Heating your cutting needle

[Steve E.]

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]

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 http://www.customrecords.com/business_card.html

[harper]

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

[Guest]

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.]

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]

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

[Steve E.]

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]

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]

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

[ameisevinyl]

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

[Itsagroovething]

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]

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]

PVC is a different story..it might be better to dont heat the styli?
(hey you souri-cutters outthere: what do you use?)

Well with the vinylrecorder there is a heating coil which has a bit of thicker copper attached to each end with what looks like solder. Not sure what the heating coil is, but its slightly thinner. I guess the idea is the heating coil heats up, and the copper doesn't due to lesser resistance?

Its definitely better to use the heating coil than not, although if its too hot it can burn the plate too much and the chip sticks the surface instead of coming off cleanly. I find a little heat on the record with the lamps, coupled with a little heat on the stylus gives better results than all heating with the lamp, or all heating with the coil.

[cuttercollector]

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]

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]

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"

[Jccc]

Hi. I have a question on how you guys wire up the cutting stylus for heating. Do you wrap the nichrome wire around the shaft of the needle? Or do you try to get it around the cutting tip?

I would think if you wrap it around the shaft it would cause the heating supply to short out? Due to it being metal?

So far i got everything hooked up and the stylus just felt cold.
I made sure nothing was shorting out. I even took a multimeter & checked the current and it seems to be sending some electricity but when i check the stylus i get a zero reading.

[Serif]

Hi. I have a question on how you guys wire up the cutting stylus for heating. Do you wrap the nichrome wire around the shaft of the needle? Or do you try to get it around the cutting tip?...

Hi, Jccc,
Shaft, yes; shank, no. Keep the heater coil on the gem, rather than on the metal. How are you affixing it? Dental cement was suggested by I think MossBoss.


- Andrew

[Jccc]

thank you for the reply, i am using this jewelry & metal glue i bought over @ michaels arts & crafts store. the brand is called Aleenes.

i find it quite hard to wrap the nichrome wire around the gem as it is really small. any suggestions on wrapping it up?
also wouldnt the glue mess the cutting tip up if i apply the glue on it?

[Serif]

thank you for the reply, i am using this jewelry & metal glue i bought over @ michaels arts & crafts store. the brand is called Aleenes.

i find it quite hard to wrap the nichrome wire around the gem as it is really small. any suggestions on wrapping it up?
also wouldnt the glue mess the cutting tip up if i apply the glue on it?

I hope Mr. Boden won't mind if I cite the Westrex manual (;

"...A ... stylus can be equipped with a heater by close-winding seven and one-half turns of 0.005" diameter NiChrome wire (32 Ω per foot) on the shank of a no. 54 drill (0.054" dia.) and then sliding this coil over the [shaft*] of the seated stylus. This coil may be removed for stylus cleaning or replacerment."

If they say you can slip if over the "seated stylus," and later remove it, which is what they seem to be saying, perhaps no cement is actually necessary? Just make it taught-ish and see. I think I've had a hot stylus even when the glue had mostly flaked off and caused the heater coil to fit loose like a baggy tube sock.

Now, the Westrex P98438-1 Stylus, like those of Transco and Adamant Kogyo, Co., Ltd, use a heater coil which is cemented in place. The latter call it, Fire Proof Adhesive.

There's something called FortaFix which is a powder cement used to attach cutlery blades to handles. I don't know what it contains, but it might be usable.

http://www.fortafix.com/cutlery-cement.html


* here, Westrex did write, shank, but they were referring to the shaft of the jewel, since there is no aluminum dudgeon on the Westrex tool. (Nor is there one on their Model 350).

- Bon Shawns