Capture both sides of the coin at once

[pkrush]

Ideas:

Two Cameras, top and bottom or one camera on top with an angled mirror. They you could use a clear belt (or slide), or some transport with a gap / hole(s). Maybe two belts (or slides) on each side with a gap in the middle. If you don’t need the whole image a slide with holes might perfect.

I’m sure there would be a ton of pros and cons with clear belting. I have lots of clear Polyurethane .3x30mm belting.

One camera: The coin passed on a belt, flipped off the end of the conveyor on to a conveyor heading in the opposite direction and back up to be imaged again by the same camera. I have done this. There is timing issues and I did not try to correlate both sides of the coin.

A very compact low cost way is two line cameras on each side and do a helical scan as the coin rolls by! I have to learn more about this…

My favorite right now is to catch it in mid-air with two cameras top and bottom as it’s jumping from one belt to the next. It takes a lot of light to do this, but I am pretty sure you could do it with cheap $5 web cams. I still can’t believe they can handle this kind of speed and the image stays sharp.

A similar method would be dropping if off the end of a belt or slide and capturing it from both sides. Kind of like how they sort falling materials with puffs of air.

[pkrush]

A clear belt and webcams top and bottom it is. I don't know if clear belting will stand the test of time, but it will work find for testing.

[pkrush]

A clear belt sticks too much.