Surface Noise with VR

[PTV]

Hi trolls!
Long time reader first time poster here.

Been cutting on my VR for about a year and although i’ve had plenty of issues along the way i’ve always been able to figure them out..
This time I can’t figure it out though!

I was cutting along one day when seemingly all of a sudden (realistically probably over the course of a few cuts) I started getting A LOT of surface noise. I figured it was probably melted plastic on the diamond so I gave it a mega clean. Squeaky clean and still lots of surface noise.

Re-calibrated the counter-weight/ dashpot, made sure my cutter-head was parallel to the disc, made sure my vacuum suction was working proper - still lots of noise.

My diamond is relatively new (less than 15 hours of cutting) and it looks sharp and not damaged through my scope, however I only have the 20x scope from Souri.

The noise goes away if I bring up my stylus heat to about 40, which I would rather not do as I am usually happy with my cuts without using any stylus heat at all (turned on but at zero)

I know similar topics have been discussed on here but I haven’t found a thread that solves my problem.

Any ideas???

Thanks!

[PMST]

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be the diamond, no idea why after so little use compared to others, but one I had didn't last long at all, heat at 35 in the end (after starting with 0), then after that just unusable. Put a new stylus in and no problem at all and getting plenty of use. You got a spare diamond to check with?

Maybe post a audio sample too of the noise in case it is more easily identifiable

[PTV]

Thanks for your reply!
I have another freshly sharpened diamond in the mail from Souri right now. Eager to receive it to do some tests and to get comfortably cutting again.

I will post some audio of the surface noise as soon as I get a chance.

Thanks!

[PMST]

Ok great, one more thing, have you tried taking the stylus completely out and re fitting it? sometimes that alone can sort things out, the angle is so crucial to eliminate noise, this may not be the case now but worth trying I think if you haven't already

[PTV]

Thanks. Ya i've adjusted it but haven't actually removed it and put it back in.

I will try and let you know!

[Ben]

Hey!!
In the past it happened to me too a few times, sometimes it's the material you're cutting, sometimes it can be a flaw in the diamond. I had a diamond that lasted 5LP once.
It's pretty frustrating I know.

Sourri always makes people scared about stylus heating, I had a very great conversation with Steven from Myshank about this and as long as the wires are not red, Stylus heat is fine, I have less problems since I use heating from the start.
The VR is a capricious machine.
Sometimes it can be the angle, like PMST said... but most of the time it's the diamond.

And also if it happens a lot, make sure your diamond has the right angle and the right height like on myshank's website. I was always adjusting my cutter head with the metal body... but I realize later that there's was a little angle in the construction of the cutterhead. If I was putting the head with the proper angle... the diamond was a little incline to the left. I needed to tilt the cutterhead a little bit to the right to compensate for Souri's inaccuracies in construction.
After that, I never had diamond that lasted 5-10 cuts.

Cheers.