Control CD-Rom Steppers from within Blender

Community General Discussions
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1

Hi all,

I am complete new to this topic but I want to use stepper-motors from old cd-drives to control them from within blender.

I have searched trough the Forum and other Sides quiet a lot but I still do have a lot of questions.

First one is: Why exactly do I need an Arduino-Board (or similar) to control the Steppers? The CD-Drive can Eject a CD without a Arduino already. Isn’t there a possibility to use the Hardware from the CD-Drive as it is? For example: Can’t I just write a Phyton-Script in Blender witch tells the Computer to “Eject” the CD-Drive to control the Motor?

If this is not possible: What is the cheapest way to control for example 9 Steppers independently from within Blender?

Kind regards,

Chris

2

You can write a python

You can write a python script that does it, like this for windows: http://code.activestate.com/recipes/180919/

or this:

import ctypes

import time

ctypes.windll.winmm.mciSendStringW(“set cdaudio door open”, None, 0, None)

time.sleep(3.5)

ctypes.windll.winmm.mciSendStringW(“set cdaudio door closed”, None, 0, None)

or you can see some more methods here:

http://bytes.com/topic/python/answers/614751-help-controlling-cdrom-python

3

At first, I thought you just
At first, I thought you just had bad English, and wanted to control motors inside A blender. Probably a little sad, but I laughed for a bit after I found what you really meant.

4

yes, it’s the open-source

yes, it’s the open-source program :slight_smile: and by the way: sorry for my bad english. thank you very much, for your replies. i am interested in kinematic architecture and i want to build some moveable models. i’m am just experimenting and can’t explain exactly, what i’m going to do :wink: but i’m going to by a arduino motor shield now and check it out. there is a tutorial on the arduino page. thank’s very much again!

kind regards,

chris 

 

5

check this out

http://justindailey.blogspot.gr/2011/03/real-time-controlled-robotic-arm.html

6

Probably the easiest method
Probably the easiest method to control 9 stepper motors from cd-rom drivers within blender is to write a new import loop, just like the coders did for ribbon blenders, basically by using the “set cdaudio door open”" and the “set cdaudio door closed” operators with a certain delay in between. For more fun you could attach a digital dial to control the delay and thus the speed of the motors between revolutions. What do you plan to use it for anyway?