Turntable for the scanner

[masterada]

Peachy is not just a printer, its advertised to have scanning capabilities. It has laser, you probably have a webcamera, but you still need to turn the object manually. To solve this issue, you need a turntable:
turntable.jpg

So what do you guys think about this turntable? There are a couple of problems that needs to be addressed of course (mainly about friction), but i think it could work. As the water level in the bottom tank rises, the weight rises with it, and the rubber bands turn the table.

[Aztecphoenix]

you might have better luck replacing the weight with a float and reversing the process, in other words, as the float rises it pulls on the string wrapped around the turntable causing the table to spin

[nka]

I will only use a little plate and a stepped motor.

[Aztecphoenix]

I backed the Rubicon 3D scanner so I'm kind of hoping to be able to combine the two to try and get the best scans possible

[amirjabri]

I was wondering would we be able to mount a webcam on a rotating arm to get all the angles needed? I took apart an old inkjet printer and found a nice binary encoded wheel and DC motor I can mount a camera on easily.

[Anuvin]

Should work fine. The software, in it's very alpha state, searches video frames for the laser. It has no frame of reference. However, mounting a camera to spin around an object is significantly more sophisticated and difficult than using a turntable. If your setup isn't perfect, it will work much worse than this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-...9548/203661089

Honestly, I think it will work either way though, so if you want to make a spinning camera thing, you do it. Please share your results, maybe that is the best way to do it and I am totally wrong. Wouldn't be the first time...

[amirjabri]

Good point I agree! I would be able to also hook up a pully to the lazy Susan for spinning and that would probably work better. I will try it out this week. Is the software available now?

[EthanSpitz]

I would just hook a motor up to a stepper motor, you can very easily control the location of that, or a servo motor.

[rylangrayston]

Peachy is not just a printer, its advertised to have scanning capabilities. It has laser, you probably have a webcamera, but you still need to turn the object manually. To solve this issue, you need a turntable:
turntable.jpg

So what do you guys think about this turntable? There are a couple of problems that needs to be addressed of course (mainly about friction), but i think it could work. As the water level in the bottom tank rises, the weight rises with it, and the rubber bands turn the table.

I like what you have done here, have you tried it yet, Im egerly waiting to see a real implementation of this.
If you can eliminate static friction form this system completely and it truly dose move with each drip then i think others would follow suit and build
this too. There are lots of great ways to spin something but very few cost this little!

Ive come up with one that is low cost also, it involves making a round card paper disk and pining it down with a thumb tack in the middle.
The outer edge of the disk would have black and white dashes, at least 360 of them all pointing outwards. As the person scanning spins the disk
software would watch the pixles on a spot where the dashes make the pixles go white, black white, black over and over. Each change would signal that a degree of rotation has occurred.

The person scanning/ spinning the disk would try to be as smooth as possible, this way if 15 frames are captured in between the time that the encoder disk pixels switch from black to white, Then the 15 frames can be spread evenly over that one degree of movement.

Thats how I was planing on moving forward with this part of the scanner, but I Like your idea to, lets try both of them out!

I think if you attach the cord coming off of your weight to the largest part ( largest circumference) of the turn table, the weight will have more leverage on
the turn table. I also think that the wight should have a Lilly pad shaped float ( Styrofoam disk) on the top of it. This would bind it more solidly to the level of the water.
Lastly i think i would replace the rubber bands with a second counter weight that hangs in the air. ..... hold on a min ill just go blender this......

Ok like this:
What dose everyone think?

drip-driven-scanner.jpg render.jpg

Here is the blend file, feel free to run with it!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7...it?usp=sharing