The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

Steve E. · Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 5:31 pm Post subject: Heating your cutting needle

I'm just starting to experiment with heating my cutting needle, in the hopes that I can get less noisy and destructive results when cutting vinyl. Mr. Kim Gutzke recommended getting a 500mA AC to DC converter/appliane adapter, setting the voltage to 3V, and attaching the wires from the needle to it.

I accidently bought a 1200mA converter instead, and within moments of turning the thing on, a wire literally blew off.

I bought a 500mA adaptor and tied the wire back on. Before putting the stylus in the Recordio, I tested my set-up by draping it over a chair and keeping the wires apart. The stylus got burning hot, especially on the metal end that is held in with a thumbscrew.

Per Kim's suggestions, I mounted the thin stylus wires to my cutting arm (isolating them using electrical tape) and soldered them to the wires that led to the voltage converter. I taped these wires all the way up the cutting arm.

I started cutting with vinyl with it. The threads were a bit more melty, and eventually gummed up the wires (I have no vacuum system to remove threads), but for a little while there it seemed to be working well!

I'm going to try a 300mA adaptor next. I'm a bit worried about what the high temperature might do to my cutting head, which is made of crystal and is not supposed to get hotter than 120 degrees. Gib Epling has promised he will replace my cutting head if it dies, because he wants to know my results. Some of the heat seems to get absorbed by the thumbscrew when the stylus is actually in place, so it is not as hot at the juncture with the crystal as when it is heated outside the Recordio.

Another concern is that the heat will quickly be absorbed by the vinyl, and the stylus will actually cool down as it cuts. Alternatively, I suppose that the friction of the situation might keep the tip heated.

I guess that's the advantage of the professional heaters. They are like model train transformers, but with the benefit of having a thermostat system that monitors and maintains a consistent temperature.

What are your experiences with heating your stylus?

customrecords · Joined: 25 Jun 2005 Posts: 2

Forget all the mumbo jumbo of heating the stylus. Just grab yourself a good soldering iron torch and melt the damn grooves into the wax as I do shown here www.customrecords.com/business_card.html Very Happy

harper · Joined: 25 Jun 2005 Posts: 30

what kinda wire u using to wrap around the needle // ??

Guest · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:20 am Post subject:

There are 2 small filament wires (or maybe 1 wrapped wire w two ends) coming off the needle when you buy it from Transco. I don't know how to wrap it myself.

Steve E. · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 11:05 am Post subject:

Update: I plugged in my 300mA adaptor and kept it at 3V. It made the stylus VERY hot to the touch. I tried cutting into an acetate using it, and lo and behold, the thing was MUCH less noisy than before.

I feel I am reaching the upper end of the possible fidelity I can get out of my Recordio. The crystal cutting head is just not that strong, and it can't cut as loudly as my old 78's sound. I also fear that, over time, this amount of heat will destroy the crystal. The directions that go with the Recordio say that the crystal should not be exposed to heat over 120 degrees F, and I suspect that I am now going way above that.

One problem is that the cutting stylus is held in with a thumbscrew, and as it heats up it seems to loosen up a little and tilt to one side. Because it is so hot, it is hard to hold it in place to tighten it.

The next step will be to try cutting with this rig into vinyl. Hopefully it will put much less wear on the cutter and sound better than before.

amok · Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 11 Location: chandler, az

Any chance you can post a photo of the wiring on this? I would like to try this with my Recordio.

Steve E. · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 2:42 pm Post subject:

Eventually, yes, but I don't want to delay you, so I'll try to describe it as well as possible.

UNDERSTAND: Doing this using your Recordio COULD DAMAGE the crystal to the Recordio! The crystal is not supposed to get heated beyond 120 degrees, and I believe that I am doing just that. I'm doing this only because someone has reassured me that he'll fix my crystal if it breaks down, because he's curious as to the results. I've done this little enough that I may not see the damage for awhile.

I solder a wire to the END of each of the 2 filiments coming off the cutting needle, a Grampion sapphire short shank from Transco. (note....don't cut back the filiment! It's good to have some extra in case it weakens and breaks.) I've put electrical tape over much of the front of the Recordio's cutting arm. I put one of the filiments on each side of the TAPE-COVERED arm, just loose enough so that I can pull the stylus out of the arm. I cover the wire with more tape, so that no exposed wire touches the metal. I run each wire back along the outside of their respective sides of the arm, and cover them with yet more electrical tape.

I snip off one of the jacks on the transformer and strip the ends of the wires that led to it (it's unplugged, of course). I solder one wire to the plus wire, the other to the minus, and tape 'em separately so they can't short circuit.

Plug it in, and voila! It heats up pretty quickly--and is hot enough that it can burn your skin immediately upon contact. If it's not hot, you may have a disconnected solder joint somewhere.

Make sure you tighten the thumbscrew again, because the heat seems to shift tightnesses. I'm guessing it may also effect your groove depth, so that may be an adjustment to mess with. I'm new to all of this.

ameisevinyl · Joined: 25 Dec 2005 Posts: 16 Location: cutterlonia

all the professional styli from transco have heating wires attached to
the stylus...with the same glue your dentist uses to fill the holes in your teeths hehe

good thing is for sure: take toy train transformer (or just an adjustable transformer from the electronic shop)

attach a 500mA power supply to it (DC might be better than AC but its not
really important)

get yourself a ampere-meter to see what is actually going through the wire

(wolfram might be the right material, same thing as in light bulbs but i might be wrong...there are "professional" heating wires on the market...)

international standard heating wire current (nobody will tell you something else) 0,5 A

some people adjust this current slightly with every new box of laquers they get from apopllo or transco...to get the absolute optimum minimum noise...but well-...
PVC is a different story..it might be better to dont heat the styli?
(hey you souri-cutters outthere: what do you use?)

hope that helps
mart

Hrperprr · Guest

my experience with cutting on plastic/polycrylic/etc
is not to heat it up.
cuts better

ameisevinyl · Joined: 25 Dec 2005 Posts: 16 Location: cutterlonia

yes it seems to burn the plastic if you cut with
heated styli...so you cannot vacuumclean it away...

Itsagroovething · Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 8

Has anyone ever heated a Kingston Dub Cutter Head, did it work and how hot do you need to have it before cutting, what temperature, whats the best thing to use to heat it.

KJS · Joined: 03 Jun 2006 Posts: 1

What you guys need to use is Nichrome wire or fuse wire coupled together with a small variable voltage power supply (1 amp will be enough). Start with as thin wire as you can (light weight) while still getting adequate heating. Use the power supply to vary the current going to the wire coil.

Dub Studio · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 38 Location: Bristol

cuttercollector · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 254 Location: San Jose, CA

Hi. Don't want to upset people here and you are doing the experimentation, not me, but it seems a little basic ohms law DC theory is needed here. First of all you cant pass DC through a transformer as someone suggested it was not important whether AC or DC. Next, a given length of the nichrome wire around the stylus will have a certain resistance. One can adjust the VOLTAGE across it's resistance to obtain a variable ammount of heating. You can't exactly vary current directly. Current (and wattage, which directly relates to heat) is a function of the voltage applied divided by the resistance of the heater coil. "Limiting" current by using a supply with a lower rated ma. output rating just taxes the supply and may burn IT up! Somebody mentioned a variable voltage ac train transformer. That might work as long as you can get the voltage low enough to not produce an overly hot stylus. I think that I have also heard that unless you do have a vacuum system it is not advisable to use a heated stylus. Sounds like some of the issues earlier in this thread were around too hot of a stylus (which I agree could cook the crystal, they were never designed to use heated styli) and no vacuum system. I think that a voltage of about 3V accross a commercial wound heated stylus coil is about right for that resistance, to produce the correct heat. I have found it is possible to produce a virtually silent microgroove with no heat if you fiddle with the angle of cut and depth. It also seems to depend on having nice new soft fresh lacquer to cut. Some old ones with exactly the same angle etc. were quite noisey.

charlief64 · Joined: 23 Jan 2006 Posts: 8

Hate to keep flogging a dead horse but ... I went on the net, bought a cheap (under 20 bucks) variable DC power supply kit, added a small cooling fan on the heatsink, and presto ! (no brand name identity implied) found the voltage that worked with my nichrome wire (80 ohms per foot). I added a vintage DC voltage meter to the front of the unit that looks great, and it helped determine what the optimum voltage was for the amount of heat I wanted. (btw, mine is 9 v). I cut new Apollo masters. Everything works great.

Charlie

motorino · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 179

hello

i use a 7805 dc regulator with a 1 amp 6 volts transformer

its very easy made a circuit

http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/2143.pdf

in the pdf, look " Figure 18: Current regulator"
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