Finally a good way of recycling/punishing those old or damaged CD-Rs. By discharging
four 4µF/10kV capacitors connected to 4µF/20kV over the CDs I vaporized
the metallic layer causing interesting patterns to be burned into the polycarbonate
substrate (the blue and green colors are caused by the dye - I yet have to check
the outcome depending on the type of dye and reflective layer used).
Some CD-Rs treated this way make a nice wall decoration.
As the groove is pressed into the substrate the CDs still diffract light and produce this nice "rainbow-effect".
On some CDs even the area where data had been written are still visible. And
of course sometimes the labels are burned into the surface as well.
On top and bottom of the CD you can see the marks where the terminals of the
capacitor bank had been placed.
