Collaborate Disseminate
These days, very few of us use optical media on the regular. If we do, it’s generally with a slot-loading console or car stereo, or an old-school tray-loader in a …read more Continue reading Why Did Early CD-ROM Drives Rely On Awkward Plastic Caddies?
No matter how small you make a pair of tweezers, there will always be things that tweezers aren’t great at handling. Among those are various fluids, and especially aerosolized droplets, …read more Continue reading Optical Tweezers Investigate Tiny Particles
For the last ten to fifteen years, optical drives have been fading out of existence. There’s little reason to have them around anymore unless you are serious about archiving data …read more Continue reading Laser Engraver Uses All of the DVD Drive
Easy PCB fabrication in China has revolutionised electronic construction at our level, but there are still times when it makes sense to etch your own boards. It’s a messy business …read more Continue reading Shake Your PCB Etching, With An Old Optical Drive
The first Playstation is quickly approaching three decades since its release, and while this might make some of us who were around for that event feel a little aged, the …read more Continue reading Adding In-Game Reset to Classic Playstations
CNC comes in all shapes and sizes, from huge industrial lathes to homebuilt wire benders. [MJKZZ] has built their own compact rig, using optical drive parts to create a cute but effective laser engraver. (Video embedded below.)
The build aims to keep things simple by holding the laser stationary, and …read more
Optical drives are somewhat passe in 2019, with most laptops and desktops no longer shipping with the hardware installed. The power of the cloud has begun to eliminate the need for physical media, but that doesn’t mean the technology is any less marvellous. [Leslie Wright] and [Samuel Goldwater] took a …read more
Optical drives are somewhat passe in 2019, with most laptops and desktops no longer shipping with the hardware installed. The power of the cloud has begun to eliminate the need for physical media, but that doesn’t mean the technology is any less marvellous. [Leslie Wright] and [Samuel Goldwater] took a …read more
For many of us, the optical drive is a thing of the past. Once considered essential, the technology is no longer featured in the average laptop,where their omission saves plenty of precious space, and they’re rare on desktops, too. However, every now and then, something comes up and it’d be …read more
Building your own CNC machine can present a series of varied challenges. There are the software considerations, but also the mechanical side of things – motors, shafts, screws and slides all need to be addressed in a working design. Of course, you can always outsource some of the work – …read more