My 3rd Generation Scanner Build Thread

[fbonomi]

What I did was take it to the airport today and talked to a TSA agent.

That was a good idea, and gives a good hope.

Wish me luck, guys. If only I'd had time to make a more professional-looking power supply, I'd be feeling no pain about this at all. Oh well.

Best luck, have fun at the conference, and make us all proud !

[daniel_reetz]

AHH, I made it. Scanner is intact. Turns out that it does fit in all carry on bins... on large airplanes. On the small Canadair out of Fargo, it would not fit. Almost lost it right there. TSA people were fine, though they did explosive swab the thing. Thankfully, whatever crap complex chemicals are created when you burn ply, they don't smell like explosives to the sniffer. A false positive really would have ruined my day.

Can't wait to explore the city.

[fbonomi]

AHH, I made it.

Good news!

Thankfully, whatever crap complex chemicals are created when you burn ply, they don't smell like explosives to the sniffer.

Hah! that would have been troublesome!

[jrichards]

This scanner is amazing! Are you going to post a how to guide on how to reproduce it? Or will there be an option to buy templates that you make?

[daniel_reetz]

I am still weighing the options, but the idea at the moment is to make the design available under an open license so that any person with access to a laser cutter can reproduce it and improve it. There is a bit of work to do as far as cleaning up the art and making all pieces fit properly, but not too much.

If the community wants to weigh in on this (the desirability of having a similar scanner and thoughts on open licensing) I would be very interested to hear what you all have to say.

[StevePoling]

AHH, I made it. Scanner is intact. Turns out that it does fit in all carry on bins... on large airplanes. On the small Canadair out of Fargo, it would not fit. Almost lost it right there. TSA people were fine, though they did explosive swab the thing. Thankfully, whatever crap complex chemicals are created when you burn ply, they don't smell like explosives to the sniffer. A false positive really would have ruined my day.

Yeah, you want to avoid noshing on summer sausage whilst working on your scanner. I hear the nitrates that make the stuff taste so good is like catnip to an explosive swab.

[StevePoling]

I am still weighing the options, but the idea at the moment is to make the design available under an open license so that any person with access to a laser cutter can reproduce it and improve it. There is a bit of work to do as far as cleaning up the art and making all pieces fit properly, but not too much.

If the community wants to weigh in on this (the desirability of having a similar scanner and thoughts on open licensing) I would be very interested to hear what you all have to say.

Dan, I would rather buy a kit from you than go schlepping all over town finding bits and pieces to lash together myself. I've got the cameras and electronics package from you sitting on my bookshelf making me feel guilty and ashamed for being a slacker. Gotta figure the plywood parts will ship quite easily. How much money do you think you'd need to sell kits?

I got a nice trebuchet kit from Ron Toms http://www.rlt.com/ a several years back for Christmas. I'd like to show a book scanner kit to my dear wife who often conveys my wishes to Santa. Cheaper than asking for a laser cutter.

[fbonomi]

If the community wants to weigh in on this (the desirability of having a similar scanner and thoughts on open licensing) I would be very interested to hear what you all have to say.

There is definitely an opportunity here. I would get one, for example.

Moreover, there is a HUGE customer base that won't probably build a scanner on their own, but might get a kit if that was simple enough.

[daniel_reetz]

I'll make a full report later today, but I noticed this morning that two other people have already written about the conference.

Here's a report from Harry Lewis, former Dean of Harvard College:
http://www.bitsbook.com/2009/10/do-it-y ... -scanning/

Robin Sloan (a TOTALLY COOL GUY and now a member of our forum) put a piece online this morning. It has a totally rad video of me slapping the scanner together on stage:
http://www.themillions.com/2009/10/brin ... -home.html

Theold Instructablegrabbed well over a thousand views this weekend. I updated it so that people could grab the PDF without registering. It really pisses me off that Instructables did that -- the whole point of the damned thing was openness and free access, and so when I go and talk about free access and then they require registration, well, that just sucks for all of us. Also, it's great that we know so much about book scanning now -- but it makes a lot of the old Instructable less relevant. I have a plan for this. More later.

[rob]

Congrats, Dan, I think you stole the show!