My DIY cutter up to now..

[chrisgcoomer]

Hi, This is a picture of my DIY cutter.
Also a video of a track cut on this machine (sorry the volume is low but recorded on my phone.

Chris

IMG20200408181839.jpg

VID20200408094705.mp4

[chrisgcoomer]

Here is my cutting software I wrote, makes my cutter fully automatic.

Cutter Software.jpg

[tragwag]

looks great, cool software!

[Marcheslav]

Hello, I have been looking into building my own lathe like this and I have a bunch of questions. I am super new to this so I don't have any assumptions built in so if I ask something obvious it is unintentional.

1. Why did you use a lead screw? I sort of got the impression that a lead screw did not have enough resolution to do the small step over required for record cutting. I was going to use something like this https://ebay.us/5p2ohs would that be over kill?

2. While looking on the forum, people sort of suggested that a regular turntable wouldn't be sufficient for use in cutting and could be overwhelmed by the cutting forces. Is there something special about the stanton one?

3. How are you driving the steppers? Are you using something like a 3d printer driver board for the silent stepper drivers and sending G-Code?

4. What is the second stepper for? just raising and lowering the cutter head?

5. Are you making your own cutting stylus?

6. What are the LM bearings for?

Thanks for sharing this, it is really cool and makes me hopeful for the machine I want to build.

[dmills]

Lead screws are actually better then ball screws in this case.

A ball screw is more efficient (lower torque required and more precise with generally less backlash) but it achieves these things by having a recirculating ball mechanism, which is both noisy and prone to vibration. They are excellent in machining centres and similar, but less then ideal for this.
You get away with it in a cutter mostly because the speeds are so slow that there is very little energy there to excite things, but a lead screw is actually superior for this, being as they are quieter, and backlash hardly matters when you are always moving the same way!

For the same reason a recirculating ball linear rail is inferior to a linear cross roller rail with the roller guide being non recirculating, and in fact something like an Ignus sliding (as opposed to rolling, plastic on ally) rail has something to be said for it.

Cutting does require rather more torque then is common on most playback decks, you are after all removing material, and worse the forces vary with the cut, so a fairly butch direct drive is usually favourite, ideally with a servo loop to maintain speed.

[Marcheslav]

Cutting does require rather more torque then is common on most playback decks, you are after all removing material, and worse the forces vary with the cut, so a fairly butch direct drive is usually favourite, ideally with a servo loop to maintain speed.

So is that what the stanton deck has?

[dmills]

No idea, not something I use.

[aaron]

I use a Stanton st150 and don’t really have problems with torque cutting with a diamond. Just have to nudge the pitch adjust up a tiny bit.

[chrisgcoomer]

Hi All, I tried different decks ....
IMO you need most torque you can get for good recordings. Vinyl Cutter fro Germany recommends Technics.
Numark USB did not have the torque and the speed went up and down while cutting. The Stanton has great torque for the price against Technics decks.
I am just now testing a old Citronic PDQ deck which I got of EBAY for £40, it had no torque but stripped down the motor and cleaned it, now OK.
Now I am building a new version that will cut LP's and rewriting the software to add the gaps automatically....
Also I am not using a leadscrew but using belts, I found you could hear the leadscrew noise on the record.

Still fine tuning but here is a picture.

IMG20210315114528.jpg

[chrisgcoomer]

Hi, Marcheslav

1, Leadscrews I have found like dmills say's are noisy, I am now on belt driven system like a 3d printer which is really smooth.

2, The Stanton turntable has nearly the same torque as the Technics for more than half the price.

3, I am using a Arduino Mega with a TB600 stepper driver and I wrote the software myself.

4, Yes the second stepper is for raising and lowering the cutter head automatically.

5, Had no success making a needle so got a diamond one from MyShank (saved time and problems).

6, LOL, the bearing is just to add weight to the cutter head as it is plastic.

The speakers are DaytonAudio
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dayton-Audio-DAEX25VT-4-Vented-Exciter/dp/B00PY66Y78/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&qid=1615817617&sr=8-2&srs=3747021031

The cutter parts are 3d printed and the software was written with Visual Studio and in C#, all I can say is have a go YOU CAN DO IT....

[lucca2]

nice work!

[mrmoo]

Your setup is looking real good. May I ask you for some more (detailed) pics? If you have a second, I would like to see the carriage suspension.

[chrisgcoomer]

Hi, mrmoo

Here is more pictures as requested, this is a better belt driven system and it has fixed all leadscrew noises.
I will post a vid soon of it cutting and the results..

IMG20210409182147.jpg

IMG20210409182138.jpg

IMG20210409182115_02.jpg

[mrmoo]

Thanks for sharing. At first I thought of misusing a camera gimbal block, but I really like your design. (Btw. that reminds me to learn more FreeCad skills ).

Have you experienced any travel/ripple in the x-axis bearing?

x-axis.png

I can not identify it. Did you press the parts together and just secure them with a bolt and two locking screws, or does the carriage ride on a bearing?

close up.png

Btw. just something I had experienced during my first approach on building
Using a belt instead of a lead screw is a nice approach, too.
When I did my first tests I noticed the disturbance of the leadscrew with the ceap nut from a 3d-printer(i.e. no ballscrew), too. The stepper noise was transported through the leadscrew to the head. As I had changed my stepper drivers from common a4988 to TMC's this effect was gone.
The 4988 really smashes the steps but the TMC do that much smoother. Less noise = less interference
Here is a video which compares the sound of the two stepper modules:

[chrisgcoomer]

Hi mrmoo
The noise and vibration problem was coming from the leadscrew due to inaccuracy of screw to the nuts not the steppers.
Bearings are push fit into housing and the bar is clamped with screws, there is slight movement left and right, but not causing any problems.
It would be much better made from aluminium for a better fit, with plastic I had to give more clearance for smooth operation (due to needle weight to disk only being 25 grams).

[chrisgcoomer]

Hi,
Here is my latest cut untreated.
The first track is done on my cutter, the second one is the original track, it's a MP3 from a original pressing.
I think my cut is better the the original. I pleased with my cut?

[fragor]

Hi!
Your lathe is awesome!
Can you post some picture of the cutter head? I'm building a similiar cutter, but I need to figure out how to build the needle part and the connections to the tweeters.

Thanks.

[boryo]

Here is my cutting software I wrote, makes my cutter fully automatic.

Cutter Software.jpg

I really love that you wrote software for full control! I'm working on the same thing for my lathe. Track space is essential! Congrats!

Best,
Bob