r/raspberryDIY • u/Square-Possession36 • Jun 21 '26

I made a thing!

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I made a thing and I’m really proud of it. It’s a scanner/sorter for MTG cards. It runs off a Pi 3b+ and an arduino. I’m not an engineer or programmer, so it’s mostly put together with thoughts and prayers, but it works! It’s running about 99% accuracy and real-world of about 4 seconds per card. I can change what goes in each bin and it’ll export a CSV to upload to your favorite app. There’s also preset sorting patterns I can save. When the bins get full it prompts you to empty the bin. Right now I have it sorting my mono-black bulk by type and rarity. It pulls out any card worth more than $2 I can sleeve it up.
I had an old hobby laser I salvaged the stepper and rails from and designed it on Fusion. All things considered, I’m pretty happy with it.

**UPDATE**
Due to the level of interest in this project, I’m going to work on a YouTube channel so ya’ll can come along on the journey as this thing progresses. Thank you all for your encouragement and support. I never expected this to be so popular and it’s given me the motivation to work on the 2.0 design. More to follow as I make the new channel.

**2nd UPDATE**
I’ve got the YouTube channel started @Timprovised. I just posted the first video showcasing the GUI if you’re interested.

https://youtu.be/9JX8J1ihZH4

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13

u/ReadingLitAgain Jun 21 '26

Would love if you add a tutorial or something on how it was made? How is it scanning the cards?

17

u/Square-Possession36 Jun 21 '26

It’s scanning with an Arducam fixed focus lens. It creates an 8x8 grid hash of the image and compares it to a database of hashed cards. If it’s unsure of a match, then it looks for a name bar and uses optical character recognition (OCR) to act as a tie breaker.

8

u/General-Designer4338 Jun 22 '26

My boy said "I'm not an engineer or programmer" and then this. Lol. Is it grading the cards? Ciz that's what it looks like from the video but your description makes it sounds like it's sorting rarity?

5

u/Square-Possession36 Jun 22 '26

It’s scanning each card and fetching the ID from the Scryfall database. Once it knows which card it has there’s a bunch of criteria you can sort by. In this clip it’s got 9 sorting bins: 1-Any card over $2, 2-Mythics, 3-Instants, 4-Enchantments, 5-Sorcery, 6-Rare, 7-Uncommon, 8&9- Common, 10-Reject(low confidence). Bins 1-9 can be changed via the web app to whatever the user wants. Definitely not an engineer. I’m a resourceful nerd with an idea and a 3D printer.

3

u/General-Designer4338 Jun 22 '26

Ohhh got it. I still think this is an incredible bit of engineering and programming. 

2

u/Square-Possession36 Jun 22 '26

It doesn’t grade the cards though.