Things To Do With An Old CD DVD Drive 1 - An Air Engine Generator 

Fantastic!! I was thinking... if you reverse it, you might be able to build yourself a nice DIY air pump for an aquarium!!

I have turned those rods into bits of shaped metal by forming them and then polishing with high grit sand paper (wet or dry made with silicon carbide or tungsten carbide powder, so plenty hard enough to cut into the metal) then finalize with some buffing compound and buffing wheel on a grinder then drilled a small slightly smaller hole in a piece of UHMW-PE (though HDPE will work fine say from the thick end of a 55 gallon barrel, or even a piece of wood) to make a handle, so I can easily push it into and form wet leather to do what is called "leather carving" the stuff is incredibly hard and even after 100s of masks with probably 1000s of hours of use, they are still nearly perfect with no blemishes or scratches, (used them for clay forming too, for detail work both with plastaline (how ever that is spelled, the stuff that is basically wax, and grease or something so it never dries out) and ceramic clay, basically a very cheap way to make custom tools to ones exact design, rather than just buying the clunky things they make normally for that work :) Not sure what else they are good for, but they seem to be hardened steel to avoid I guess flexing in any amount at all so maybe there are other uses too, (also seem to be stainless as mine have never rusted no matter what I have left them in even hot chlorinated tap water over night, a week or even a couple months one time. :) )

Great one. I've always wondered if a stack of separated cds or a hard drive platter stack could be used as a Tesla turbine. Maybe you don't need the piston?

I am using it as a wind generator. Driving it with pulley and gear for 6× Faster speed. Using it for charging li-ion batteries.

I'd like to see this paired with the fan from your "vertical wind generator from an old fan" video 👀

Deffo time to start stuffing (even milli) Amps into AC batteries. Have a pop at Anthracene/Phenathrene/Any polycyclic carbon molecule. A start point : burn grass (or whatever organic material) in a tin can which is not fully open = Incomplete Combustion. Collect the condensed tarry material from the Smoke and the Can. Make History.

there is also a ring neodymium magnet on that motor you are working with too, or on the disc that pressed down ontop of it I can't remember but I have a number of them, nice tiny magnets there of the ring variety :)

Quite Brilliant. How was the Syringe venting out the compressed air ? Did it have ports at the end of travel ? Did I miss something ? The plunger was that loose ?

I thoroughly enjoyed the video. I’m yet to watch one of your videos that I have not enjoyed to be honest so thank you for taking the time to produce, and even more important to me, to SHARE this content. 👍👍

Thanks again Dr Rob I love the simplicity of it and just incredible to imagine just how much good and useful stuff is simply thrown away.

BLDC motors are interesting things to work with. They can make very effective generators. In fact they depend on this for regenerative breaking for vehicles etc. I love the way you see the sense in recycling seemingly redundant items. A nice project for someone to experiment with.

Maybe you should have Sanded or Scraped the Wire Contacts and Spot Welded Copper Ribbon Strips so as you would have a Flatter Surface for Wire Hook Up. You could also Incorporate a Couple Rev Valves and a Tighter Plunger with an Oilier Hole for some Lube. Just a thought. Thanks for the upload

Good Stuff Remember Back In My Youth I Got An Old Steel Wheel With A Dynamo Hub And Butchered 3 Traffic Cones Me And My Dad Simply Curved The Air Scoops Around The Rim Then Simply Zip Tied Them To The Rim , It Worked Brilliant So Much So It Was Very Difficult To Mount . I Think Those Old Wheels Could Deliver 2 Watts @ 12 v Easily ! Keep Up The Good Work Earthling Bless Up

looks like it might be fun to run with a sterling engine.

I got over a horsepower, on a 3" plastic dual stage Tesla turbine ran on air, it's more suited for steam but was a fun test to do with air.

Air blowing across that disc would give you a bit of power.

I would be tempted to try a stirling engine as a drive.

Put some pinwheels on a few of these to make a wind gen...

Just amazing what can be done with these parts. I learned something and it was very enjoyable. Cheers Robert. 👍👍👍🎸🎸🎸

You’ve built a cd tesla turbine some time ago . Dust it off and use it ;-)

Robert I have about doze of these drive mechanisms from dvd player dying out or kids messing them up. I took a few with the entire opening action added a tp4056 with outputs n a lipo polymer batter from a cell. The out put to a broken RC toy receiver. Just epoxy the end of any door slide latch style lock to the slide and place on door or wall the needed distance and boom radio controled door lock. Think I've got maybe 2.00US in them if you dont count the fact I paid for the toys and dvd players. That's why kids have mtns of toys bc dad gets them when they break😂😂😂😂

Would you confirm a few questions for me? If you put little cups or fins along the edge, you could run this in a mild breeze as a tiny wind-turbine, yes? Then, would you be able to run it as a trickle-charger for a battery backup of the sort you're supposedly able to use when you need to recharge your cell-phone? Or perhaps an LED light? Seems this could be a lightweight alternative to charge a camping light or provide power in emergencies for charging cell-phones. (I know you usually just say "go for it," but I'm a long way from knowing how to pick out resistors and capacitors and the like for an electronics project. I was an electrician at one point, a generator mechanic at another, but electronics and I have not been friendly in a long time, and the best I can say is that I know how to solder if the point in question isn't too twitchy.)

Someone will say tesla turbine?:)

Thanks again. You have a great mind and, even better, a great creative mind.

Love that Air engine from a syringe, just imagine if the Air was compressed using a Trompe which is also v low tech way of catching energy. I find 3 phase a bit hard to understand, so is there any way of knowing what Drives have what motors, like certain makes may only use 3 phase and others that are not?. Cos using 3 phase rectifiers is a bit beyond me at mo.

How to generate electricity out of thin air!

cd rom based educational project....maybe try and build with my daughter?.....

OH so this is basically the same type of motor as the one in hard drives!!! NICE, I had no idea, never took one apart, thanks for that bit of information for certain!!! :)

Seems like buying a motor and using it as a generator gets you more power than buying a generator at the same price. Of course, nothing beats taking a motor that is already just laying around and upcycling it into a generator :)

How do you use the COM contact wire when attaching to an ESC?

You can set up a ram pump to create air pressure instead of pumping water to run an even bigger generator with just a slight bit of fall from water source.

You are incredible dude :)

what is the use of 15 mA? you spend a lot of time. make something useful.

I don't understand how you connect coil pairs with 9 coils

You basically made a funny „choo-choo” xD

Broaden vision of different ways to create momentum

Any chance of an update on the fusion machine?

ok on the "lump"? what about using brass shim stock (usually can get it in pretty decent sized rolls from machine shop suppliers, as well as steel and stainless in a huge variety of thicknesses from .032 inch, all the way down to .0005 inch thick with the thinner stuff being rolled up and stuffed into a tube, Some thing I use for solar cell connections to keep from having a lump, coming off of those (they also sell it here at the hardware store on a shelf made by a company called "K&S" that the company makes metal stock for model railroad building, and pine derby racing, at minimum, too,) and for keeping the raw metal strips of brass from shorting out on things, layer it with Kapton tape maybe? or I guess could paint it with paint made of xylene solvent and styrofoam peanuts dissolved in it, as I found that makes an incredibly smooth (glossy like lacquer) clear coating when I was experimenting with styrene layers with boric acid dissolved in it (sorta as it does not really dissolve sadly) and phosphoric acid mixed in the top layer, to make solar cells, which do generate a bit of power but broke down, quickly however I did find that doing two layers then another two layers on top all with no coloration than the stuff I put in the styrene, were putting out slightly under double the voltage of a single pair of layers, really interesting stuff,

You could pair that with a Tesla turbine.

So...the energy output device of a windmill in small scale and no windmill other than compressed air? The last several videos have be splattered with a hint of energy generation from air movement. Wish I had a bit of that air movement today at 40C and 18% humidity.

Look at Tesla steam engine. It will require some exaust porting around the center of the platters and a bit more spacing between them but the boundary layer drive has been used on military ships to move water. Maybe duct some wind energy for a tiny camping battery charger.

I wonder what could it be used for?

I like mechanical projects. Fun to watch.

What can this be adapted to

love it! thank you

Yeah, I always forget to turn my volt meter off too ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2QHSjaqe8rc.html

TRY water turbine or wave turbine . Then imagine a million drives that were thrown in the dump creating energy from the oven or river 🤔

Robert, you have opened your fair share of cd drives! Now you know how to take it apart. Please put it back together again. :o) Werry good stuff as usual. Thank you.

I used to clean turbine fans with an airline. I got very high revs. You should get the same.

Get the laser too

100000 rpm ball magnet in the middle of a starship coil or Tesla turbine geared up

Pc fan with a blow gun pointing at it 150 psi lol be careful

Is the stroke on your Stirling engine long enough the turn it?

For a guy as intelligent as you, that's the best piston air engine you could come up with? You would have done better by blowing air over the surface of the CD. I'm done. Un-subscribed.

Robert that motion is what I need to make a shaker table for gold recovery couldn't quite wrap my mind around it so thanks

Could you do the same with those huge VCR motors? Those get crazy rpms and spin so smoothly

Awesome mate, Another Tesla remake in a whole new way and even used stuff that more than likely everyone has one or two laying around. Use its energy to power one of those motors you created in another video. Put a air compressor hose on it and that joker will zip up some RPMs. LOL love it, you never disappoint on the amount of ideas and creating energy devices you build. I'd would love to see your version of a Romero UK generator similar to this one, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CVT5ZleK5rY.html

.......nice. Perhaps the source of pressured gas could be a block of dry ice in a PET bottle in the sun. ..I looked into this once with a toy airplane that had a pump up air motor . My intention was to convert it to RC. The calculations worked out , anyway we move on to other projects .

Piston broke ! Lol 😆

cool project!

i loved it ty

very cool project !

Whenever I need a syringe to move easily but still keep a good seal ( like when I load it full of oil) I use a ChapStick that has beeswax.

loved the way you "cobbled" that together with old mechanical/electronic parts, sort of Heath Robinson meets Macgyver LOL

Craftsman!!

brilliant.. I have a dozen or so of those little motors and could never figure out what to do with them.. well here is a trick I can use some for.. thanks I will save this is project for the winter time.. (I do most of my electronic stuff when the weather is bad.. that shop outside it just to cold!) Thanks Rob..

Yes, cool, respect, love and gratitude,

Well done. Proof of concept done. I was thinking a simple pelton wheel and air from a small nozzle would be more efficient and drive your flywheel faster. Love the way you make it fun to experiment. Link for pelton wheel. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelton_wheel

Brilliant!

You are my Hero.....these are the most useful instructions to make something good out of household waste, the man is the future! THX for the Video.

These videos are nice for explaining various concepts, rarely do they have a practical economic application however. You never explain this or go into the practicality of a real world application. The heavy fly wheel is unbalanced, the motor/ bearings will destroy themselves in no time, the energy output is inefficient and compressed air as energy source is very very inefficient.

Wonderful. I would like to try and make vertical helix wind generators from a base like that.

"There are lots of these things kicking around" Haha, you're not kidding, Rob. I have a whole box of them and no idea how I got them.

Dear Robert - If possible an automatic translation. Thank you very much

That's awesome Robert you are very creative!👍😉

Great little project for getting young minds excited about science. Remember in the movie ET, how the communication device was powered by a string tied to a branch blowing in the wind.

I love your videos Robert. You're like the Macgyver uncle all of us wish we had growing up. Thanks for continuing the awesome and informative videos. Ps thank you for moving the camera closer to see what's going on more readily :)

Ooooh, an air engine, I could use this to power the small fleet of Learjets for conspiracy airlines 😁

Nice one, I am currently turning two cd roms into a micro cnc plotter but this here sounds somewhat cooler.

Great video for the creative mind

Fantastic Video!

Hi Robert,Greetings from New Zealand !! Fantastic work and so educational, I have been a member since June 2020 but I am unable to access the members channel, can you please follow up at your convenience, thank you

Good job! Poo

thank you

I am thinking about how I could do some 12v wind generators. Only thing missing from your vids is what type of voltage you are getting. You talk about milliamps, but what is the voltage? 😁Was also wondering in this one whether the flywheel made it require more energy to get the disc spinning and what the trade off was? love your vids btw, grand stuff!