[ubuntu-za] [OT] - Off Topic - Wanted in Durban area : Dead DVD-writers

[Duncan Withers]

Johan Mynhardt wrote:

    Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) wrote:
     

        You might as well say it. You want to build a deathstar and blow up
        Redmond right?
           

     

Ha, Ha, I was thinking more of a Death Moon... Hey Bill, look up, it a 
full moon.. Ziiip...ZAP!...

    Do you need a sponsor? I will gladly support the fight against
    Redmond :P
    Unfortunately the stuff I have is back in Bloemfontein. Although I
    think it's
    only a CD-RW, no DVD-writer.
     

Sponsor? Ha ha. A sponsor would be welcome, but you should probably 
learn more about the project first :-)

I am part of a hackerspace (www.hackerspaces.org 
<http://www.hackerspaces.org>) that has set up in Durban (ductape.co.za 
<http://ductape.co.za>). Actually I believe it is not only the first in 
Africa, but the first in the southern hemisphere.

But, I digress:  We have decided to tackle rapid prototyping, and are 
looking at making both a normal Reprap (www.reprap.org), and our own 
laser based system.
The most powerful lasers we can get at a good price (read free) are from 
old DVD Writers.

Specifically I need the highest power lasers that I can get my hands on, 
and unfortunately CD-writers are not powerful enough. The DVD writer 
laser is the minimum that I need, and the faster the disk writing speed 
the better. CD-Writers are also infra-red which is not particularly 
safe. I prefer to be able to see if the laser is working, not feel that 
its working ;-)

The whole system will probably end up running linuxcnc (linuxcnc.org 
<http://linuxcnc.org>) which is based on Ubuntu.


Regards,

Duncan