basics of cutter heads...?
Moderators: piaptk, tragwag, Steve E., Aussie0zborn
basics of cutter heads...?
Hello. New here. Does anyone know the basics more or less for making a low- or no-budget "cutter head"? I tried taking one of the earbuds from a set of earbud headphones, putting it in a conical cake icing tip (making sure the earbud faced down [towards the tip]), putting a screw in the tip hole (seals the hole and theoretically creates a cutter "needle" tip), and sealing the whole thing. Hooked it up to my stereo's headphone jack, turned off the speakers, cranked the volume. Can hear the music piping in the little frosting tip device, but I think the screw is too thick to resonate. (Does not cut). Does anyone have any knowledge of cutter heads to offer (e.g., where am I going wrong?) ..? I was thinking of trying something thinner than that thick screw, and maybe running the music through a guitar amplifier (but then it would be super distorted wouldn't it?)...
-
cuttercollector
- Posts: 431
- Joined: Sun Jun 11, 2006 4:49 pm
- Location: San Jose, CA
It's not quite THAT simple : )
The basic thing you are doing wrong is that the stylus has to do more than "resonate" to actually cut a groove.
You need a direct mechanical connection between the actual vibrating part that turns the electricity into motion and the cutting stylus.
Why not try taking the back end of a cutting stylus and insert it into the earbud till it touches the vibrating membrane that makes the sound?
That should make it vibrate enough to do something. The stylus also has to exert enough force at the right angle against the disc to cut (but not too much) If that works, it will cut "hill and dale" (up and down) like the first Edison discs and cylinders because the membrane will move the stylus up and down rather than back and forth (latteraly) with respect to the surface of the record.
I tried to make a similar thing only stereo when I was a teenager. I took the thin flat metal plates from a set of old fashioned earphones and drilled a small hole in the center and attached a "Y"stylus yolk I had made out of heavy thick solid wire. My first mistake was to not use the magnetic drive coils in the earphones , which I know now probably would have worked, but instead I attached the plates to the face of small transistor radio type speakers with an air gap between the cone and the plate. It didn't transmit enough energy to the stylus to do anything. It also had problems with not being stiff enough as an assembly to hold the stylys at the right angle. Mostly what it did was chatter and dig through the lacquer surface, but I could just make out a little sound.
The basic thing you are doing wrong is that the stylus has to do more than "resonate" to actually cut a groove.
You need a direct mechanical connection between the actual vibrating part that turns the electricity into motion and the cutting stylus.
Why not try taking the back end of a cutting stylus and insert it into the earbud till it touches the vibrating membrane that makes the sound?
That should make it vibrate enough to do something. The stylus also has to exert enough force at the right angle against the disc to cut (but not too much) If that works, it will cut "hill and dale" (up and down) like the first Edison discs and cylinders because the membrane will move the stylus up and down rather than back and forth (latteraly) with respect to the surface of the record.
I tried to make a similar thing only stereo when I was a teenager. I took the thin flat metal plates from a set of old fashioned earphones and drilled a small hole in the center and attached a "Y"stylus yolk I had made out of heavy thick solid wire. My first mistake was to not use the magnetic drive coils in the earphones , which I know now probably would have worked, but instead I attached the plates to the face of small transistor radio type speakers with an air gap between the cone and the plate. It didn't transmit enough energy to the stylus to do anything. It also had problems with not being stiff enough as an assembly to hold the stylys at the right angle. Mostly what it did was chatter and dig through the lacquer surface, but I could just make out a little sound.
Hey thanks for replying. The membrane on the earbud is a thin, delicate cellophane. I haven't taken many headphones apart... are there those with a vibrating membrane made of stronger stuff? I tried using a xacto blade as the "cutter needle" and putting the earbud directly on it (it's magnetic so it sticks right on) but then the sound gets a bit muffled, since the membrane gets kind of squashed that way. I was thinking, if there was some way I could find a sealed plastic pocket of air (or better yet, liquid), just the right size & shape, I could insert it into the "cutter head" case and the earbud would maybe vibrate everything enough?...
-
cuttercollector
- Posts: 431
- Joined: Sun Jun 11, 2006 4:49 pm
- Location: San Jose, CA
I don't think that will work either. Really, you are dealing with something that is almost too small to really cut much. Look at Floski's website. (member here) You will find some experiments he did using tweeters as the drive elements. Really what is needed is more complicated in that you need to stick the stylus to something attached to the moving part of the voicecoil that won't deform it or knock it out of alignment then support it in such a way that it can vibrate then put the whole thing in a device to guide it across the record uniformly.
Record cutting and playback is a very simple concept. That is what makes it appealing. Anyone can understand what is happening and how it basically works. Sound to AC electrical waveform of signal then to mechanical replica of waveform, then back the other way to hear it. The hard part is getting it to work WELL! What started out as a purely mechanical accoustical idea 100+ years ago has been refined to 2 channels of close to 20-20Khz audio with a dynamic range of 60Db or so. The best systems resolve mechanical groove features back into sounds that are almost to small to measure!
Record cutting and playback is a very simple concept. That is what makes it appealing. Anyone can understand what is happening and how it basically works. Sound to AC electrical waveform of signal then to mechanical replica of waveform, then back the other way to hear it. The hard part is getting it to work WELL! What started out as a purely mechanical accoustical idea 100+ years ago has been refined to 2 channels of close to 20-20Khz audio with a dynamic range of 60Db or so. The best systems resolve mechanical groove features back into sounds that are almost to small to measure!
What makes record cutting appealing to me is that I've had a personal fascination with records & record grooves ever since I was a kid. I had already visited Flozki's site and found it quite interesting. Don't know exactly what is going on under the two tweeters he's got there on his homemade cutter... sure, I know that sound from the speakers is vibrating something. But other than that, it's still a bit of a mystery to me. I'm not looking to do any slick or professional cutting just yet, just experimenting right now, seeing if I can get anything to work. Even a noisy cut with some sound in there would be a nice start. I'm guessing I have to take the paper off the speaker to get to the voicecoil. What do you suggest for attaching the "cutter needle" to the voicecoil? Sorry, my questions probably sound very basic to you, but I've never really done this sort of thing... I appreciate the input.