When [JZSlenker] was challenged to find a creative way to destroy a bunch of compact discs that were burned incorrectly, he did not disappoint. He came up with a rather simple but fun contraption that launches the CD’s at high speeds and with a fast rate of fire. He doesn’t share many details about how this machine was built, but the 18 second video makes it pretty obvious how it works.
The CD gun is built mainly from a piece of plywood. This provides a flat base with which to mount the other components. A stack of compact discs is held in place by what appears to be a metal cage that was welded together. An inexpensive angle grinder is used as the propulsion mechanism. The grinding wheel is mounted just in front of the stack of CD’s in a vertical orientation. The wheel must be placed just high enough above the plywood base for a CD to fit in between the wheel and the base. This design is remarkably similar to the Sticker Gun which our own [Brian Benchoff] is building.
Some type of linear actuator is used as the firing mechanism. The actuator is hooked up to a thin piece of metal, cut into an L shape. It almost looks like a reaper tool. When a button is pressed, the actuator fires instantly. This pushes the metal hammer into the CD on the bottom of the stack. The CD is pressed forward into the grinder wheel which then shoots the CD into the air. Based on the below video, it looks like [JZSlenker] is able to fire at a rate of about three CD’s per second with this rig.
This has got to be a super-villain weapon for an upcoming movie, right? Maybe AOL-man?
[Thanks Hernandi]
Wow. Would have been a fun way to get rid of all those stupid AOL disks that we all use to get. I used they as coasters for my coffee cup, but this would have been better!
A ‘reaper tool?’ Do you mean a scythe? Because it does in fact look like a scythe.
Looks more like a sickle to me
Some folks call it a Sling Blade, I call it a Kaiser Blade.
I like them French fried potaters.
Shouldn’ have done that he was just a boy… Mmmm Hmmm
Reckon you make me some biscuits.
Would love to see this launch hard drive platters. Might need to make one.
Hackaday forums never disappoint with someone turning it up to 11 – thank you for being that person haha
Pizza launcher.
O M G finally a use for that stack I’ve been saving.
Very cool…but needs to be built into the arcade gun from the 90’s classic “Revolution X”. In the game the guns shot CDs instead of grenades or other incendiary devices.
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade/CP/big/Revolution_X_-_1994_-_Midway_Games.jpg
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade/Cabinet/big/Revolution_X_-_1994_-_Midway_Games.jpg
Ahh… yes… the classic Aerosmith-endorsed arcade shoot-’em-up.
It reminds me of the spinfuser from the Tribes games http://www.4gamer.net/review/tribesv/img/SPINFUSOR..jpg
This looks like a load of fun. CD trap shooting? Robot-mounted CD turret?
Niiiice!
The video was fun to watch until the launcher went full throttle.
Then it became ridiculously awesome !
Sweet, looks like something straight form Fallout :o
I couldn’t help thinking ” Disc of Tron” when they started bouncing off of things. Now all we need is some black lights and a little flourescent paint line art around the place.
Needs a much bigger cd magazine/hopper
The cenobite from Hellraiser 3 called. He wants his launcher back.
Interesting. The CDs look square as they get fired. Anyone know why? Something to do with how the camera image sensor works perhaps.
(d*s) * (60/framerate)
Different sensors have different bugs with motion. This looks like it was recorded with a CCD, because the moving disks blur to become squares of all the space they pass through during each frame capture, like Andy said.
that’s not a grinding head it’s a wheel that seems to be off set and be (belt?) driven from the grinder.
As I understand it, the wheel we see is not driven. The grinder drives a wheel below the plate. The visible wheel just presses the CD against the driving wheel.
Pretty cool, but two years old.
Could use this with the eject mechanism at 20,000RPM
MythBusters 2003_season Exploding CDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOb6Z5Tja68 after the 9 minute mark: enters the turbine.
Reminds me of the last days of BlockBuster.
To those that keep saying it “reminds you of” something… I don’t know if you didn’t have toys as a kid, or didn’t watch toy commercials, or what.
It’s a scaled up version of a VERY popular kids toy. For my generation the TMNT “pizza thrower” was the name of it, but He-man, I think gi-joe, and various other action figure lines have all had their incarnations of it. Put little plastic discs in a hopper, shoot them at the cat….good times.