homemade 3d scanner - the hardware

the hardware is simple since the gearing already came with the stepper motor. all i had to do was to mount the line laser on the stepper axis. i did that with a case in which the the stepper axis exactly intersects the axis of the laser module. in addition the laser module has to be oriented such that its beam is aligned vertically, since the stepper axis is oriented in this direction. misalignment leads to distortedly scanned objects. it is not that sensitive within limits as long as no plane faces are scanned. plane faces are unforgiving. they expose even slight geometric inaccuracies. the schematic of the scanner hardware on the left shows the most important components. among them are the laser module and the geared stepper motor.