Automatic CD / DVD Burner / Ripper

thingiverse

for larger external cdrom drives, uses 1-28byj stepper motors to open and close the drive. two cycles are required to load the new cd and eject the old one. the drive works by opening and popping up the cd, then closing and sliding it onto the top of the drive, pushing the old cd off and making room for a new one. the process is repeated with the drive opening back up and inserting the new cd into the drive, finally closing again. to modify the drive, attach a 1/4 inch bolt to the counterweight side and glue a 1/4 inch nut on the end of the popper. also, hotglue a servo to the front of the drive bay to enable the popper's functionality. currently, the cheapest bulk dvd burner on ebay costs between $8,000 to $19,000 as of christmas 2018. an alternative approach could be using a rubber band wheeled mechanism near the front, but this idea requires further testing when my all-metal mk10 hotend throat arrives. more information can be found at https://netpipe.ca/?page_id=1683, which links to an article with additional details. the pioneer sata bdxl bdr-s09xlb drive looks promising, especially since it supports xl formats. there is also a sale on these drives available at https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136250. blu-ray discs can hold 50 or 100 gb of data and are priced competitively. for example, a pack of 10 verbatim bd-r bdxl 100 gb 4x blu-ray triple layer bluray printable discs costs $100 on amazon. dvd dl can store up to 8-8.5 gb of data and is also relatively inexpensive, with prices starting at $0.70 per disc on amazon. inkjet printing on disks can be done using the methods shown in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syf_i80REyU or by purchasing pre-printed discs. plexdisk 50 dvd's with inkjet surfaces are available for $60, which works out to $1.20 per disc. other options include ebay, where prices for media are also relatively low. assuming a cost of $1 per gigabyte, it is possible to make a profit of up to $90 by selling one blu-ray disk loaded with content. a printable cd holder can be printed using the design available at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3085848 and then connected to the drive. the angle on the tower was initially too steep, but resting the back legs over the backside of the unit creates enough room to guide the cds in and slow them down. adding paper towel to the mouth of the dispenser with hotglue also helped improve the design. if needed, use hot water to reshape the slide and add a nice curve to it. it would be beneficial to have access to pre-loaded blu-ray disks containing linux source code or virtual machines. this could potentially become a new project in the future. burning large quantities of dvd's can produce a strong odor after a full 8gb burn, so it is recommended to do this in a separate room or with good ventilation. this design is still a work-in-progress and not yet complete.