Chip Tube Alignment

[Greg Reierson]

I'm fighting with my chip tube today. I've ready many posts on set-up but nothing seems to be working today. I will say it's a bit warm and dry in the studio today so maybe that's my problem. I've been fighting with it for a couple hours now and I'm just not making progress. Any fresh ideas?

Thanks!

[EmAtChapterV]

Fighting in what way? What's it doing or not doing?

[Greg Reierson]

About half the time the chip will get picked up. The other half it pulls in towards the center and winds around the center pin. Each time a small ball forms on the stylus before it goes one way or the other. I've seen it get picked up right away before but not today. There isn't much adjustablility in that chip tube. I've had it all the way forward, all the way back, as close to the lacquer as I can, up a bit, 60v through 90v. Just can't find a pattern.

This is on a VMS70.

Thanks!

[EmAtChapterV]

Is this a fresh batch of lacquers, by any chance? I'd suggest adjusting the stylus heat and see how that affects things. Also adjusting the initial groove depth to be deeper on the initial drop and then lightening up once you're sure the chip is being suctioned correctly.

And I'm not sure how much this would be a factor on a Neumann with everything automated, but with manual head drops, I always found getting a feel for lowering it "decisively" helped. Too fast and of course the cutter would bounce and possibly ruin the stylus, but on the other hand, being too slow and gentle led to the groove starting far too narrow and the chip balled up.

As always, check for air leaks anywhere else in the system. How strong does the chip tube pull against your finger over it?

[concretecowboy71]

Humidifier.

Baby powder sucked down the tube.

Neumann manual states sometimes less suction is better. Are you using a variac?

These are the first things I try.

[Greg Reierson]

Trying all of that. Worked yesterday. Today nothing. Good suction on the hose. It pulls the hairs of a que-tip into the nozzle near the stylus but when a ball forms on the stylus is just won't pull it in.

[concretecowboy71]

Sometimes the chip builds up in the rubber tube over time causing a sticky residue that can only be fixed by replacing the entire hose. Happened to me last summer.

Try rerouting the hose with a different angle going down into the chip jar.

Make sure the wire mesh on the lid of the chip jar is not jammed with old chip.

Could the stylus be damaged?

[Greg Reierson]

Jar and all tubing clear. Good suction at every point. The problem seems to be that a ball forms on the stylus and the suction isn't strong enough to grab it. It happens about half the time, so I'm gun-shy about cutting a master. This stylus was new last week but worked fine until today. The grooves it cuts look and sound OK when the chip does get sucked up properly. It's like a car that doesn't want to start but runs fine once it does.

[leo gonzalez]

i think its the stylus too.

try going back to your previous stylus and do some test cuts.
see how it behaves.

[jjgolden]

If the cut looks good the stylus is probably ok and doesn't need replaced. Heat may have some influence but not much.
Here's a check list of things to go over:

1. With the head installed,turn on suction and using pith wood or q-tip, clean the stylus, (again). Be sure there's no melted debris on the back side of it. Check with a magnifieing glass.
(Suction is on to prevent acetone vapors from entering and possibly damaging the coils, do not clean the stylus while the head is off and upside down in the mounting scope or your lap))

2. check your rake angle and make sure the plate is flush with the suspension box when the head is down and cutting.

3. Try getting the suction tube as low as possible to the lacquer. If you're worried it's too low, do a test cut and adjust the depth to 7+mil or
more to see if the tube touches the lacquer. (don't cut into the aluminum!)

4. if it's a new batch, open and leave your lacquers to dry out. some batches are packed and shipped "wetter" than others.

5. As Concrete said, keep the humidity up in the room. Humidifier or spray bottle.

6. do multiple head drops on a scrap disc or on the outer area of a 14" blank to check for a consistent chip pickup.
(manual head drop, then while cutting - white button - start - white button - start etc...)

7. If after trying all of these things it's still not working, go have lunch and when you come back, it will work.

Chip pickup has been a part of cutting forever. All of the above com into play, but I believe it's mostly influenced by the properties of a particular batch of lacquer(s). This in turn causes temporary blockage in the suction path due to the wet/heavy/sticky consistency of a particular lacquer or section of the disc.
All of the other parameters discussed earlier are readjusted to offset this lacquer anomaly.


Hope this helps some,
Keep us posted!

JJG

[Greg Reierson]

Still stuck. Can't get back to where I was on Wednesday. Lunch didn't help

I think I've had enough for two days. Heading home...

[jjgolden]

Arrgg, I feel your frustration Greg! This cutting gig is a love hate thing for sure.
Good luck with it tomorrow and please let us know if you discover any new remedies
when you get it going again.

Best,

JJG

[dietrich10]

have you tried a pipe cleaner in both small silver tubes that connect to the head?
some residue in there will mess up the entire flow. used to happen to me every winter in old space

[Greg Reierson]

The tubing is all completely clean and suction is good. I wonder if the stylus temp is too low? Wondering why the chip balls up on the stylus, even after changing to a new styli. The depth is good and the groove looks and sounds fine when the chip does get picked up.

Some of the calibration procedures say to turn the heat off when doing this or that. I have never been able to pick up the chip with the heat off. Is that normal?

I'm going in tomorrow to try a few more things. Thanks for everyone's help so far. I'll figure it out. This sort of mechanical stuff is usually right up this old farmboy's alley...

[duomo]

I had the same problem some weeks ago. you are using apollos right? witch batch number? I can check on monday in the office if they are the same... I checked everything like you , with the same frustrating results. the only thing that helped was using a new box of transcos. now everything is working again since 4weeks.
good luck

[boogievan]

Cool thread. (;

Didn't know about the need for room humidifier, Concrete. Hah. Here's a face palm for your Sunday, I set up my lathe in my tape (cold dry) storage room. Not moving the lathe. So, the tapes need to find somewhere else to hide from soft binder syndromes (e.g., SSS) once I get the room sufficiently wetted.

Just read about Audiodisc blank manufacture back in the day by Capitol Magnetic Products. The brochure is included in Basic Disc Mastering compendium v. 2. Capitol said the Audiodiscs achieved a groove smoothness of 0,4 microinches (100 Angstroms) when burnishing facets were used (see: Adamant Kogyo). Not only was their lacquer applied in a Class 100 White Room, they used their own manufactured aluminum blanks that they lapped the surfaces of for smoothness, rather than calendared (where a workpiece is passed through rollers). After grinding away the surface, imperfections are de-burred and flash coating adhesion is simultaneously improved. The discs were thoroughly bathed post lapping to remove the debris and chemicals. After the White Room lacquer-coating process is done to the first side, the lacquer is dried in an incubation chamber (s/low heat). Then the still single lacquer-sided blank is cured in a lab oven. Then the half-blank is given the same treatments as before for the other side.

Audiodiscs were examined thrice before packaging as masters. As most of you know, the batch code is impressed on the non-preferred side of the blank. Since the Audiodiscs were both dried and cured before packaging, it was recommended to use them right away - not beyond one year of storage. 1st in 1st out for cutters.

How did they manage this degree of development and quality control? Capitol was the parent and could afford to run support laboratories in Glenbrock, Conn (anywhere near Complete?) and Los Angeles. These engineers would test samples at random for things like static, advance ball scoring, noise vs. stylus heat, noise versus effective radius, and even intermodulation distortion.

I'm very glad there's an Apollo, still. However, we need more than one company in this part of the world. It's not fair to make a small business be a monopoly and live up to yester-market's quality without having the companion war chest of Bell Labs or even Capitol.

Furthermore, I just read that wax doesn't have the elastic memory that lacquer does, so it should be a better mastering land if the right soap is made. The main reason lacquer was adopted was for making dubs - not masters. The radio stations wanted to be able to make repeated plays of instantaneous discs (i.e., one-offs). But wax, while having excellent plastic memory, and making a superb disc candidate for making masters for pressings, fails to maintain the manufacturable groove integrity after even one play. So, why not just use lacquers for dubs and come up with your own recipe for hot wax masters?

Finally, if we are to use these fine dubs as master forming originals, then what about today's vertical tracking angle? Is it still ok to cut at 18 degrees vta so that the lacquer elastic memory will return to about 15 degrees? Or do post 1970's stereos expect a deeper angle of tracking? The wax disc would have to be cut at the playback target, rather than overhanging for the pull back effect by the time a dub or pressing is played back.

- Tim E.

[Greg Reierson]

Taking a day off seems to have been a good idea. After all of the messing around with the chip tube, etc. and cycling through three brand new Adamant styli in the process, I finally went back to the old noisy stylus I took off a week or so ago. Damn thing worked right away...

I can only guess that something may be wrong with these new styli I got from Apollo. They look fine under the microscope. Anyone else had issues with a recent batch?

Thanks for all of the suggestions. It's good to know there's a bunch of guys out there who have been through it and are happy to offer help.

[leo gonzalez]

yes, i've had this issue before.
though i cant remeber if it was with an nsh adamant.
it was very frustrating and i proceded the same way you did.
last time this happened i prevented myself from disaligning the whole suction system again and addressed the stylus right away.

[opcode66]

If your new stylus was made without burnishing facets then you would certainly have a problem with dropped chip when cutting lacquers. This is my experience so far cutting lacquer with my diamonds.

[concretecowboy71]

Just put a new Transco Stylus on this weekend (320K) A2631.

No problems.

The humidifier I have to guess helps to keep static electricity down, that chip thread seems to stick to everything and static electricity only makes it worse.

After you get things sorted out, I would suggest like Dietrich to take that chip tube off and give it a good once over with a pipe cleaner and acetone (be sure to remove it from the head).