grrr_arrghh
New Member
Hi.
I am easily frustrated by this whole electronics lark, so decided to set myself a long term goal. I came up with this idea, I wondered if a few people could give me their opinons.
A very large CD changer (500 cds or more). The rack that the cds are in is horizontal, with the cds sticking up vertically. In the middle of the rack are two slot loading cd players. A robot travels along the rack, picking out cds and placing them into one of the cd players. It woudn't matter if this took a while, as with two cd players, one can be playing, while the other is loading/unloading.
A playlist is loaded onto a computer, it looks at its database and works out which cd the track is on. It then gives the robot instructions (prob through serial) telling it to move a certain distance/no. of axel rotations/whatever. When the robot gets to this position, it runs a sub-program (sub-sequence? I can't remeber what you call them) which controlls some servos to make an arm move to pick up the cd. It then covers the distance in the oposite direction, and places the cd in the slot loading cd drive. The computer would then select the right track, and play it. After the track has finished, the other cd player would start playing (all controlled by the computer), and the robot would retrieve the cd from the player and return it to the storage rack, using much the same method as it did to fetch the cd in the first place.
Couple of problems (apart from my complete lack of programming knowledge...!) are how would the robot move? It needs to be accurate, to get the right cd, and not thin air. I'm thinking the ideal would a converyor belt type setup, so that the robot was moved, rather than having to move itself. However, I worry that if the conveyor belt stretched or warped or whatever, the robot could end up in the wrong place. So I think maybe a sort of rack and pinion system, with each cd being a certain number of teeth apart, so the robot only has to do a full number of rotations of an axal (how the hell do you spell that?).
What does everyone think? Is it feasible? Any suggestions? Do you like it? Dislike it?
I'm not intending to make it soon, I just wondered what everyone thought.
Yeah, i know, it would be easier to load all the tracks onto an mp3 player (which I have done), but thats not quite in the spirit of hobyist electronics...
Cheers,
Tim
I am easily frustrated by this whole electronics lark, so decided to set myself a long term goal. I came up with this idea, I wondered if a few people could give me their opinons.
A very large CD changer (500 cds or more). The rack that the cds are in is horizontal, with the cds sticking up vertically. In the middle of the rack are two slot loading cd players. A robot travels along the rack, picking out cds and placing them into one of the cd players. It woudn't matter if this took a while, as with two cd players, one can be playing, while the other is loading/unloading.
A playlist is loaded onto a computer, it looks at its database and works out which cd the track is on. It then gives the robot instructions (prob through serial) telling it to move a certain distance/no. of axel rotations/whatever. When the robot gets to this position, it runs a sub-program (sub-sequence? I can't remeber what you call them) which controlls some servos to make an arm move to pick up the cd. It then covers the distance in the oposite direction, and places the cd in the slot loading cd drive. The computer would then select the right track, and play it. After the track has finished, the other cd player would start playing (all controlled by the computer), and the robot would retrieve the cd from the player and return it to the storage rack, using much the same method as it did to fetch the cd in the first place.
Couple of problems (apart from my complete lack of programming knowledge...!) are how would the robot move? It needs to be accurate, to get the right cd, and not thin air. I'm thinking the ideal would a converyor belt type setup, so that the robot was moved, rather than having to move itself. However, I worry that if the conveyor belt stretched or warped or whatever, the robot could end up in the wrong place. So I think maybe a sort of rack and pinion system, with each cd being a certain number of teeth apart, so the robot only has to do a full number of rotations of an axal (how the hell do you spell that?).
What does everyone think? Is it feasible? Any suggestions? Do you like it? Dislike it?
I'm not intending to make it soon, I just wondered what everyone thought.
Yeah, i know, it would be easier to load all the tracks onto an mp3 player (which I have done), but thats not quite in the spirit of hobyist electronics...
Cheers,
Tim