Dvd Autoloader Project refit (Part 1)

Recently Ive been trying very hard to De-clutter my house .  I have a lot of DVDs laying around and my plan is to copy them to a large hard disk and watch them via my home network possibly PLEX . (*Please note i am still keeping the copies of the disks to not break copyright)

With so many discs to backup i needed a geek solution as i didn’t want to sit at my PC swapping discs all day long.
Looking on the internet i found a few people had made auto loaders using 3d printing to Lego .

Ebay Score

Looking on Ebay i found a few cd duplication auto loaders but most were too expensive but i found a Datatronics dupiq listed a faulty no software.

I bought this (faulty sold as seen) with the hope if i could locate the software for it and just may need a bit of tlc and it would be ok but i was so wrong ha ha.

 

Any computer /OS i tried would not see the USB load device and prompt to install drivers although the CD drive could be seen every time.

Fault Investigation

Decided to open it up and see if i could fix it . I tried all the basic things such as checking connections, supplies voltages ect , on close inspection noticed a few burnt surface mount components such as resistors so kinda concluded this was knackered and the plan was to replace the control system myself.  As the USB to Ide dvd drive seem to function i decided to leave all the electronics in place for that.

Hardware Planning

I started by splitting the loader system in two, inputs and outputs to work out what hardware was required.

Outputs
The auto loader has two dc motors , one for CD grip open and close and another to move the arm up and down.
I tried powering them off a power supply increasing the voltage from 1v until they had enough torque to move smoothly . I found been 3 -5v was suitable.  I had a dual output H bridge arduino motor shield lying around making this ideal. I ran a quick test sending some PWM to them using an arduino and motor shield .(many examples on the net)

Inputs
All position switches were simply sprung levers that broke the beam of a photo interrupter (basically a Ir led and Ir sensor).

I removed all other components from the damaged PCB and broke tracks leaving the photo interrupter isolated from burnt out sections and then connected up as per the diagram below to an arduino running a basic sketch printing the status of the connected switch so i could test each sensor.

 

Micro
As i used an arduino uno to test the inputs and had a motor shield i decided to use one . It was very lucky as only i/o pin was left! .

Part 2 (Hardware build / software) coming soon !