Skunk;193956 Wrote: > I would think the clamping mechanism could let loose and cause a cat in > paper bag type situation, or an imbalance at high speed that stresses > the disc, but your wiki highlights the durability of polycarbonate, so > it's hard for me to imagine the rotational speed is the actual cause. > The videos sure sound interesting though :-)
All it takes is a hairline crack and a slight imbalance and the CD undergoes what engineers affectionately call "catastrophic failure". IIRC the Mythbusters video shows a disc in perfect condition wobbling to such a degree it appeared as 1/2"-3/4" high waves in the disc! A disc in good condition can withstand this, but a small crack or imbalance and boom! Polycarbonate is tough, but it's not indestructible, and the outside of a disc at 52X is rotating at a few hundred MPH. The Mythbusters test was not that discs can explode, they demonstrated this quite easily - although a 52X drive couldn't do it, they had to chuck it in a power tool. The myth was that an exploding disc could kill you. They put a dummy there and got some impressive wounds. I don't remember if they concluded you could die from the injury but you sure wouldn't want to be there... -- Mark Lanctot ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Lanctot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2071 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=34232 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
