I’ve been working overtime on a lot of projects, hence the lack of updates. My biggest current project is my 3D scanner, which is nearly complete! Firstly, I’ve had to make some modifications corrections to my scanner platform. First, my “circle” wasn’t. When it rotated, the belt got so loose that it came off the platter. So I had to take off the platter and re-make the circle. And I found a junk pulley I also screwed down on the board.

Now I have a nearly correct circle.. and I still haven’t any wood putty to fill those holes. But that’s OK. I also have my Arduino Uno on the board now.

And there’s that nice heavy pulley. And there’s some junk donut thing underneath that I also scrounged.

From here, you can see a simple potentiometer. And I used that wonderful skit that pairs a pot to the stepper. Everything so far works well. So, let’s continue…

And, this is boring, but essential. I found leftover plywood and one back of a speaker box. So far, I have the stage and the 3 sides for the back. And for ‘flair’, they all are different heights. But, boring done. DING!

I had my laser module with bare wires. Initially, they were screwed into a Phoenix adapter and dropped into the breadboard. So, I found a header and soldered the pins so I can plug one into ground and the other into an arduino pin. Ideally, I’ll switch to a PWM so I can control and calibrate strength of the laser. But for the time, it’s on pin 13.

And there’s an example of what my project looks like when active. Obviously, I test one system at a time. In this case, I used BLINK example and stripped the flashing. Yes, my Arduino is now a laser flashlight. I am what the old school engineers fear!

Now, I needed my camera at a further viewpoint than putting them on that stage. My answer was to scrounge for a hinge and put the webcam further out. So, I found a hinge and cut some scrap and mounted the camera on there. It is, as always, trashy looking and cheap (No, FREE). The extra plus here is it can fold in for storage.

And here, is what I have as of now. Last tweaks I need to pay attention to are the following:

1. Put laser on PWM

2. Position laser so it doesn’t have a bright red dot somewhere in the camera field of view.

3. Find idea speed for stepper so it doesnt have weird sounds.

4. Working on FabScan software for Arduino and Computer. As of now, it’ll require 2 USB ports or if I can scrounge a powered USB hub.

Continued from https://crankylinuxuser.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/3d-scanner-platform-nearly-done/