The Complete Idiot's Guide: Jujumana's Build

[jujumana]

I know next to nothing about any/all skills needed for this project (ex:I can't get my pics on, the jpg's are too small and the bmp's from paint are not allowed, maybe one of you will enlighten me and there will be pics). Despite my lack in ability/knowledge, I've scanned two books as of this morning. Here was my process-ish:

1. Go insane with two amazon boxes, scissors, and duct tape, resulting in the VST and the base (Now I'm sure someone is going to help me upload my pics just to see it!)
2. Email daniel reetz to get his little button to make both cameras go off at once + handle
3. Move to Portland
4. Make the platen with pieces from tap plastics--botch the job and stick with a platen with a solvent welding error right in the middle of the page (ABBYY does alright with it anyway)
5. Borrow a drill to put on the handle mentioned above
6. Buy two A590 cameras and two camera stands: http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Concepts- ... =pd_cp_e_1
7. I still need to buy lights, but ABBYY seems to be handling the lighting alright as long as I keep the camera settings to auto.

A few things worth metioning: my entire goal was to listen to books rather than read them, so character recognition and T2S was of primary importance, prettiness of my pictures was not. Also, I do have to look into my cameras from time to time to check the alignment, and I do lift the entire platen by hand because I don't have that whole 2x4 set up, despite this, the process does go fairly quickly and I'm pleased with the product, even without the lights.

Do let me know how to get small jpg pics and they'll be up. Thanks everyone for the help, first thing I did was read every forum entry and every piece of the instructable, it was very helpful.

[daniel_reetz]

Congratulations! I would *love* to see what you've done.

(ex:I can't get my pics on, the jpg's are too small

Do you mean the JPGs are too large?

Can you download Irfanview? It's a nice free picture editor resizer thing for Windows that will shrink your images for you. Here's a little tutorial that should at least get you close. There are probably easier, better ways but this is how I do things.

Start Irfanview. Choose File->Open or click the manila folder:

TUTORIAL_0007_Layer 1.jpg (46.61 KiB) Viewed 18460 times

Find your files, open one:

TUTORIAL_0006_Layer 2.jpg (62.79 KiB) Viewed 18460 times

Choose Image->Resize/Resample:

TUTORIAL_0005_Layer 3.jpg (66.34 KiB) Viewed 18460 times

Set the long side of your images to 900 or 1000 pixels. Be sure the "preserve aspect ratio" box is checked, as well as the "Resample (better quality)" box.

TUTORIAL_0004_Layer 4.jpg (67.08 KiB) Viewed 18460 times

Choose File->Save As and save a copy somewhere (don't overwrite your originals with these!)

TUTORIAL_0003_Layer 5.jpg (67 KiB) Viewed 18460 times

On the forum, choose "Upload Attachment" in the bottom left of this screenshot (Sorry, my cursor wasn't captured):

TUTORIAL_0002_Layer 6.jpg (101.9 KiB) Viewed 18460 times

Find your resized files, choose "Open"... do it again and again until you have all of them attached:

TUTORIAL_0001_Layer 7.jpg (96.19 KiB) Viewed 18460 times

Press the "Place Inline" button that shows up to put them in the post. It is also possible to just leave them as attachments, but then you can't put comments above them as I have done here.

TUTORIAL_0000_Layer 8.jpg (96.41 KiB) Viewed 18460 times

Now share lots of pictures of your scanner, plz!

[jujumana]

Yes, too large. Okay, now that that is fixed (a fantastic example of how amazing it is that I can listen to my books now), I have pictures!! To be more specific than "go insane with two amazon boxes", the picture here shows that I reinforced my VST with another box (It was a whip cream canister box, cut from corner to corner).

beginning sm.jpg (86.18 KiB) Viewed 18409 times

Similarly, my base has reinforcements:

VST plus base sm.jpg (94.85 KiB) Viewed 18409 times

Looking at these pictures and my own structure, I realize that that VST is double-reinforced, so not only the whip cream canister but the fact that it is two boxes in depth. Also, right now I look at my structure and see that the VST is held up by the bottom cut and the reinforced edge on the right side, but only the bottom cut on the left side... but its still a nice 90 degree angle... let me throw in another picture to show this, by the way, this one has a book underneath the VST, I don't have a book there anymore, the VST just sits on the bottom, but you can see the angle cuts well from this:

sm angle.jpg (79.48 KiB) Viewed 18408 times

The funny thing is, the major part of the structure was done in a matter of minutes, maybe about 30 of them. Then I actually took up some space in my luggage to bring them with me to Portland...where I did this to my platen:

oops sm.jpg (55.57 KiB) Viewed 18409 times

So now everyone knows why to be careful during that part. I'm too lazy to fix it, and going back to my main goal, if the reader misses one word per page, I usually know what that word is when I listen to the book. On that note, I should mention I use a program called Text-Aloud by nextup.com. I went ahead and bought one really nice voice and that has been treating me well. Positive is that you can convert them to MP3 and it sounds good. Negative is it costs money, especially for a good voice, surely many of you have found free alternatives that might be just as good, and also I've found that from time to time on big files it gets a little wonky and replaces a part of the message with a string of numbers read aloud. I still love it. I'll mention it in software. **UPDATE:this was actually a problem with any "/", that's right, any backslash made the thing go batshit, once I edited it so that "/" = " " (space) then it turned beautimous**

Finally, the big deal:

Completed project sm.jpg (130.79 KiB) Viewed 18409 times

DONE! I was wondering what to do about setting the cameras above my base at an angle and my mind went through some possibilities, most of which involved me having access to tools and I actually looked into joining a local tech shop but the membership fees would have beaten the camera stands I bought by a hefty margin. Surely if I had more cardboard I could cook up something, but... this was quick, easy, and fairly inexpensive. I'll re-mention that I used Daniel's circuit work (one button to rule them all (both cameras)) and it works great.

To comment on my own product, while it might not be up to snuff for a library collection, my cardboard version seems to do fine (possibly even for screen reading), without the roller set up, I just do some minor adjustments from time to time and try not to move the book when I flip the pages. note: all parts of my cardboard book scanner are based as closely as I could to the measurements given online.

Future work: The handle (and random plastic nob ) on my platen are not in the right place to help much with lifting the platen, so its uncomfortable to lift. I could work on that. Also, I think halogens would up the quality of the pictures and I'd have less little mistakes from ABBYY...but honestly I'm never going to work on a display system, looking into the backs of the cameras from time to time suits me fine.

Thanks again to all of you, especially daniel_reetz.

[StevePoling]

I think we can safely say this build qualifies as CAD, Cardboard-Aided Design.

[elsatch]

Wow, it looks as cheap as my cardboard stand. I'll try to put together my wooden stand to give it a try. Anyway, cardboard is so easy to cut and manipulate, I might even keep it just in case. Congratulations for you scanner.

[jujumana]

Thought I might give a little update. I still love my scanner, it still works just fine. I've probably copied 30 books and listened to most of them in the past year since I've had it. Also, I've been asked by my Natural Medicine school to take some of the ancient texts and copy them for searching on a catalog and because of that I'm going to make a new platen without the little blurs on it. So, new pictures coming soon.

[daniel_reetz]

Thanks for the update! Let me know when you start scanning those texts, I'd love to do a blog post about it. Also, have you seen Misty's blog?

[jujumana]

Now I have (seen Misty's blog)--it's a good reminder that while I still honestly won't be doing it to the degree of care and quality that Misty is, I should at least be very careful with these books... I'm not sure how old or unstable they will be, but they are certainly all rare--so that's enough reason to be careful. Right now I'm at the stage of being lazy about getting more solvent welding stuff because my original can has gone missing and I have to bike across town to get a new one. A very important stage indeed. I'll keep you updated!