We’ve come across extremely expensive photocopiers that also fax, scan to email, and generally have too many features to list. [Eduardo Luis] figured out how to implement some of this type office magic using very inexpensive components. Specifically, he can press one button to scan a document and send it to an email address.
The user controls patch into the RPi GPIO header. There’s the button we already mentioned, a red LED for “System Busy”, and a green one for “System Status”. A set of scripts montor the button and drive the LEDs. When it’s time to scan, the RPi uses the scanimage package to capture a .PNM file, then converts it to .JPG before sending it via email using the mutt package.
We’d love to see a character LCD and a few more buttons added to the setup. This way you could select between different recipients (or even send via fax). And there’s always the possibility of connecting a printer to the other USB port on the RPi to make it work as a photocopier too.
You can catch a demo video after the jump.
Patent trolls want $1,000 per employee for using scanners:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4997419
I heard about that. And they are getting it too. What is this world coming to.. I guess “Greed is Good”
GPIOs make Raspi great but why bother putting the button on the Raspi when you have buttons on your scanner?
http://scanbuttond.sourceforge.net/
Makes sense to me – the RasPi isn’t very big and I’d be surprised there isn’t enough room inside a scanner case to hide it somewhere. Repurpose a scanner button for ‘send to email’.
Yes, scanbuttond is what I use and by using some scripts You can make it to send to printer and You have just made a copier…
Awesome. Thank you very very very much for doing one of my “when I have time” projects so I can just piggyback on your hard work (when I have time). There’s been little point to scanners that can’t do email directly for most people in the last three or four years.
This is just begging for a case made from a Staples’ ‘that was easy’ button. :grin: