I've been thinking about how to go about making a giant digital camera for many years. Rather than go through everything I've done up until this point, I'll explain what I currently have on hand for this project.
- A big cardboard box. It's 19 x 19 x 9 inches. This will be what I mount the lens to.
- A lens that will project an image circle that is approximately 3 feet by 3 feet.
- A bed from an old scanner that will give me about 12 inches of linear travel in one direction. There's a fairly extensive system of gears in place, and I removed a lot of weight from the part of the scanner that moves around. So I am hopeful that I can use this part as a Y axis, standing upright, to hoist a lighter, custom built X axis and move that up and down as needed.
- A light sensor and some associated circuitry to turn that into a single monochromatic pixel.
- An EiBotBoard that will serve as a motor controller and will sense the analog voltage coming from the light sensor and pass that along to the PC.