How do I make use of a scrapped CCD sensor from a scanner?

Question

I obtained an old scanner with no power adapter. I wired it up to something with a compatible adapter, but apparently this particular scanner is very tied to it's power supply(even though it's suppose to be regular 12V DC). There were numerous reports online of it not working until they used an official power supply. I couldn't get the scanner to work at all in Windows and it'd display nothing but noise in Linux.

So, I stripped it apart. Inside, I found what is apparently a CCD sensor for the scanning functionality. This sensor has no kind of part number on it in any way. I looked at Wikipedia for some info about CCDs, and online. But, I never found any real documentation about how to make use of them. I'm imagining a very crude camera project. How could I get an image out of this thing with either an Arduino or FPGA?

Pictures: (click to enlarge)

Also, in the last picture, the 4 SMD chips are 74ACT04 hex inverters

That's probably a line scan CCD, so for a camera you'll have to build some mechanics to move the scanner over the viewfield, like the flatbed scanner. You won't be able to take action photos with it. — stevenvh, Aug 16 '12 at 06:12
@stevenvh I realize that, but I'm wondering so far just how to get a line of color values from it — Earlz, Aug 16 '12 at 06:20
What electrical connections does it have? Can you post a picture? — stevenvh, Aug 16 '12 at 06:29
@Earlz Hard to believe that you could use that CCD without its datasheet. — m.Alin, Aug 16 '12 at 17:27

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 16 '12 at 21:20

Some hints from experience:

try to somehow to identify the CCD sensor and get the datasheet. Without that it will be very hard to do anything reasonable. The only work around would be to analyze live signals while the scanner is still working.
try to reuse as much of the electronics as possible. E.g. level shifters, signal conditioning. Also the ADC may be reusable.

If you want some ideas about a project reusing a CCD line sensor have a look at this article which was published in the German Computer magazine c't or at the original project page (both in German).

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 11 '16 at 22:50

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Hm ok, your question is 3 years old, I'm searching for something similar. I have a n unmarked CCD sensor from a HP scanner. This looks a bit like your device: http://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/view/14892/PERKINELMER/LC1917.html

And just came across this info: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=136921.0

You could build a spectrometer with it: myspectral com

Apparently this CCD + a $2 Arduino nano and some cardboard represents a 'new' value of $299.

answered Jan 11 '16 at 22:50

Wilfried

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are you still on it? i am working on building a digital scanning back for my large format camera. the sensor being the most difficult part .... – rmalchow May 08 '18 at 16:50

How do I make use of a scrapped CCD sensor from a scanner?

2 Answers2