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714

answers:

7

Where would you recommend that I find a company to develop or buy a CD/DVD loading arm similar to: http://www.dextimus.com/

Preferably programmable via USB but if I only can get one with a serial interface that would be fine. Drivers dont matter - I can interface directly with the unit as my situation is very unique.

+1  A: 

Did you ever find anything on this? I would also like to find where to buy one of these devices. If you have any information I would be greatful if you would share it with me at sredmyer at yahoo dot com. Obviously you need to remove the space and use the appropriate characters.

Nope, I have not
nlaq
This is not an answer, and this is not a discussion forum. Please use the comments.
Geoffrey Chetwood
+1 because I think you are getting beat up for no reason, you shouldn't scold new people, you should educate them. @sredmyer you can ask comments in a little drop down called "add comments" under each question and answer. Hope this helps.
Nick Berardi
+1, like Nick said.
Dominic Rodger
You can't leave comments if your rep is under 50. +1 :)
nlaq
+1 so he can comment :) not yet, but soon.
dummy
A: 

There's a guy on youtube who built a self built mechanical CD/DVD changing robot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILdNnkYiZeQ

Colin
+1  A: 

You might want to contact Aaron Shephard about his Florian project.

Prembo
+3  A: 

If you have some experience with electronics, you can give it a shot and build it yourself, like this or this.

I should add that the schematics and the source code are included, and in more details in the first project.

lpfavreau
+3  A: 

I suppose I might just shorten this by giving a list of resources first:

http://www.embedinc.com/ I trust this company to do good work. Expensive (actually, they are reasonably priced in the design community, but would be considered expensive by most hobbyists and individuals). Not great at people skills, but very very very good at what they do.

You should check out the various microcontroller communities and forums for hobbyists and professionals that can do this. Search for microchip, atmel, msp430, arm, powerpc, etc.

Sparkfun is a supplier to the electronics community - they have great forums where you can post your request, and you'll find people who might do it for fun with only the cost of materials. Might take longer, might not be as 'professional' or well packaged and delivered, but it might be your best low cost option.


There are many electronic design companies that could do this (for instance, I can do this sort of thing).

But there are many questions you haven't answered (and may not have researched) that could prevent success:

  • Is this patented?
  • What CD loading/unloading methods are not patented, are out of patent, or otherwise available?
  • What is your design goal - a one off just for you, or a device that can be built in the hundreds for industrial use, or a device meant for general office workers/consumers that is built in the millions?
  • Do you realize that this design qould surely cost mroe than simply buying one, if one is all you need?

As an example, assuming you don't need the nice enclosure and don't mind a 'prototype' look, just the mechanicals, electronics, and firmware design (no software on the PC) would likely be 100-250 billable hours for a design firm. At a cheap $90/hr, that's $9k to nearly $25k for one prototype. Add PC software and the nice enclosure, etc and you'll double that.

If you can find a local 'Make' group (techshop, GoTech, or similar) then you might be able to find a hobbyist that is willing to play with this idea for the cost of materials.

But if you define what your goal is, and give us an idea of your resources you may find a better answer.

-Adam

Adam Davis
+1  A: 

You can create a very nice simple solution using radio control servos. They come in many sizes, but even the small ones have enough torque to move a big arm to move a cd.

The real bonus with servos is that they normally have 180 degrees of rotation and internally have a variable resistor (rheostat) for positioning feedback. Positioning accuracy is normally within 1 degree of rotation which should be fine for a cd loader.

For picking up the CDs, nothing will beat a vacuum. I recommend a small battery powered vacuum cleaner. Funnel the suction into a 1/4 inch pipe. At the other end of the pipe a one inch diameter cup should provide more than enough lift from the small amount of suction.

As for the pile of blank CDs to be burnt, I would advise in moving the pile up rather than an arm down to it. probably having the top blank cd about 1/4 inch higher than the cd tray - By doing this, the arm only needs to rotate in one axis and the vacuum should be enough to suck the cd back out of the tray.

Now, for the electronics. For the servo control I suggest an rs232 serial servo controller. I've used the one from http://www.basicx.com/Products/servo/servo8t.htm as it also gives back torque information from the current draw.

For the low sample rate digital i/o, i suggest (for windows) inpout32.dll which is a dll to give you direct access to the bits of a parallel port. This will allow you to turn on the vacuum at the correct time and possibly sense when cd's have run out. Note that a parallel port can sink more current than it sources so for outputs you should connect to the 5v power line and set the output pin to 0 to turn on the output and 1 to turn it off.

The other nice option, which is very, very simple to interface and very cheap is to get hold of a picaxe from http://www.rev-ed.co.uk/picaxe/. These use a very simple programming language (a BASIC spin off) allowing you to read serial data in and control the servos and digital I/O on one chip. Last time I used one, the language was a bit simple - if statements had to jumped labels, else didn't exist.

If you do use a microcontroller and servos, it is best to use a dual voltage power supply as servos are noisy and can cause the microcontrollers to reset.

As for switching loads such as the vacuum on, you'll need to use a mosfet or (if money is no object) the simpler option, a solid state relay.

All digital inputs you use on the microcontroller should be pulled either to +V or ground with say a 5k resistor so they never float.

I cannot stress how simple and cheap the picaxes are. They have a built in interpreter so although code space is minimal on the small 8 pin units, they are programmable via a simple serial lead.

Good luck. Once you get into automation control, you'll never be able to stop. I'm in the middle of building a 3 axis CNC router so I can cut parts for other projects (I tell my girlfriend it's so she can cut out xmas decorations!).

John
A: 

I've found that a really easy board to control stepper motors or sorvos are produced by phidgets - the API is incredibly easy, and available for a vast array of platforms.

ohp