MintLP/Dynavector 17D3 question

My eyes not so hot either. I found laying a white light mini flashlight down on the platter, pointing at stylus helped greatly.

There's much written here about the MintLP tractor in the archives, doing a simple search, and I've written quite a bit about the slight obstacles, and little tricks to help ease the hassles. If you haven't gotten the Loupe (Yip calls it a Lupe), then you may be able to find a small 10X Jeweler's Loupe online.

The Loupe helps at the outer beginning of Arc, and also, when sighting the Cantilever, when alining the Cantilever. Otherwise, I've found trying to utilize the loupe at the end of Arc, near the Spindle becomes quite difficult, to almost impossible.

Lighting, in various forms, and placed at different locations will help aid you in spotting the Stylus (hopefully!) Mark

I purchased a Bausch & Lomb head gear magnifier like the jewelers use and find it great for hands free, stylus set up with the mint tractor on my VPI. It scares the dog though!! I found it Googling magification on the web.

I just went through this last week, putting a new Dynavector on my Scoutmaster using the Mint LP tractor.

As the previous posters have said, great lighting is really key to the necessary precision. I set it up using the hand-magnifier, then discovered on the website a great tip for using the 10X "Lupe" which was to unscrew the clear shield from the loupe which allows you to get the magnifier close enough to the damn stylus to actually be able to see the very fine lines (59 yr. old eyes). Part of the trick was to move your head forward/back, not just the loupe to get a good view. I was amazed at how far off the original setting with the 3x glass was when I looked at the same settings using the 10x loupe. In particular, you could see exactly when the stylus was on the cross between the null points and the arc, which I couldn't really see using the 3x glass. And sonically, it made a real difference when I got it right on the lines. (I know you don't want to hear this).

HTH

Of course my 50 year old eyes didn't help..

Kmulkey

I'm 52 too .. but I bought a super good magnifying glass! :-))
Buy one you too .. and retry with a good light on the MintLP Tractor .. you won't have any trouble anymore