Tour of the Tinfoil.com cylinder transfer process
Tone arm - long view
[Large version]
(Alternate image
[Large version])
Tonearm plus counterweight are 4.5 feet long.
Tonearm is composed of a 3' long section made of semi-rigid carbon tubing,
and a 1.5' counterweight portion made of semi-flexible nylon tubing.
Counterweight arm absorbs motion induced by imperfect, out-of-round, cylinders.
Tonearm output interfaces directly with host computer analog-to-digital converter hardware.
Glenn Sage operating a cylinder transfer
[Large version]
(Alternate image
[Large version])
Detached motor (right), via belt and pulley, drives (antique) phonograph.
Cylinder transfer - front view
[Large version]
Long tonearm traverses cylinders in a near-linear arc.
An optical tachometer (visible at the extreme right) provides speed calibration.
Cylinder transfer - side view close-up
[Large version]
A wide variety of stylii are easily mounted in the old-style clip-in cartridge mount.
Typical tracking weights are 1-2 grams for brown wax, 2-4 grams for black wax.
If cylinder is badly out-of-round,
it can be transferred with light tracking by lowering the transfer RPM.
Cylinder transfer software
[Large version]
Software used includes CoolEdit (to capture the transfers),
RunMotor (to drive the motor), and Nutshell database.
Motor drive system - enclosure
8" x 6" x 3" motor drive system.
Hardware and RunMotor software custom designed and built at Tinfoil.com by Glenn Sage.
Motor drive system - opened
[Large version]
The motor drive system is controlled by an imbedded microprocessor
driving a high-precision microstepping motor.
The system also supports an optical tachometer speed calibration system.
RunMotor software - main screen
RunMotor main screen uses a straightforward interface for motor control
and RPM settings (accurate to 0.05 RPM or better).
The program communicates via a low-bandwidth serial interface between
host computer & motor drive system, and uses little host computer time;
the motor drive system's imbedded microprocessor does all the heavy computing.
RunMotor software - configuration screen
RunMotor configuration screen.
The system drives a microstepping motor with resolution up to 51200 micro-steps per revolution
(1.8-degree step motor, 200 steps per revolution, with 256 micro-stepping resolution per step),
delivering smooth motion in speeds from less than 1 to over 300 RPM.
Includes support for automatic speed calibration via non-invasive precision optical tachometer.