Project: Repler

[AmEv]

For various... interest-related... reasons, I have decided to take it upon myself to make a disk-duplication station.

Not just one of those "burn many disks at once" stations, but something (mostly) fully automated:

Grab CD from stack
Put CD in burner
-- If CD is bad, put in "bad pile".
Move CD to printer
Move printed CD to "done pile".



Tings I have:

CD-capable printer
A couple DVD burners (for testing purposes)
Recycled SCSI CD "Server"
Receipt printer
Touchscreen
20x2 display (you know, for a quick status glance...)


Things I need:

mITX motherboard
5 Blu-Ray burners
Large HDD
Some way to connect above drives
CD arm mechanism (possibly going to be the hardest, funnest part of the project)
Finish modifying drive case
Rolling metal shelving


One thing I'm undecided on is if I just use the same printer for printing out the case covers, or another printer. Either way, I can get some decent printers for relatively inexpensively.

[TheMainMan]

Have you seen the Jack the (DVD) Ripper (https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/jack-the-dvd-ripper/) project? It may give you a starting point for the arm mechanism which could be modified to service multiple drives.

In any case, this sounds like a cool project so please keep us posted!

[OvRiDe]

Definitely looking forward to seeing this project, but my first thought was.. "People still use DVD's and CD's?" :)

Can't wait to see what you do!

[AmEv]

Kinda cool, indeed.

I suppose I could also configure it to rip, too. But that's a personal-only feature... :whistler:

But this is somewhat what I had in mind:

http://i.imgur.com/4jKUaNy.png

[AmEv]

Heh, didn't see your comment originally OvRiDe.

Yeah, some people still swear by having the original disk. You know some of us still swear by the platter hard drive.... <_< >_> Besides, I'm also going to invest in Blu-Ray burners.

Don't have any (real) pics yet, but I do have an update: I managed to source the poweredUSB cables I'm missing! Won't be able to get (all of) them this paycheck, so it's going to be a week before I can grab them!

I must say, poweredUSB would be an interesting prospect for the DIY community. Problem is, it's backed by an IBM patent. Ah well...
P:R is a go for media distribution!

[AmEv]

Well, hopefully good news:

Hopefully, I just found where I can get the cables: here (http://www.plccenter.com/en-US/Brand/FUJITSU?PromoFlag=False&InStockFlag=False&SearchMethod=contains&currency=USD&Grid-orderBy=LongPartNumber-asc)!

It looks like some of the cables I need aren't in stock, but they should be able to order them!


PS: OvRiDe: you can't autograph a digital download, now can you? ;)

[OvRiDe]

PS: OvRiDe: you can't autograph a digital download, now can you? ;)

Only if you have Adobe Acrobat. :P

[AmEv]

Only if you have Adobe Acrobat. :P

Well played, kind sir. :)

Well, I found (and got) one thing I forgot I was missing: a monitor mount. ...And no questions as to how I acquired said monitor and character display???

[AmEv]

EXCELLENT news!

While I was unable to find "authentic" cables, I was able to source down some bulk 12v pUSB cables, and I should be able to tweak with them a bit to suit my purposes!

So, all that's left to "make" is to get the CD moving mechanism down! (After, of course, I finally finalize how I want the general layout to be in SketchUp...

[AmEv]

Well, the project isn't completely dead (yet), just half of the pieces are still two states away.

In the meantime, I've been able to figure out that it might actually be better (as well as definitely easier) if I keep the motherboard in one case, and the drives in another. Besides, this will give me a 5th drive to burn disks with!

https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.aspx?ID=36653867

[AmEv]

Well, I got myself an interesting predicament...

The poweredUSB card, while it has a physical PCI slot, doesn't actually use the PCI connector. It basically uses a "double" USB 2.0 header on the top of the back half of the card.

The case has 1 USB 2.0 front panel connector.
The motherboard has only one USB 2.0 header.
The PCIe slot is going to be used for the external burner box and PCIe SATA card.

The solution I came up with was a custom USB hub that plugs and mounts directly onto the poweredUSB card... which I might need a little help designing.

Oh, and I finally looked at the video. That arm might actually work for me! (The disk grabber, but not necessarily the whole thing...

[AmEv]

...Well, this isn't exactly what I had envisioned, but it is definitely cheaper and easier:

https://www.amazon.com/NZXT-IU01-Internal-Expansion-Black/dp/B0031ESKJA

4x https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Internal-Motherboard-Header-Cable/dp/B00906HDZA/ref=pd_lpo_147_tr_t_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=6GDY45C3BVKC5ZEPZ559

Edit: also 2x https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Leader-Panel-Mount-Type-Female/dp/B00UGLOFR2/ref=pd_sim_147_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00UGLOFR2&pd_rd_r=XQ8GVS38EP8XPXDM0FY6&pd_rd_w=3i67R&pd_rd_wg=rN3hA&psc=1&refRID=XQ8GVS38EP8XPXDM0FY6

I do look forward to actually getting a mod like this finished!

[AmEv]

I was planning a wood shelf of some sort, but I couldn't quite figure out what my plans are.

I was helping my mom with getting some things from our local Home Depot, when I saw some metal adjustable shelving. I realized that, with casters, that it would be better than what I was imagining.

Time to fix that on the shopping list!

[AmEv]

Well, progress photos (yay photos!)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2ZXNaWUsAA7rTN.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2ZXN-fUsAAJILX.jpg


I've run into one problem: the drivers for this display exist only in 32-bit Windows flavor. No 64-bit Windows, no Linux.