[Aaron Shephard] at mini-itx.com just finished a backup DVD burning robot based on an EPIA M10000 Mini-ITX motherboard and scavenged parts. A Perl script interacts with stepper motors, LEDs, and sensors through the parallel port on the motherboard. The robot inserts DVDs for burning, flips them for labeling, and stacks completed discs in a pile. Coasters are rejected to a ‘penalty box’ for easy disposal.
We’ve also covered some other optical disc duplicators in the past.
[thanks maxthereal]
…or you could just, you know, get an external hard drive with the capacity of like 200 DVDs for less money.
Neat hack, though.
Ooooo, that’s my next Lego MindStorm project.
Hhhhmmmmm.
I would like something like this with Gold DVD’s so that i can have a backup that I could ‘trust’ past my lifetime. Your know, if I could still read it 50 years from now.
Back them up…. why?
rip them to mpeg4, oh wait, an epia board. not enough horsepower to even play a standard DVD let alone a mpeg4 decently. a rip would take a week on that computer.
anyhoo. why stay with old tech, rip for meda center goodness…. handbrake cli is your friend.
I think this is to make backups to dvd,not backup dvds.
These have been invented already.
http://www.Rimage.com
But nice though!
Cheers!
bonus points if you add a printer like those rimage machines. Even better, scavenge a plotter!
Granted, this isn’t exactly a brilliant new idea, but I like it. I mean, if nothing else, it’s a new way to do a project. If you, for whatever reason, can’t do any of the previous versions, maybe you can do this one, or find some way of improving it to make it more efficient.
Pretty clever. One way to reduce the expense might be to use a dead laptop- I have four here of which the fastest is a 1.6GHz sony Vaio with bad gfx controller but otherwise works.
Control over LAN or Wifi, and you are all set. BTW one idea I’m looking into is controlling robots etc over Bluetooth headset using sound, with a micro to decode control tones into commands.
Feedback is done the same way, feeding signals into the MIC input up to about 4 kHz.
Bonus if anyone can transmit frames of monochrome video from a model helicopter as audio :)
All this thing needs is some form of archive indexing. Write a driver for network storage and watch the machine grab your data. It would have the same feel as the old 45 juke boxes.
Nice work.
Nice! Turn it around and have it auto rip encode your dvd collection. ;) Or have it feed hard drives instead of DVDs.
Computer + Robot = Fun project!
This is incredibly useful for independent musicians or filmmakers to make several copies of their latest project without manually burning them.
You can buy the machine, of course, but they’re expensive… though I’m sure most musicians (myself included) couldn’t build this.
Thanks for the guide. QUite a few of my precious dvd are getting scratched, so time to make some backups!
Spectacular work! Those guys at your competition (I think you know who they are) don’t even have a clue! Let me know if you would like help! I have a Information site of my own… I will place a link back to your blog.You do not need to return the favor, I just wanted to inform you as to what I was doing.