The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

Hi, Really nice work! I'm interested in checking out these exciters. They seem to be quite a bit more efficient than the Dayton drivers I've been using. Good power handling as well. If these are not ferrofluid damped, you might want to consider adding some. That will increase the max power rating a...

Oh my, buddy! Your cutting head records better than the original DMM recordings made with the original SX84 heads. Keep it up, and you'll surely go far and compete with many head manufacturers! I even had the opportunity to listen to a recording with a Swiss-made cutting head, and I can compare! Yo...

Hi Estrada, Thanks a lot for your kind words, I really appreciate it. And I’m pretty sure I’ve come across your thread before as well, so thanks for sharing your work and experiments. I have to say, I’m really impressed by your damping approach. The fact that you were able to reduce the main resonan...

Background About two years ago, I decided to build a cutterhead for my DIY record lathe based on Grooveguy’s Stereoscriber design. What drew me to it was how approachable it felt for hobby builders without access to a proper workshop or precision tools. The clearly documented parts list also made i...

For what it's worth, I recently examined a disc made using a fairly new 1200GR turntable as the platter, and the groove was 100% accurately spaced, although I can't comment on speed stability. That's interesting. The SL-1200 MK2 I tested was about 25-30 years old and had been used a lot in clubs an...

Hi folks! I just wanted to give you all an update after my recent experiment. This past week I was able to borrow a Technics SL-1200 MK2 from a friend, hoping it could finally be the endgame solution to the groove spacing problem. To my disappointment, it turned out to have the same problem as the o...

I had this issue prior to upgrading to a better lead screw, but I can see you already have a decent one in place..? Mechanically, (ideally) the record lathe carriage should move laterally consistently, however the groove pattern suggests there is some (small sine wave) oscillation in that lateral m...

Anyway - what helps is a magnet that pulls the metal of the precision plate to the left side.
That way the grooves are uniform.

I wanted to try this as well but apparently, the platter on my direct-drive turntable isn't magnetic. Thank you anyway for the tip!

Hello again! It turned out that my turntable was the source of the problem. I have been using a modern (and quite cheap) direct-drive turntable, with the assumption it would be ideal due to its robust construction and smooth platter. Today I decided to swap it out for an old belt-(I think)driven tur...

Thank you a lot for your inputs! I will check all these things and let you know if I manage to find the source of the problem or not.

Have a good one!

Hi everyone, I’ve built a DIY record lathe for embossing on PET discs and I’m running into an issue that I just can’t seem to solve. Generally, the lathe is working great and I’m getting some nice sounding records out of it, but there’s a consistent irregularity in the groove spacing that I haven’t ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK2_nocZakc&feature=share&list=UUx2QmbyeAufjb8Omc8G4kKg

How the lathe sounds right now. I will upload better samples on soundcloud.com later on!

Bye!

Hi everyone! Well this is my own homemade "Record lathe", or embosser as it actually is. I don't want to declare the project accomplished yet, even though the lathe is working fine. I want to continue the project and I made this new topic so you can follow me and give some feedback while I make my i...

Hello Studiorp! Negative feedback loops are very common in other systems, like sound amplyfiers (But some audiophiles don't like them)The idea is to get a sample of what the system is actually doing and compare whith what is supposed to do, in order to correct the performance. So, the feedback coil...