http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/vie ... ?f=1&t=375
StevePoling
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by StevePoling »

univurshul wrote:Scanned The Bible...
That's impressive. Most Bibles have thin, slippery pages that they really, really love to slump into the gutter. You've got to fight gravity keeping them flat. I imagine you'd have to apply some significant pressure on the platen to squeeze the pages flat.
univurshul
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Re: Moonboy's First Build

Post by univurshul »

StevePoling wrote: That's impressive. Most Bibles have thin, slippery pages that they really, really love to slump into the gutter. You've got to fight gravity keeping them flat. I imagine you'd have to apply some significant pressure on the platen to squeeze the pages flat.
Yeah, Steve, it was the last book I scanned in my library; a head-cornerstone of sorts. Even though it's in several digital editions, I felt it needed to be done.

2,200 pages. Not a single tear or snag; amazing results on Scan Tailor. The 1/16th poly-carb platen weighed about 1.5lbs without the trigger. builderstudent2 now owns that build.

The usual warning was to avoid polycarbonate--especially very thin gauges--because it wobbles and flexes, too fluid of a material. However, to my surprise, building torsion-bars into the platen perimeter and welding the V gives the user amazing control to flatten lightweight offset paper, found on Bibles and other compact/high volume books.

The next evolution of this would be comprised of MR10 (or equivalent) mar-resistant clear plastic. Or Gorilla Glass (working on it). I can't legitimately see using any grade greater 1/8" after spoiling myself with these newer, thinner optic panes.

It will be a matter of cropping 1-3mm pretty soon...
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