Make a kaleidoscope from a scanner

This will show you how to take a scanner lens, and make it into a kaleidoscope. I chose not to seal the edges with tape, or glue to let light in. This way, it has a nice streak effect.

Step 1 Open it up

Below the light, you will find three mirrors, CAREFULLY remove the light.

Now--be very cautions, the bulb in the scanner unit contains mercury vapors, and has the durability of a piece of uncooked spaghetti. Mercury vapors are invisible in most conditions.

Unscrew the brackets holding in the mirrors in the bottom of the unit.

Comments

[missplumeau]

 Thanks for your Instrucable! I saved a HP officejet pro printer/scanner that a neighbour of mine left on the side walk. I took it apart yesterday and today, I am looking for ideas.... 

[mr monoply33]

If it's an older deep one, you can seal it off, install  motherboard, and some light, and make a very cool liquid cooled PC. I did it, it's funny watching people try and find the computer.

[missplumeau]

 Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, the case was quite a mess. I dumped it yesterday. Next time...

[mappum]

Just letting you know, it is spelled "kaleidoscope", not "klidoscope".

[mr monoply33]

I didn't know how to spell it, Microsoft word said kaleidoscope, google said klidoscope, so I went with google, I'll fix that now.

[maruawe]

neat job These things are quite beautiful