After playing a number of LPs I have realised that the sticking is actually the rod or the bearings, probably dust or dirt. After cleaning them it was a lot better but I will buff both with some chrome polish.
Thought I would try a different phono stage. The phono block fell taking the arm with it. Needle is smashed ( first time for me in over 30 years of record playing) in spite of having the guard down.
Would recommend that all wires are secured well. Now to decide which cartridge goes next.
kffern
Thought I would try a different phono stage. The phono block fell taking the arm with it. Needle is smashed ( first time for me in over 30 years of record playing) in spite of having the guard down.
Would recommend that all wires are secured well. Now to decide which cartridge goes next.
kffern
After playing a number of LPs I have realised that the sticking is actually the rod or the bearings, probably dust or dirt. After cleaning them it was a lot better but I will buff both with some chrome polish.
Thought I would try a different phono stage. The phono block fell taking the arm with it. Needle is smashed ( first time for me in over 30 years of record playing) in spite of having the guard down.
Would recommend that all wires are secured well. Now to decide which cartridge goes next.
kffern[/QUOTE
Hi kffem,
My first experiments with linear trackers utilized 2 brand new printer rods from Digital Equip Corp line printers. They were beautiful to look at and equally beautiful to measure, things. My carriage had two bearings riding on and between the 2 rods. The results were much the same as what you describe. All kinds of problems with sticking, lead dress, dirt, etc. Polished the rods to as close a mirror finish as I could obtain. Still no significant improvement. Then I built a simple V track from 2 slips of window glass. This immediately resulted in a useable tonearm with 90% or more of the problems solved. Those remaining were found to be from other causes. Since that time I have adopted the 4 bearings on top of a glass tube with outstanding results. Strongly recommend you get some lab grade glass tube, 10mm dia.
Researching coefficient of friction data I have seen charts showing the variation in friction coefficient for various materials and combinations of materials. Steel running on steel was not the best at all. Steel on glass was much better. Magnetized bearings was also a cause of sticky bearings.
Good luck and don't waste too much time on steel rods.
BillG
Thanks BillG,
I just wanted to see if I could get it to work.
I have tried to get glass tubes. There are guys on ebay, one very close to me that sell glass borosilicate glass tubes allegedly for sweet making!!
He has 9 and 12mm diam x 200mm pieces but sells in large amounts. I don't know if they are straight enough and don't want to risk that much money.
Glass Tube 4BLOWIN YA OWN Sweet Puff 25x195mm Lengths NEW Sizes Just IN | eBay
Has anyone used PEEK or other nylon rods? RS Australia has 10mm diam tubes of PEEK I thought would be worth a try.
The german company sells their glass tubes by the pallet as well.
Kffern
I just wanted to see if I could get it to work.
I have tried to get glass tubes. There are guys on ebay, one very close to me that sell glass borosilicate glass tubes allegedly for sweet making!!
He has 9 and 12mm diam x 200mm pieces but sells in large amounts. I don't know if they are straight enough and don't want to risk that much money.
Glass Tube 4BLOWIN YA OWN Sweet Puff 25x195mm Lengths NEW Sizes Just IN | eBay
Has anyone used PEEK or other nylon rods? RS Australia has 10mm diam tubes of PEEK I thought would be worth a try.
The german company sells their glass tubes by the pallet as well.
Kffern
Kffern,
You are using the brass shim on the bearings right?, this is a good part of this arms frictionless secret, should not stick at all with stock sealed bearings. The glass is better, I originally tried steel, brass rod and none of them worked near as well as glass. What's important with this design as I tried countless other bearing arrangements, even one exactly like dimkastas idea months back, none worked even remotely as well, this design works well due to its small footprint at the bearing rollers since the edge contacts the glass which also allows for a better vertical pivot but with great damping.
Colin
You are using the brass shim on the bearings right?, this is a good part of this arms frictionless secret, should not stick at all with stock sealed bearings. The glass is better, I originally tried steel, brass rod and none of them worked near as well as glass. What's important with this design as I tried countless other bearing arrangements, even one exactly like dimkastas idea months back, none worked even remotely as well, this design works well due to its small footprint at the bearing rollers since the edge contacts the glass which also allows for a better vertical pivot but with great damping.
Colin
Longer, milder
Hi ... new guy stumbles in with case for 165mm arm.
A neat law will help performance. Moment of inertia is important to keep things in balance, not mechanical balance. A quick reed (I know, not funny) is in order. reed.lt - Tonearm moment of inertia
A simplified equation is scrolling at top.
A good explanation of Moment of Inertia envelope can be found here:
Audiomeca Septum & Belladonna - [English]
A pic of tonearm cross section is shown. You will notice everything is in line; stylus, arm, pivot point (a touch high for stability) and counterweight. Counterweight is as short as possible with a lead isolation pad. So Moment of Inertia says quit hanging the counterweight way out in space. It's not a teeter totter. It's based on dynamics, not statics. Big difference.
Yes, this means the tonearm will be above the bearings not below. Once you put this all together you will see the bearing points will have to be outside the record. Not so bad as now you can properly support each end of the tube/blade. So shorter is not always better and the geometry typically used here just is not optimum.
Arm material is of equal value. Most of us get this wrong as we copy the manufacturers instead of science. Some get it right and others just "sell pretty" or cheap. This site is hard to get around, but well worth the effort.
Notice where our beloved Aluminum places? damping factor values : damping factor values
You didn't think you could escape Romy did you? Well here he is in his normal jolly mode. GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site - Say ?no? to the light tonearms.
This helps break the "how to calculate compliance formulas".
Scramble on. Zene
Hi ... new guy stumbles in with case for 165mm arm.
A neat law will help performance. Moment of inertia is important to keep things in balance, not mechanical balance. A quick reed (I know, not funny) is in order. reed.lt - Tonearm moment of inertia
A simplified equation is scrolling at top.
A good explanation of Moment of Inertia envelope can be found here:
Audiomeca Septum & Belladonna - [English]
A pic of tonearm cross section is shown. You will notice everything is in line; stylus, arm, pivot point (a touch high for stability) and counterweight. Counterweight is as short as possible with a lead isolation pad. So Moment of Inertia says quit hanging the counterweight way out in space. It's not a teeter totter. It's based on dynamics, not statics. Big difference.
Yes, this means the tonearm will be above the bearings not below. Once you put this all together you will see the bearing points will have to be outside the record. Not so bad as now you can properly support each end of the tube/blade. So shorter is not always better and the geometry typically used here just is not optimum.
Arm material is of equal value. Most of us get this wrong as we copy the manufacturers instead of science. Some get it right and others just "sell pretty" or cheap. This site is hard to get around, but well worth the effort.
Notice where our beloved Aluminum places? damping factor values : damping factor values
You didn't think you could escape Romy did you? Well here he is in his normal jolly mode. GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site - Say ?no? to the light tonearms.
This helps break the "how to calculate compliance formulas".
Scramble on. Zene
Attachments
Hi Colin,
Yes I am using the "shims" and the bearings move easily. I played quite a few LPs and only after the 3rd side did it start to stick once or twice per side usually around the same place on the rod. Just touching the wire would get it going. I think BillG is right and it may be a bit of imperfection or magnetism.
I have just bought 16 x 12mm x 200mm tubes of the fleabay guy. If they are no good I'll put the rest on fleaby. If they work I'll offer the extra ones over here.
It's an interesting shop, worth a look. He even has fake urine for that important test!! Nothing for vinyladdicts though.
Thanks,
kffern
Yes I am using the "shims" and the bearings move easily. I played quite a few LPs and only after the 3rd side did it start to stick once or twice per side usually around the same place on the rod. Just touching the wire would get it going. I think BillG is right and it may be a bit of imperfection or magnetism.
I have just bought 16 x 12mm x 200mm tubes of the fleabay guy. If they are no good I'll put the rest on fleaby. If they work I'll offer the extra ones over here.
It's an interesting shop, worth a look. He even has fake urine for that important test!! Nothing for vinyladdicts though.
Thanks,
kffern
In my earlier efforts this sticking at about the same place on the record was a regular occurrence. And always the slightest touch on the wire would start the play again. This was a most frustrating thing. IIRC it was way more common on the steel rods than on the window glass V. But it did happen on the V trak. I have never seen this with the 4 bearing glass tube design. Note that my 4 bearing carriage uses 2 of the same bearings that were used on the troublesome design, and 2 new bearings (same part number). Can't explain it, just glad it went away.
Reading the post about moment of inertia and all the links was food for thought in a big way. The aspect that hit me most was regarding heavier tone arms. I've been playing with light weight arms, unipivots, WellTempered arm clones and Schroeder clones. In all for at least 20 years. Back when CD came out I bought a fairly good library of LPs. Always with MM carts. The baroque and Renaissance as well as modern folk always sounded very listenable and satisfying. A large percentage of the "Classical" music was to my ears unlistenable, so those records have been languishing unheard. This is just what the writers of those posts about heavier arms was talking about. Since completing a well functioning
4 bearing LT arm, I have taken out those old but new symphonic recordings, many different labels and orchestras and playing them repeatedly and finding the sound great, satisfying, involving, etc. I have been thinking it was a characteristic of the LT configuration, but this discussion about light vs heavy and moment of inertia hits so close to what I have experienced that I can't write it off. Whilst the comments clearly applies to pivoted arms, their weight and moment of inertia that, until this is looked into more fully, I can't write it all off as not applying to linear trackers. How about someone thinking on it and commenting.
BillG
Hi Colin, Somewhere in the past I learned that where a curved line contacts a straight line you have a point contact. I suppose if your curved line straightens out at that point you might consider the point contact to have a footprint. BTW, what exactly are we damping and how?
BillG
Golana and others. Please read my 165mm arm post again and you will see it is NOT a pivot.
It's a true tangent. The references to the engineering of pivots is only to support my ideas.
I wish I had the ability to CAD one out so you could see. Picture one of the air bearing sleds, but with a tube and bearings just like like the Cantus.
Zene
It's a true tangent. The references to the engineering of pivots is only to support my ideas.
I wish I had the ability to CAD one out so you could see. Picture one of the air bearing sleds, but with a tube and bearings just like like the Cantus.
Zene
Attachments
I think that a long arm works with air bearing just because the friction is minimal, however the thing moving it all is the stylus/cantilever, and adding more mass will strain it more. With ballbearing the added mass would increase friction due to surface pressure between the bearing and the tube and I would assume that you could snap the cantilever quite easily. And even with air bearing, not all have gone to long tonearms. En example of this is trans-fi terminator, which is a pivoted lateral design.
This design has the pivot above the tonearm and in a world of hifi everything matters, but also I think one should not chase after one feature and ruin rest of the design while doing so.
---
I finally have all the parts. I've been dreaming about those cnc-tables seen in previous messages, but due to financial and size issues, I'll try to do their "equal" with screws, aluminium tubes and plywood. Main reason being that I want the cartridge to be connected to the tonearm with just the screw holes (like SME V) and all the positioning happens in the structure holding the tube.
This design has the pivot above the tonearm and in a world of hifi everything matters, but also I think one should not chase after one feature and ruin rest of the design while doing so.
---
I finally have all the parts. I've been dreaming about those cnc-tables seen in previous messages, but due to financial and size issues, I'll try to do their "equal" with screws, aluminium tubes and plywood. Main reason being that I want the cartridge to be connected to the tonearm with just the screw holes (like SME V) and all the positioning happens in the structure holding the tube.
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What is the lightest tracking weight that you folks have been able to achieve and not have tracking issues? My concern is using a sure v15 since it tracks at less than 1g.
I do have a couple of older carts (Empire and Pickering) that track at a much heavier weight than the sure cartridge does, but I would like to use my good cart on this arm.
I do have a couple of older carts (Empire and Pickering) that track at a much heavier weight than the sure cartridge does, but I would like to use my good cart on this arm.
Just my two cents worth, nothing that tracks at less than a gram sounds as good as it would with more weight on it even the V15 Sure or the ADC XLM. Both can track below a gram but both sound better with more weight than that. I have an XLM right now that I would like to have rebuilt. Best regards Moray James
Echo Echo Echo!! I just recently put an XLM 2 into service on my LT. Used a $15 needle from Amazon. Far exceeds my expectations. Am using ~1.6 gr tracking force even tho it will track at .9 to 1 gr. Yes it does sound better with the heavier weight but not by a large amount. Only slightly different was an old Empire 2000E with a Pfahnstiehl stylus. The Empire was excellent on the LT arm. I strongly suggest using it over the Pickering. The LT does wonderful things for the Empire. The XLM is running neck and neck with my Ortofon OM but the OM needs a new stylus and who knows what a more expensive stylus might do for the XLM.
Regards,
BillG
kffern,
I thought about trying that method with the dual plates, but then realized the advantages if the weight if the T offsetting the cartridge weight are lost therefore needing a heavier counterweight thus more mass.
Bill,
What I mean by damping is vertical damping mostly, you can drop the stylus on a record and it won't bounce, not recommended though but exercises tight control navigating almost all warps. I discovered too that this loose coupled bearing arrangement also decoupled the carriage from picking up noise vs tight bolted, another happy accident searching for low friction!.
Colin
I thought about trying that method with the dual plates, but then realized the advantages if the weight if the T offsetting the cartridge weight are lost therefore needing a heavier counterweight thus more mass.
Bill,
What I mean by damping is vertical damping mostly, you can drop the stylus on a record and it won't bounce, not recommended though but exercises tight control navigating almost all warps. I discovered too that this loose coupled bearing arrangement also decoupled the carriage from picking up noise vs tight bolted, another happy accident searching for low friction!.
Colin
Colin and Kffern ... Dual mounting plates could be better. Drilling holes would equalize mass, but cut down on it's vibration sinking ability. Bearing mounting plates should be the same material as tonearm and attached (minimum slop between parts) with super hard epoxy to transfer vibration away from the arm. Dissimilar materials can act like an sound insulator. Vibration needs to be drawn away from the cart to a huge sink, but no option for that here. The counterweight is not the place for damping (but could be with the right materials), it just sends vibration back along the arm so we are stuck with the plates doing the job. The bearings and riding tube won't help either so I think that Colin's reference to a looser bearing connection is valid; however, maybe an acoustical damping material for mounting bearings is in order. I'd need to look up materials that would be non-compatible (rubber bolts?) with the tonearm material and plates but still somewhat flexible. There is something about dual plates that is intriguing, thanks Kffern.
Back to my digital slide rule and analog CAD program. Zene
Back to my digital slide rule and analog CAD program. Zene
Hi Zene
I think everyone is afraid to appear dumb in public. But my curiosity is greater than my fear. So what is a digital slide rule and an analog CAD program?
Sincerely,
Ralf
I think everyone is afraid to appear dumb in public. But my curiosity is greater than my fear. So what is a digital slide rule and an analog CAD program?
Sincerely,
Ralf
zene,
Great point, I thought of that too. Not rubber bolts but nylon/delrin
To220 tophat insulators at each end of the bearings, this helps center the brass shim and decouples the bolt further from the tube and T. I use a set screw to lock the cf wand, and on top of that it's a snug fit in the T made out of polycarbonate.
Colin
Great point, I thought of that too. Not rubber bolts but nylon/delrin
To220 tophat insulators at each end of the bearings, this helps center the brass shim and decouples the bolt further from the tube and T. I use a set screw to lock the cf wand, and on top of that it's a snug fit in the T made out of polycarbonate.
Colin