roboracer

[TimD]

Hi,
I'm in the market for a duplicator and was looking at the Aleratec Roboracer LS. Could someone tell me about their experience using it with batch ripper?
Many thanks!
Tim

[bhoar]

Re: roboracer

Hi Tim,

I haven't done a full test on the audio extraction abilities of the (lite-on?) drive, so in terms of the most important part of the unit, I don't have a comment at this time.

I've also only sent my driver to one, maybe two other people (one had a dexpreso, which should be the same hardware), so I'm not sure who else is going to be able to give input on the unit. The roboracer driver for dbpoweramp is now only available for a fee:

$100 for personal use (and you can use more than one roboracer if you have multiple units).
$100 per roboracer for commercial use.

The unit is pretty cheaply made (bad sign #1) and Aleratec seems to sell a lot of refurbished units on ebay (bad sign #2). I bought a couple and...actually had to fix one of them myself when it arrived. So much for "refurb"! The wiring to the front mounted motor wasn't properly soldered on...I would guess that was the reason it went back to Aleratec to begin with.

Granted, you get a 90-day warranty with the refurb units, so I shouldn't complain too much about that.

That said, in terms of robotics, the load/unload/reject mechanism is probably the fastest out there. In terms of disc loads the Kodak/Microboards and Roboracer are the speed kings (mostly because they use a similar gravity drop approach). However, the Roboracer is much faster at rejects/accepts because in neither case does require the driver to close the drive tray "safely"...instead it uses a little "second hand" clock-front type approach with a custom drive tray that levers down into one of two disc output positions and then levers the tray back up before loading.

Lastly, they're relatively nice and compact for desktop use when configured for 50 disc use. Also, the larger 100-disc hopper size is nothing to sneeze at, but of course, if you load 100 instead of 50, you have to put the unit on a desk corner as the 100 disc hopper has to hang offf the side of the desk.

I'd say the Kodak units are certainly more heavy duty, but recognize that my opinion may be biased as I will hopefully be selling a large # of these starting next month (looks like ~$330 to mainland US addressess...this includes the newer optimized Kodak driver and license).

-brendan

[TimD]

Re: roboracer

Dear Brendan,
Thank you very much for all this advice. Maybe I'll hold off until you start selling the Kodaks. How will you make them available?
Cheers,
Tim

[bhoar]

Re: roboracer

Dear Brendan,
Thank you very much for all this advice. Maybe I'll hold off until you start selling the Kodaks. How will you make them available?
Cheers,
Tim

With spoons permission, I'll announce general availability. I do have a few still in box already, if you want to PM me we can discuss in email.

-brendan

[Spoon]

Re: roboracer

No problems here