Cutting head Rek-o-Kut Challenger

[Davevr]

Hi all,

I managed to cut a record yesterday on my Rek-o-Kut Challenger. Tons of surface noise and very, very, very far away some music. Still, it’s a ‘breakthrough’ for me. This cut was made on a polycarbonate disc with the original cutting stylus that came with the machine.

https://youtu.be/4pr_EfGaCd4

I opened up the cutting head to see if anything is broken or something. I’m not an expert, but it looks like something is loose (see picture). There are very small copper wires there, is that the only connection? Or is there something not (or bad) connected? Hope that someone can tell looking at the photo. (I managed to get a signal to the record, so on the other hand it’s most likely connected right as otherwise I wasn’t able to get music on the disc.)

EC58E9B7-6F5C-470D-B473-9BCE41A71AF1.jpeg

Thanks!

[kcdonahue]

Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like the solder joins on the coil wires are cold. A careful desolder, inspections and resolder would be good plan of action.

[Davevr]

Yes, it’s also hard to tell when you look at it in reality.

It’s cuts a very quiet recording,m, so I guess there something disconnected indeed.

Thanks for your reply.