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Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

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  • w0067814
    • Oct 2010
    • 8

    Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

    Hi Brendan & Spoon,

    I have just tried your batch ripper for about 150 discs across 4 drives by inserting them manually (averaged 72 discs per hour). It works very well, I am impressed and I shall purchase the program soon*.

    I have a question about robotic loaders and the method of controlling them in situations where the ejection of CD drives can impede the movement of the robot pick arm, such as a robot where the drives are stacked one on top of another. In this situation a scheduler is required so that a drive does not open its tray when it would impede the movement of the disc picker arm, queuing the request until safe to action it.

    I see in the batch ripper help file that there are a number of .exe files called for the various operations. My question is what actually controls the ejection and loading of the drives?...

    Ie: Does batch ripper finish a disc and then open the tray before calling unload.exe, and how does it [batch ripper] know when to close the tray again... by unload.exe returning from the command call? ... or does unload.exe and load.exe control the drive itself?

    The reason I ask is that I am thinking of building my own robot (just for fun) and a stacked drive configuration is preferred design at the moment.

    As an aside... I am also considering increasing the number of drives. I have seen discussions in other threads where recommendations for the number of drives is equal to the number of cores (perhaps one more to accommodative downtime when changing discs), however when I look at the load on my system it is running at around 9% CPU load whilst ripping 4 CDs to FLAC concurrently. I will always rip to FLAC, and will then post process to other formats when required using the batch converter (which is also excellent btw), so this probably accounts for the low CPU usage. Do your foresee any issues with increasing the number? 8, 12? (fast HDD can be assumed).

    Thanks

    -Tim

    * I have a problem with no album art in batch ripper, though it works fine in the single cd ripper. Would be nice to resolve this. I'll discuss this in another thread over the weekend.
  • Spoon
    Administrator
    • Apr 2002
    • 43930

    #2
    Re: Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

    The robotic driver knows to only unload one drive at a time.

    I would not have more than 6 cd drives per system.
    Spoon
    www.dbpoweramp.com

    Comment

    • w0067814
      • Oct 2010
      • 8

      #3
      Re: Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

      Hi Spoon,

      Could you clarify for me? Are you saying that the unload.exe / load.exe are the robotic driver, and they are responsible for ejecting the drives?

      If so, this is ideal.

      Thanks

      -Tim

      Comment

      • Spoon
        Administrator
        • Apr 2002
        • 43930

        #4
        Re: Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

        Correct
        Spoon
        www.dbpoweramp.com

        Comment

        • worsel
          • Oct 2008
          • 14

          #5
          Re: Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

          Spoon,
          Is this true for the load.exe/unload.exe files for the Auto Eject - Manual Load (included in standard install)? In other words does unload.exe for an attached tower using the Manual Load driver open only one drive, wait for removal/replacement and closure before opening another drive, thus avoiding potential robot crashes? Thanks!

          Comment

          • Spoon
            Administrator
            • Apr 2002
            • 43930

            #6
            Re: Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

            No it does not, each load.exe and unload.exe is programmed to an exact robot.
            Spoon
            www.dbpoweramp.com

            Comment

            • worsel
              • Oct 2008
              • 14

              #7
              Re: Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

              A follow-up Spoon,
              For the Auto Eject - Manual Load (included in standard install) are the eject and close commands issued by load.exe and unload.exe (the drivers)? I am trying to leverage what is in the Auto Eject - Manual Load "driver" provided with Batch Ripper for automating a CD tower but need to lock the eject mechanism to prevent crashes when a robot attempts to pick up a completed/rejected cd. It seems I need to add a locking command to the driver(s) but since they are executable files I may need to create the drivers from scratch. Thanks

              Comment

              • Spoon
                Administrator
                • Apr 2002
                • 43930

                #8
                Re: Multi Drive Robot, Requires Scheduling of Ejection

                >are the eject and close commands issued by load.exe and unload.exe (the drivers)?

                Yes
                Spoon
                www.dbpoweramp.com

                Comment

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