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Comment by hinnisdael | Hacker News Reader

There‘s a somewhat similar commercial scanner [1] [2], with a V-design as well but inverted to scan from the top. Much gentler on the books as it‘s the scanner that moves, not the books themselves. Super happy to see someone develop an open-source alternative!

[1] https://www.treventus.com [2] https://youtu.be/SdipuAuWsEs?si=dFWRtva5gO2oM91o

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It's probably expensive even to lease/rent, or to use their digitization service. Why? Because they have no pricing info available for those two options either. Just an inquiry form to fill out.

Right, no public pricing usually means rates far above what personal or low-budget projects can afford.

Not sure how much of the design is protected and how much inspiration one can take for a non-commercial DIY project like the one presented by OP.

I remember contacting them about 10 years ago... Can confirm it was way out of my price range.

I want to guess something like 80k USD for a system? Wild-ass guess. Am I close? Laughably low?

Which is discussed in the Google talk associated with the OP project here:

https://youtu.be/4JuoOaL11bw?si=do1qet5Kq_WErQgz&t=162

A DIY of the same idea, as linked by others: https://www.diybookscanner.org

Um,I'm not sure this is a great alternative, as this scanner chops out a page for every scan. After that, I don't think it really matters how gentle it is...

Unless you're concerned with binding the pages to form a new book. I think that would be possible with the leftovers.

I think you are mistaken. Neither of the machines appear to chop pages out.

You're right! My mistake. It looked like there was a sort of deli-slicer blade and suction to remove pages, but, looking again, it's not what's happening. That's what I get for posting pre morning coffee...

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