In 2014 Studio Mango was approached to develop an affordable automatic book scanner which could be used by libraries or consumers to digitize their book collections and even function as a means to do quality controls in printing factories. Already quite a few automatic book scanners were available on the market at that point in time, costing $ 50.000,- and upwards. It was the aim of Marafie to be able to offer an easy to use automatic book scanner which would be affordable for libraries and consumers. In the research phase it turned out that there was a lively online scene for amateur inventors and universities to work on DIY linear book scanners. On several websites 3d models, technical drawings, instructions and software was shared. In our first attempt to create a prototype the last version of those files were downloaded and the scanner was built, the unfortunate result was that nearly nothing worked. But after a years worth of engineering & fine tuning a scanner was developed using professional parts (instead of vacuum cleaners and ripped open consumer scanners) which works flawlessly. The linear book scanner is able to scan books automatically with a rate of 1.500 pages an hour with a quality of 300 DPI, these images can be converted into digital texts by the scanners software. Most types and sizes of books can be scanned. The scanner has been designed in such a way that it is easy to assemble and additionally Studio Mango has poored over some nice aesthetics so that after scanning it doesn’t need to be hidden in the closet. In 2016 the book scanner will become commercially available, as a fully assembled model, assembly kit and as a free downloadable model for the Maker community. The download will share all 3d files, technical drawings, part list and software so that it can be tweaked in any way desired.
If you are interested to learn more about the development or like to be informed about the options to order your own scanner contact us on: info@studiomango.nl