My new alignment template generator

[Conrad Hoffman]

Difool- You can fool the template generator into doing unnatural things by simply changing the inner and outer groove radius, plus other stuff. Unfortunately, something has to be the floating parameter. If you have the things mentioned above, that floating parameter ends up being the tone arm length. What you also need is the wonderful Elison spreadsheet mentioned in the readme file. That will let you experiment with all the dimensions and graph the error. IMO, regardless of what you found elsewhere, you'll be way better off using the recognized alignments. Anything else just increases the tracking error for no good reason.

Hannes- thanks for the kind words!

[Emperor5353]

I am trying to get this to work and I keep getting a message to install a printer when I have one already installed..any idea what is causing this?
I have Win 7 64 bit

Thanks

[Conrad Hoffman]

Oh dear, the world may be passing me by. It does that more and more often these days. I don't have anything more recent than (yecch) Vista here. I'll try to test the program on newer versions and see what happens. It's probably an easy fix if I can reproduce it.

[Emperor5353]

Oh dear, the world may be passing me by. It does that more and more often these days. I don't have anything more recent than (yecch) Vista here. I'll try to test the program on newer versions and see what happens. It's probably an easy fix if I can reproduce it.

That would be awesome! I used this program on my old XP machine and it was sweet!

I have another pc with Vista on it..I forgot that I can use it there? It just isn't networked to a printer though

[JaS]

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit and it works fine for me Hitting the OK button just brings up the print dialogue window as expected (in my case the default printer is the Adobe PDF converter).

template_generator.jpg (70.04 KiB) Viewed 2081 times

Regards,
JaS

[Conrad Hoffman]

If that works it's good to know. The program is written in PowerBASIC (which is a really fantastic language) and the forums report various printer-related problems with Win7. It may be something related to the compiler or it may be something entirely Win7 related. Some have seen printers cease functioning after Win7 updates. I'll check back in when I hear more

[egicar]

Dear Conrad,

many thanks for your wonderful work
Me too I use Windows 7 64 bit without problems

Ciao,
Egidio

[Dimal]

Ditto!

And with four different printers to boot....

Mal.

[Obscurist]

Hi,

Very happy that I just found this protractor generator, and I'm eager to use it. I installed Wine on my Mac so that I can use it. A warm thank you to Mr. Hoffman for sharing his work!

It took me a while to gather up most of the desired specs and parameters for the Jelco SA-750E I'm about to order, and it looks like the result from the Protractor Generator will be quite close to the specs given by Jelco. DIN Loefgren A will result in an overhang of 15.187 mm. (Jelco spec=15) with null points at 63.103 and 119.173. The effective length in that calculation is 255.187 (Jelco spec=255), so that extra 0.187 is compensated by the extra 0.187 for the overhang, isn't it?

I know that most ready-to-use protractors use IEC Loefgren A with null points at 66 and 120.9 but that will give me an overhang of 16.083.

I'm not sure if that will make a big difference, so comments on these numbers would be appreciated.

[Wawrzyniecki]

Hi,
Conrad I just wanted to use this opportunity and personally thank you for these priceless arc protractors. I've used Lofgren A on my new Debut III SE with OM10 and it was a real pleasure to calibrate and simple to read. No more fiddling around a stock "stupid" protractor. For the rest of the folks out there: I ran Conrad's program on Ubuntu 12.04 using Wine emulating Win XP. I have no printer at home so I've installed cups-pdf as a default printer to create pdf I then printed someplace else.
Again, thanks for your, free of charge, work. Really appreciated.

Greg

[awkwardbydesign]

Hey guys quick question:
While trying to align the cart to the arc. The p2s line should stay pointed towards the tonearm pivot as accurately as possible until the cart is aligned with the arc?

I've stuck my protractor onto a longer piece of card with a notch cut out to fit round the pillar of my arm. Works for me, but depends on your setup. I did have to bend the end down slightly to fit under the bias magnets (Decca International arm & Decca London Supergold).
And no problems with offset cantilever for me. No cantilever! I just can't see the sides of the Decca as it is in a GB clamp. I guess I need to make a mirrored version.

[Specd_out]

Hopefully someone can help me out. I have a dual cs1257, I recently acquired a pickering xsv3000. I would like to align it, but I am completely lost. I have tried reading through this thread, watching videos on youtube, and researching online but i am still not grasping how it works. Any help will be greatly appreciated

[Conrad Hoffman]

Hi Specd_out! The alignment process is nothing more than getting the cartridge screwed to the arm at the right distance and with the right rotation so it stays square to the groove across the record. The exact location and rotation of the cartridge depends on the distance from where the arm pivots to the center of the record. It also depends on what particular mathematical philosophy is used. There is no perfect alignment for pivoted arms, just pretty good ones. Read the read-me file that comes with my program. It should give you some tips. The details of how a specific alignment is calculated can be a bit complicated, but doing it with the aid of a template, mine or others, is pretty easy. It just comes down to looking at the cantilever or cartridge body and lining it up with some lines on the template.

[rjsilva]

I don't have access to a Windows computer and I wondered if someone would be willing/able to create an alignment for me and send it via PDF? I have a Dual 1229q and I measured the platter centre to tonearm pivot centre at 203mm. Do I need more data?

BTW, Conrad, if you're willing, I could probably create a Mac version of your program if you send me your sources.