4 ms·

I thought the design of their book scanner was very creative. It was also really interesting to see how they were basically able to prototype the entire thing

by Simucal 14y ago

I thought the design of their book scanner was very creative. It was also really interesting to see how they were basically able to prototype the entire thing in a day using cardboard they found around the office and a vacuum cleaner. I read through their design document and I'm considering trying to model all the various parts in CAD software for others to use. However, the figure they posted of 45% of books tearing a page was a little troubling. I'm hoping the design can be improved to be gentler on the books. I read someone else mention that if you wanted to use this scanner on a book then you likely don't care about possibly damaging it. If that is the case, then why not just cut off the binding and feed the pages into a sheet fed scanner? If you do care about the books being damaged then you would likely use one of the more expensive automated scanners or a manual scanner.

Someone 14y ago
I think the use of air pressure to pick up individual sheets of paper goes back to card readers (as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card_reader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card_reader). See for example http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/documation/M300_TechMan_Jan72.pdf http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/documation/M300_TechM... (page 9): "The riffle air acts on the first half inch of cards in the input hopper so that they stand apart [...] This prevents the cards from sticking together" "The picker mechanism utilizes a strong vacuum to grasp the bottom card" So, this might seem creative, but programmers over the age of 50 or so will find it old-fashioned :-) Also 45% chance of a page with a teared page to me sounds much and much better than 100% of chance of having the back completely cut away from your book.
- jimktrains2 14y ago
  It was also 45% chance that a book would end up with a tear, not a 45% chance per page.

by Simucal 14y ago

Someone 14y ago

I think the use of air pressure to pick up individual sheets of paper goes back to card readers (as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card_reader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card_reader). See for example http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/documation/M300_TechMan_Jan72.pdf http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/documation/M300_TechM... (page 9): "The riffle air acts on the first half inch of cards in the input hopper so that they stand apart [...] This prevents the cards from sticking together" "The picker mechanism utilizes a strong vacuum to grasp the bottom card" So, this might seem creative, but programmers over the age of 50 or so will find it old-fashioned :-) Also 45% chance of a page with a teared page to me sounds much and much better than 100% of chance of having the back completely cut away from your book.

jimktrains2 14y ago
It was also 45% chance that a book would end up with a tear, not a 45% chance per page.