[rescue] Fully-Ejecting DVD Writer Recommendations?

Barry Callahan barryc at rjlsystems.com
Tue Mar 22 12:38:24 CDT 2011


I've got an old robotic CDROM duplicator that I want to update to be 
able to read & write DVDs.
I'm replacing the 486 shoebox PC that was the standalone controller with 
a linux PC.
I've already written scripts to handle controlling the robot and open & 
close the drive at appropriate times.

Unfortunately, I'm having difficulty finding a usable drive. The tray 
needs to eject far enough that when the robot arm comes down to pick up 
the disk, it can lift it straight up. Every DVD burner I've got still 
leaves a couple mm or so of the disk inside the drive. Normally that's 
not a problem, since people naturally insert and remove disks at 
somewhat of an angle, but it renders the drive completely unusable for 
my application.

Before I go out and buy too many more drives that'll end up sitting on a 
shelf, I figured I'd see if I can get some suggestions. Aside from the 
above-described eject-distance requirement, the only other restriction 
is that it needs to be a standard half-height internal drive. Or a 
standard half-height drive that can be removed easily from an enclosure.

I have a (slight) preference for SATA, because I could use an eSATA 
cable instead of having to use a USB bridge, but that's not a 
requirement. Blu-Ray support would be nifty, (if priced right) but 
totally unnecessary. DVD+/-RW is really all I care about.


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