Andy Ayre turned to 3D printing to help solve his first world problem. His wife has a “huge DVD collection” and they were running out of space to store them all. Andy started ripping the DVDs, but he eventually got tired of changing the disc in the DVD drive every hour or so. Since he just acquired a 3D printer, he decided he’d print a robot that will swap the discs for him.
Andy calls his buddy Jack the Ripper. In simple terms, Jack has two trays and one arm. You place the DVDs to be ripped on one of the trays and the arm will grab one disc and place it on the DVD drive. When your computer is done ripping, the drive pops open and Jack goes back to work. He takes out the disc that’s just been ripped, places it on his other tray then grabs a new one to place on the drive.
Like many other pet projects, building Jack the Ripper is hilariously complicated, especially when you consider it’s meager capabilities. Then again, the fact that it works is just a bonus. Andy probably had loads of fun designing and building Jack. Build a robot that will click on this link to Andy’s website for more on Jack.
[via Hack A Day]