The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

Thanks to all.
Megamike are you a prophet or what?
Maybe Kano and the italodisco are inspiring you on your prophecies, because next week I am going to test an operator right from Milan.
And he seems to have the right attitude! We will see.

Thanks to everyone who applied (except Mossy!) =) But no one from the EU! What a pity. OK, I will cover this position until September and we will see what it is going to happen. Even locally, it is not easy to find a press operator like I mean. Someone who really wants to learn and build a career in...

Hello Some of you will remember that some time ago we were looking for a press operator. The time frame was not so short at the time but now one of the girls we have here is pregnant so first of all best wishes to her and her husband and second we really have to find someone in a short time. Sure I ...

Mossy has retired into a cloister to meditate for a while ... All your posts are full of interesting ideas driven by passion and enthusiasm. However, Opcode's got the real point. A 100% automated process hasn't ever been implemented throughout these years for two reasons: - costs in research and pay...

About the automatic detection of rejects, it was an Alphas standard. If record is untrimmed, the unloading am drops it out from the stack. And there are also sensors to check if a record has been unloaded from the press or not, if the cake is loaded or not, etc. All of this was already implemented p...

Thanks Jay We will do that sooner or later. But no automation based on temp. Indication yes, automation no. Pallas in Germany has a PLC modified Alpha controller, in one of their Youtube videos you can see some of these strangely "fat" controllers - but moulds temp control is not implemented there a...

These guys seem to be really serious and they really know what they do. I've seen that they are using the double steam technique - I don't know if in all of their presses, anyway it was the standard system in original Alphas: normal steam for preheating, then choked steam for max temp before the pre...

I was thinking about this again And this thing came up You put two sensors in upper and lower moulds You don't automate anything with them - you leave the native automation if there is any You just let them act as a proximity sensor acts, so red and green light - off and on The green light lits when...

:) wrong spots ... OK the sense of my msg was more human oriented than technical. Yes temp control works and it used to work, I agree with Mike, and hey these guys have put a lot of efforts to innovate, to add an extra to the standard vinyl records pressing. That's OK. But! Some examples - leaking s...

Best of luck to QRP for the future, I think that such an investment in time and research deserves a good success, especially now that vinyl records have become a "luxury" item and are often reissued in limited editions = quality. I am anyway not too convinced by the automation based on just the temp...

Normally, to get a decent price, you have to buy from the "big companies" 10-15 Tons of compounds per time, like we do here. So for a small plant this can be a little bit expensive in the beginning! Not to talk about the granulators. If you want to waste all the flash and rejects you produce - (norm...

At 440 it uses less current so, well go for that mostly. Watts = Volts * Amperes This means that the intensity of the current you are going to supply to the cables will simply be halfed or doubled depending on the Volts. But energy is the same .. all over the world. I would not recommend 440 anyway...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DdbdLDL7sU&feature=related

Very good video - considering it was filmed 56 years ago!
Have a look at the 7" automatic presses ... amazing!!!

Agree with Mike. Only one little point about ownerships: PP is owned by Mossy and by me I am the MD there. While he owns OV. These are details though. I think that the best proof of what you say is that either in the UK and in Italy the workers of the plants used to have "bad habits". There was a lo...

Heat up to 42 °C Put weight off the cutterhead with the spring or the counterbalance until, when lowered, the stylus doesn't touch the blank's surface Then add some weight again Cut some blank grooves Listen to the noise in the blank groove Then again some weight See how it goes Ideally, you should ...

We can do that, splattered, on manual presses. 180g moulds. Any color you like e.g. multicolor on clear crystal or red on white basis or multicolor on black basis (my favourite), etc. Not a problem for the price but you have shipping plus (moreover) customs to clear. Can send you a pic of how record...

Yes Andy But TCS are more a copy of the old Fabel presses rather than of the manual Alphas. The manual Alphas were already fitted with the H2 cycle (choked steam) and if I remember well the old Baffo has an accumulator there in Melbourne in the hydraulic system. The TCS presses here are slower, say ...

@ Nickou It took me one day to check in the sparetime, but yes you are right. The standard SAL 74 has the connections you described. I knew that our VMS70 machine (formerly Polygram Italy) had been heavily modified, and I had been told it was not a VMS 70 anymore, e.g. there's a SP02 motor instead o...

OK if you want to know all about it. The AL gets its input signal from the circuit breaker, but as a matter of fact it reads the current which is supplied to the cutterhead. It consists of several (MANY) different analog filters acting progressively on different bandwidths. I have the documentation ...

I think we will see rather soon: - Beta Toolez - Laned - Tauniz Thorne Technics or something like that I remember that in the 80's (some Italians might remember this as well) there was a fantastic copy of the classic 80's Nike shoes (white and cyan): all was perfect and the font, logo, style etc wer...