cd rom explosion - very cool.... 1

[estesflyer]

Well, I guess it isn't so cool for me, because it was MY cd rom drive, and it had a cd rom in it...
no kidding...

ok, here is what happened

me turns on my computer, leaves room...

hears a noise, that sounds like... something similar to a window shattering...

I come back to find the front plastic cover of my cd rom drive, blown off, and bits and pieces of the cd all over my room! I found pieces as far as.... 8-10 feet!!

I've always taken advantage of that hard, metal covering the cd-rom drive has...

anyone know why it did this?

- Rusty

 

[age]

I've this happen on a CDRW and would also love to know why! It wasn't quite so spectacular (it didn't blow the front of the case off), but there was a loud shattering sound, and when I opened the drive, all the bits of cd fell through the hole in the middle of the tray.. ) how and why does this happen?

Adrian.

 

[estesflyer]

I donno... what kind of system components do you have running?

- Rusty

 

[paulwood]

Here's a thought, the discs rotate seriously fast, if there is a manufacturing fault on the surface it wouldn't take much to create large stresses on the disk, and it just cracks wide open (or maybe I've just been watching the wrong sort of tv!) X-)

 

[Guest_imported]

Hey! I had that happen to me to... Not long ago, either. Its buggered up my CD Drive though!

This time I was in the room when it happened. I'd just put the CD Rom in, turned to my PC for a second and it explodes!
The door stayed on, eventhough plastic came out about as far as a metre or so. Darn scary too! :-(

 

[ankan]

This happend to me too. But it was not so cool. I was working on the computer, and a (nice!!) chunk of the CD went just centimetres away from my face (and eyes - more imporantly). This incident made me realize that u could get injured even while sitting inside ur room working on the computer! :-(

The reason could be that the CD might have been bent if it wasn't stored properly, or surface faults, etc.

bye.
ankan.

 

[estesflyer]

what do you mean, surface faults?

bent? well, the cd had a crack in it... a small crack, about 1/4 inch long starting from the small hole in the center of the cd, and went out...
Might that have anything to do w/ it?

 

[ankan]

I guess so.
Actually the CD rotates at a very high speed inside the drive. Any projections due to cracks or bends might have touched something inside resulting in what happened. Anyway this is just a guess.
1/4 inch seems quite large to me.
If I were you I would never have inserted the cracked(!!) CD into the drive. It could have damaged the drive too.
Thankfully enough my drive was working fine even after this incident. I thought it was a miracle.

The CD I inserted did not seem to have any faults really, atleast nothing apparent to the naked eyes.

bye.
ankan. Please do correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Guest_imported]

I'd be kind of interested in who manufactures these CD-ROM drives. Might have some bearing if they're from the same company.

 

[Pnambic]

I did some checking and a 32x CD Rom will probably rotate at about 7000RPM. That's more than 100 revolutions per second (also known as fast). Some CD Roms boast speeds of more than 10,000RPM.

To put things in perspective, consider the wheels of your car. Say a car is travelling at 60mph with 15 inch wheels and for the sake of the argument, 4 inch sidewalls. That translates into roughly 880RPM for each wheel. If one of your wheels is out of balance by as little as a few ounces, you will experience severe vibrations.

15 in wheel + 2 (4 in sidewalls) = 23 in
23 in * PI = 72 in = 6 ft = 1 revolution

60 mi * 1 hr * 5280 ft * 1 rev = 880 rev
1 hr 60 min 1 mi 6 ft minute

Multiply the speed by 8 to get to 7000RPM and your wheel would probably blow up too, so even a small crack on a CD (proportionally equivalent to a few ounces on a wheel) could produce catastrophic results when submitted to these extreme stresses.

A word of caution....it's been a while since my last physics class, so you might want to double check my calculations, but you get my point, right?

 

[hotfusion]

This raises a point for discussion! Should manufacturers continue striving for ever faster drives without re-designing the discs used? After all, the original design RPM (as for use in CD players) is a maximum of roughly 700 RPM! Quite a difference! My suggestions are what I would try myself. If incorrect, I welcome corrections to my knowledge. Andy.

 

[wmsbrum]

Ok, now I don't feel so bad...

My co-workers said it was the gangsta rap....

Scares the crap out of you, and unfourtunately, I can only recover half of the CD! Can you take these things apart?:-I

 

[Jesuspower]

You can take it apart, but you void the warrenty. -God Bless

 

[estesflyer]

goodness! The last time I saw this post was july! Now it's.... November! (had to scroll up to double check, I JUST woke up.)

But anyways, My cd rom drive was atapi 52x. I don't know if that is exactly what you were talking about when you said manufacturer...

I believe you guys were right about the surface faults... my cd had a crack starting from the center and worked it's way towards the outer edge about an inch or so...
Nice job with those calculations Pnambic! I'm yet a high school student, and deciding whether or not to take physics... (I'm not exactly a big math fan...) But it does really kinda sound fun, in a way...

Anyways, i thought nothing of the crack...

btw, anyone know the original (x) rpm's that the 1x cdrom drives achieved? Just wondering so we can multiply that amount by 52. Would give a definate amount as to what blew up my cdrom drive..

As far as salvaging my drive, I tossed it the very next day... I didn't think about opening it up, because if it blew parts and the front plastic cover as far out as 8-10 feet into my room, than more than likely it screwed some of the internals.

Well, I guess enough ranting for one day, I gotta head back to linuxdoc.com and linux.com to read some more howto's... ugh.... =)

P.S. I now have a cdrom drive, and a cd rw... After I get a scsi drive, I'm thinking of getting 4 cd drives, and storing a ton of crap on there... Like, possible mp3's? Would that work even if I didn't have a sound plug from the drive to the sound card? I only have one cord, and it's attached to my dvd drive, and heads to my soundcard... Just wondering since it wouldn't be considered a norm music cd, but instead a storage cd w/ lots of mp3s... Kinda like an extra hard disc, ??

TIA

- Rusty - Rusty

 

[jade1001]

Fellow Geeks,

I have a dremel that spins as fast as my CD-ROM. My dremel can cut through wood, plastic, bolds, locks, and rebar. A thin flimsy peice of sand paper, the shape and form of a CD, does the actual cutting.

I'm glad I found this thread. My machine sits on the floor infront of me kinda between my legs. I'll be careful when inserting a disc in my CD-ROM.

jade>:O>

 

[Cirrus9]

As if the stereotype of working with computers isn't enough, now it seems I should be wearing a hardhat, goggles and a cup. Thanks for the info guys

 

[osuman]

estesflyer,
Original cd-roms were implemented using CLV(constant linear velocity), therefore these drives would spin anywhere between 210 and 539 rpm(

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/cd/constSpindle-c.html).

However, most drives faster than 12x don't actually spin the multiple of those rpm's because the standard switched to a CAV(constant angular velocity) system. The speed of those drives beyond 12x is estimated on what it would be if it were only reading the outermost track(the one with the most information). Therefore, you can't really translate the change directly in terms of spinning velocity but you can with information exchange, as the manufacturers have done. You may be able to find their angular velocity, but you can't relate it to the original 1x cd-rom drives.

By the way, if you don't like math...don't take physics. Advice from someone who has taken a year physics with calculus at a university. (It sucks).

 

[estesflyer]

alrighty then... I heard that comp programming deals a lot with math logic, which is cool with me, because I enjoy anything with computers (to an extent, that is...) so it would prolly be easier to learn programming... I also heard (from a top knotch programmer @ the local university) that english is good to be skilled in when learning programming... I thought that was cool, but I guess it sorta makes sense... Like, putting things together in proper order, 'proofreading' or checking for errors over and over again, etc...

But anyways, the good thing about floppy's are... well, not much... But atleast they are darn safe! Unless you pour water on the circuits while it's running or something, but that's just plain stupid!

Well, I guess this forum is past it's peak, and should be dead forever here in a few days. Ah well...

Thanks for ALL your responses everyone!

- Rusty - Rusty

 

[ceh4702]

The application of math just depends where you work and what kind of business it is. Most math applications on computers isnt that complicated. Figuring out the average, gross or total pay isnt that complicated. What would be complicated would be a program for Aviation and space travel where you get into 3 dimensional points or some complicated statistics and analysis. Insurance companies and financial institutions might get into a lot of difficult Tax and interest and loan calculations.

Compilers have been getting a lot better at basic geometric shapes like spheres and cones and multisided shapes. I would imagine some games where things look smaller out in the distance might provide a higher degree of mathematical application.

Ive seen some interesting little practice programs that deal with the gravitational constant and feet per second and the amount of time it takes a person to fall if he jumps off a cliff and it is interesting to do something like that. Some force equations and chemistry calculations would probably be over my head, but in business I dont see that much. Most people that deal with these subjects take the harder Computer Science degrees geared more toward science and math.

We are more concerned with purchase orders, inventory, checks, and accounts payable. Usually if we mess with an accounting issue we just consult with someone in accounting anyway. I took 2 accounting courses in college, but I started forgetting it as soon as I finished the class. If you don't use that sort of thing it doesnt stay with you very long. They have a course in some places called Calculus for business professionals that is pretty good for computer professionals. I kind of enjoyed Statistics, but some of the formulas start getting kind of long winded.

If you don't like math just go into database design. I was surprised how much math and Electrics they make Computer Hardware and Networking people take. Almost everything computers is plug and play now anyway. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[wmsbrum]

Happy Ending---

We were able to fish out the last half of the CD, and the drive works fine! I'll probably be doing CD hub exams for cracks from now on before I put them in there! LOL