Jedrzej Kubiak Rek-O-Ket Belt Drive Review

This is where record cutters raise questions about cutting, and trade wisdom and experiment results. We love Scully, Neumann, Presto, & Rek-O-Kut lathes and Wilcox-Gay Recordios (among others). We are excited by the various modern pro and semi-pro systems, too, in production and development. We use strange, extinct disc-based dictation machines. And other stuff, too.

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rickmcvick
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Jedrzej Kubiak Rek-O-Ket Belt Drive Review

Post: # 59013Unread post rickmcvick
Mon Jul 26, 2021 10:26 pm

I wanted to do write up about the belt drive I got from Jed to run my lathe. I have a 1950's Rek-O-Kut LP-743 12" transcription turntable with a ROK Master Pro Model M-5 16" overhead lathe with Presto 1-C cutting head. The feedscrew is powered by a variable speed motor that was a mod from my good friend Ryan who made the feedscrew as well. The stock idler wheel for the 45rpm and 33.3rpm speeds was always problematic both in stability and rumble. I decided to look into a belt drive system for the ROK. I stumbled upon Jed's YouTube where he had a belt drive for his ROK. A few weeks later he posted about eventually putting them into production. I messaged about it and ended up getting one built for me. I opted for the option to not have it built in a case so most of it is exposed as it was the cheaper option.
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You can see that the belt wraps around the platter and the pulley system. The height is adjustable to fit a variety of plinths. My plinth was custom built Ryan as well so the height of the belt drive was easily adjusted. The belt drive runs at both 33.3 or 45 rpm and can be calibrated via the built in strobe and a strobe mat. The other amazing thing that this drive has is the ability to fine tune the speed via a pot that is then saved to memory for each speed.
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The speed is adjusted via a simple switch. The belt drive has eliminated all rumble from the idler wheels and is so quiet that I can hear the motor driving the feedscrew.

Quick side note about the variable pitch feedscrew mod: it's a prototype. There's noise reduction that needs to be added and experimentation with a quieter motor but it's an amazing mod so far and the noise doesn't come above the music.

The belt drive is 99.9% stable. My speeds barely varied by .1 rpm every rotation. The motor of the belt drive doesn't transfer any audio to the plinth. I listened to quite a few spots with a stethoscope and there was not a peep. I've ran a few orders through the drive before writing this to get a better feel for it. The noise during embossing was reduced to just surface and again, the motor from the feedscrew when no music was playing. I had cut a few acoustic tracks before the drive and they suffered from considerable wow & flutter. The longer notes of the acoustic had rpm flux that was quite audible. With the belt drive that had been eliminated and my acoustic tracks sound better than ever.

The only issue I had, which ended up being a great learning experience was getting the power supply hooked up. This belt drive is designed to use a computer power supply. A modern 24pin PC supply will work great if you know the pin outs. That was where I ran into a few snags getting the power supply hooked up and bypassing the built in fail safe pin (PS ON). I had since added a longer power cable to the PC power supply to keep the wires more neat.

Over all this was an amazing addition to a lathe. Especially if you are dealing with idler wheel issues. Noise, rpm variance, is all but eliminated and if you don't have a variable pitch motor and the feedscrew is powered by the platter spinning, you'll only hear the bearing. The rpm adjustment worked flawlessly and figuring out how to program the device was really intuitive. If you are looking to get a belt drive you should definitely contact Jed.

Full disclosure: Jed asked me to write up a review on the belt drive as he wanted feedback and wanted other to know what I thought about it. I wasn't paid to do this and I didn't get a discount on the belt drive. This is my honest opinion and thought about the good and bad about the belt drive.

Hope you dig!
-Rick
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socialroots
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Re: Jedrzej Kubiak Rek-O-Ket Belt Drive Review

Post: # 59045Unread post socialroots
Sat Jul 31, 2021 10:55 pm

Dig! That feedscrew looks mighty impressive as well. Great choice of colour fe the plinth ,sure beats the original ww2 military grey!
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Patrick

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socialroots
Posts: 161
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:33 pm
Location: Dulan village,Taitung,Taiwan

Re: Jedrzej Kubiak Rek-O-Ket Belt Drive Review

Post: # 59046Unread post socialroots
Sat Jul 31, 2021 11:00 pm

One question,do u cut or emboss?

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rickmcvick
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Re: Jedrzej Kubiak Rek-O-Ket Belt Drive Review

Post: # 59053Unread post rickmcvick
Sun Aug 01, 2021 7:41 pm

I emboss for now but I do plan on cutting at some point.

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