A Simple Ultralight Variable Height Mobile Phone Copy Stand for Photocopying While Traveling

I have been looking at various copy stands, particularly intended for use with a mobile phone while traveling, but so far all where either too voluminous, heavy, mono-functional, or required too much time to set up. And for the occasional restaurant bill, handheld scanning generally suffices. But when scanning a number of pages from e.g. a magazine or a report, it would be nice if all pages where scanned at the same distance and with constant lighting.

While experimenting I realized that I already had half of my stand with me in the form of the very light 3 mm hobby-plywood plate 32.5 cm long and 22 cm wide (the size of my 13 inch notebook). This plate doubles as a "lap table" when working in a hotel bed to prevent heat buildup by avoiding blockage by bed sheets of the ventilation openings at the bottom of the computer. This same plate doubles as a cover protecter in the notebook sleeve preventing too much pressure on the laptop lid with it's sensitive screen when stuffed into my travel bag. It weighs near to nothing and only requires 3 mm of sleeve space.

I made an identical plate, drilled two rows of 5-5.5 mm holes 5 cm appart and, with a row interspace of 1.5 cms along the long central line of both plates, and cut two 36 cm lengths of 5 mm carbon tube, capped at both ends with a 2 cm length of plastic tube which slides on or off with a little bit of pressure. The holes are slightly wider than the tubes. Thus if the tubes are slid through the holes at the same height in the plates, the plates can be angled outward slightly (think bottom of the capital A). This results in the two tubes being exactly parallel to each other and to the bottom plane.

The plastic tube sections are slid onto the tubes after they are stuck through the wooden plates, preventing them from accidentally slipping out of the plates. For my 6 inch phone, the 5 cm distance between the tubes works perfectly to hold it stable over whatever I want to copy. For smaller phones the distance may have to be smaller, but try and keep the distance as large as possible to have about 5-10 mm overhang of the phone outside the tubes. The wider the tubes are appart, the less chance that a slight uneven height will cause the phone to be angled. By choosing the hole row height for the tubes you can copy larger or smaller items. The largest surface that can be done is about 23 x 33 cm, so larger than letter or A4 paper sheets.

In theory you could also set this up with the phone lying accross the tubes instead of lengthwise. That would allow shorter tubes to still be able to photograph the same surface area, but the closer the plates are together, the more risk of shadows falling on the subject, so I-m not sure that offers much benefit. And the plates would still have to be the same length.

The 2nd plate can also be put into the sleeve with my computer, further providing some protection when it is stuffed in my travel bag. Total weight of this large version is just over 200 grams. So this travel copy stand doubles as a computer protector in its sleeve, and as a laptop worktable when working in a hotel bed. I also created a narrow version, with plates of 11 cm wide, all other measurements being the same. This version weighs just over 110 grams, but is not multi-functional. the only advantage is less weight, and possibly less shadow formation due to the narrower plates. To further reduce shadows, you could consider using transparent carbonate plates instead of plywood, but they tend to either weigh more for thicker, stiffer plates, or be too flexible and for thinner ones. I am still looking at possible adding some leds to the plates or the set to allow for some even lighting of the copy material. The slots at the bottom end of the plates are there to allow two USB LED light sources to be threaded through but adding too much bling may make the package heavier and too cumbersome to set up. Most hotelrooms do have some form of a desk and desk lightsource. Maybe a lightweight reflector is a better idea. We-ll see.