DVD Burner Repurposed for Lab Experiments
A conventional DVD drive has been modified to scan laboratory samples through some simple hardware and software modifications. The huge cost savings this provides seems to suggest that there may be much cheaper ways of making this type of laboratory scanning equipment WITHOUT all of the hardware hacking.
http://www.hackaday.com/2007/09/25/convert-a-dvd-r-drive-into-a-lab-sc anner/
