Don’t wait in line to feed coins into the library’s photocopier!
Here are instructions for making a portable, paperless, digital copy machine.
Your materials should cost less than $20, maybe less than $10, and the labor time is only a few hours. I am assuming that you already have a digital camera and a computer for uploading pictures. Of course, your camera will do most of the work here, but you will provide it with a steady stand that has a press for getting those book pages flat.
The pictures show what the final device looks like, fully assembled …
and broken down for transport.
I suggest several, options for improving your copies – in some cases, low-cost software is involved. If you follow all of the options, you can convert your images into word-searchable documents. You can’t search for keywords in the pages you get off of a copy machine! And think of the trees you will save by going paperless!
(The book pictured here and in steps 6, 7, and 10 is volume 2 of The World Book Encyclopedia, 1989.)
Here are instructions for making a portable, paperless, digital copy machine.
Your materials should cost less than $20, maybe less than $10, and the labor time is only a few hours. I am assuming that you already have a digital camera and a computer for uploading pictures. Of course, your camera will do most of the work here, but you will provide it with a steady stand that has a press for getting those book pages flat.
The pictures show what the final device looks like, fully assembled …
and broken down for transport.
I suggest several, options for improving your copies – in some cases, low-cost software is involved. If you follow all of the options, you can convert your images into word-searchable documents. You can’t search for keywords in the pages you get off of a copy machine! And think of the trees you will save by going paperless!
(The book pictured here and in steps 6, 7, and 10 is volume 2 of The World Book Encyclopedia, 1989.)
Remove these ads by
Signing UpStep 1: Parts needed
1x Plexiglass plate, about 12” x 10’’ x ¼”
2x threaded rods, 36” x ¼”
1x Tygon tubing, 6’ x ¼” inside diameter
16x ¼” nuts
5x ¼” wing nuts
4x ¼” stop nuts or acorn nuts
1x 1½” x ¼” bolt
1x wood scrap, about 4” x 2” x ½” (size depends on your camera)
2x 2” angle brackets (with ¼” holes)
4x wood screws, ½”
Tools needed:
drill and bits (including size 5/16”)
hack saw (for cutting the threaded rods)
vise (or pliers, for bending the rods)
two wrenches (adjustable or fixed-gap wrenches of 7/16” or 11 mm, or pliers)
metal file (for smoothing the cut rod ends)
2x threaded rods, 36” x ¼”
1x Tygon tubing, 6’ x ¼” inside diameter
16x ¼” nuts
5x ¼” wing nuts
4x ¼” stop nuts or acorn nuts
1x 1½” x ¼” bolt
1x wood scrap, about 4” x 2” x ½” (size depends on your camera)
2x 2” angle brackets (with ¼” holes)
4x wood screws, ½”
Tools needed:
drill and bits (including size 5/16”)
hack saw (for cutting the threaded rods)
vise (or pliers, for bending the rods)
two wrenches (adjustable or fixed-gap wrenches of 7/16” or 11 mm, or pliers)
metal file (for smoothing the cut rod ends)
Visit Our Store »
Go Pro Today »
I think you would be better off in your project with a flat bed scanner. Of course, you may not have access to one if your reference books are in the library. With the scanner approach, the key is to get it set up correctly beforehand -- you'll want properly exposed, black-and-white copies, pdf format for the output, and multi-pages combined into one file. Then you can speed through lots of pages and keep the file sizes reasonably small.
With the photographic approach, you will spend lot of time, page-by-page doing steps 7-10. And then you'll want some utility like CutePDF for editing your pdfs, rotating pages, inserting skipped pages, etc. If you go the photographic route, be sure to see the New-and-Impoved version of the copy stand (http://www.instructables.com/id/New-Improved-Portable-Paperless-Digital-Copy-M/) if you haven't seen that yet.
maybe you could take a acrylic with antireflective coating to minimize the reflections of the stand and camera.
I'd been looking at the other designs. While brilliant and well-executed, this much simpler, less to break, portable even if you don' t take it apart first design works much better on a grad student budget in a grad student [read small] apartment. Thanks for taking the time to actually photograph and upload your design and methods.
Currently, I'm playing around with light sources and positions to minimize glare and reflectivity issues.
To avoid the reflections -- the main fault with this model -- I developed a similar copy stand with no plastic. See http://www.instructables.com/id/New-Improved-Portable-Paperless-Digital-Copy-M/ The downside to the new one is that the frame has to be reset for each size of book., Once setup, the new model is fast and reflection free (if the pages themselves aren't shiny). Furthermore, it is more compact when broken down.
But for a better & cheaper (if you can't find a scrap) design see:
http://www.instructables.com/id/New-Improved-Portable-Paperless-Digital-Copy-M/
You guys are really sharp and spotted the biggest weakness of this design - the reflections you get off of the acrylic "page-press". Many of you had great suggestions for how to avoid this e.g. by using non-reflective acylic. But stay tuned, I will soon post a simple revision that doesn't use plastic at all. Instead it uses a simple, adjustable, windowless frame.
I am sure your windowless frame will work. With my copy stand (http://www.instructables.com/id/Copy-Stand-Cheap-and-easy-to-build/) I abandoned sheets of plastic, glass and black out cloths to speed things up. I found that you didn't really need to keep the pages flat to get legible copies.
Yours is a good simple design, I will probably build one for portable use if I can think of lighter legs.
but wont the plexiglass make the picture worse, because of the reflect?
But if it's an issue you can try and find cheap polarizing filterand hold it in front of the lens to get rid of most reflections (or finda way to attach it to the front.)
Maybe you can use an adaptation of this http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-High-Speed-Book-Scanner-from-Trash-and-Cheap-C/?ALLSTEPS
The way they have their glass-lighting-camera setup, the angles prevent getting any reflections.
either that or paint the supports black
Good work!.
It's funny how obvious and simple it seems when it's put this way.However simple, yours is a far more practical version of something that has been over engineered.