My DIY Lathe recorder from scratch

[fanelx]

Hello everyone! My name is Franco and I’m from Argentina. I’m opening this thread to document the design and construction from-scratch of my embossing lathe recorder. I’ll be sharing my progress here.
any advice is more than welcome—since I’m new to this, all I’ve done so far is based on information I’ve gathered from various forums. If you’ve built your own recorder, I’d love to hear your suggestions for improvements or corrections to the machine.

[fanelx]

this is the machine and it´s control board, its just an start stop, left right, and a pot to control the speed of the steeper motor that moves the head

[fanelx]

This is the head—this is where I need every bit of advice and assistance I can get. I’ve managed to make a few recordings, but they suffer from low volume and poor sound clarity. Everything is 3D-printed, and I’m using vibration speakers.

[fanelx]

I placed a hollow cylinder filled with small lead balls in the counterweight, since the head is quite heavy due to the speakers.

[fanelx]

This is an earlier version of the head. I managed to get it working, but the results weren’t great, and the torque tube was damaging my needle. I'm currently using a commercial sapphire stylus. I also have a homemade stylus made from a tungsten carbide electrode.

[fanelx]

Here you can see it recording—or rather destroying—an acrylic disc, haha. I also included a picture of a commercial vinyl record to compare the difference in groove quality.

[fanelx]

This is the amplifier I’m using, and for the audio source, I’m using my PC with Audacity. All I do is take a sample song, apply the ‘RIAA’ curve and then invert it. I’m not sure if that’s the correct approach.

[fanelx]

So far, this is everything I’ve got. I would truly appreciate any help you can offer. My goal is to eventually open a local service in my city to cut records for small bands that can’t afford a big-budget recording.

[fanelx]

Hi diy_cutter,I really appreciate the work you do. I follow you on Instagram and wanted to know your opinion about my machine and if you could give me any advice.

[Fela Borbone]

Hola Franco,
You cutter looks good, but keep the moving mass (inside the cutter head)as low as possible, every fraction of a gram counts, thats the trade-off, low mass but as stiff as possible.
Also,instead of acrilic, try policarbonate or petg, they are more easy.
Keep the good work!

[fanelx]

but keep the moving mass (inside the cutter head)

Hi! Thank you so much for your advice, although I really didn’t fully understand what you meant— which mass should I reduce?

[Fela Borbone]

I mean the mass that the speakers move,
The parts linking the coil to the stylus, It takes lots of energy to move fast enough big mass.

[spinnertownblanks]

You definitely want to work with the right materials to know what’s happening. As Fela Borbone mentioned, If embossing use Polycarbonate and if cutting use PETG. Then you can see where you are at sound wise and go from there.