New ultrasonic vinyl cleaner in the works: Humminguru

Angsty said:
Ran my first test of the Humminguru tonight. Turned out to be a bit less auspicious than hoped. I see promise in the unit, but it was not a complete success on the first shot.

I can see how it will make a pretty clean LP squeaky clean, but the jury is still out for me on how well it works on a thrift shop find. More experiments to follow!
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Make use of multiple cleaning cycles! On some of my grimiest records I’ve done two full 5 minute clean-only cycles before doing a full cycle to finish.
 
Angsty said:
Ran my first test of the Humminguru tonight. Turned out to be a bit less auspicious than hoped. I see promise in the unit, but it was not a complete success on the first shot.

I can see how it will make a pretty clean LP squeaky clean, but the jury is still out for me on how well it works on a thrift shop find. More experiments to follow!
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As @kvetcha said, try a few wet clean cycles before drying. I’ve also kept my vacuum record cleaner for REALLY dirty albums but haven’t bought a ton of super dirty albums recently
 
Angsty said:
Ran my first test of the Humminguru tonight. Turned out to be a bit less auspicious than hoped. I see promise in the unit, but it was not a complete success on the first shot.

I can see how it will make a pretty clean LP squeaky clean, but the jury is still out for me on how well it works on a thrift shop find. More experiments to follow!
Click to expand...
If a thrift shop find is dirty there's a good chance it's also damaged, and the HG can't do anything about that.
 
Angsty said:
Yes, there can be damage that won't go away. I'm more concerned about fingerprints and smudges that don't go away after a couple of cycles. These have come off with other methods after ultrasonic cleaning.
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I’ve noticed that with fingerprints, but I’ve also observed that such blemishes never seem to get into the grooves in the first place. I can’t recall them ever causing issues with playback.

Adding a surfactant or something to help loosen/break down oils would certainly help.
 
kvetcha said:
Warm water and a touch of surfactant both help quite a bit with stubborn crud.
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A drop of Jet Dry in the tank significantly improved wetting and drying of records, but did not remove as much grime as expected. I did add one drop of my preferred detergent and that did remove more grime, but not as much as vacuum cleaning yet. I will see how many cycles it takes to get a representative disc as clean as a single vacuum cleaning.

I'm hauling out old family discs that are at least 25 years old and never cleaned before as my test set. Even if the process is automated, spending 30 minutes per disc to clean representative discs is less than ideal for me.
 
Angsty said:
A drop of Jet Dry in the tank significantly improved wetting and drying of records, but did not remove as much grime as expected. I did add one drop of my preferred detergent and that did remove more grime, but not as much as vacuum cleaning yet. I will see how many cycles it takes to get a representative disc as clean as a single vacuum cleaning.

I'm hauling out old family discs that are at least 25 years old and never cleaned before as my test set. Even if the process is automated, spending 30 minutes per disc to clean representative discs is less than ideal for me.
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Understandable. I think the direct-contact nature of vacuum cleaning is going to get the most gunk off the record surface the quickest, but the ultrasonic will absolutely do a superior job actually cleaning the grooves.

In your situation I would consider running the records through your vacuum unit to loosen exterior grime and then popping them into the Humminguru for a deep clean. Admittedly more time consuming, but will give you the best possible result.
 
kvetcha said:
Understandable. I think the direct-contact nature of vacuum cleaning is going to get the most gunk off the record surface the quickest, but the ultrasonic will absolutely do a superior job actually cleaning the grooves.

In your situation I would consider running the records through your vacuum unit to loosen exterior grime and then popping them into the Humminguru for a deep clean. Admittedly more time consuming, but will give you the best possible result.
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I agree that two-step cleaning can work best for dirtier discs. I ran a previously vacuum cleaned record through the 'guru with just distilled water and got the luminous, iridescent surface that attracted me in the first place. WIth that being said, I'm not sure the result was quieter, because I did not play the disc again before ultrasonic cleaning. I'll run that test later.
 
kvetcha said:
currently going HAM on this noisy pressing of Love This Giant. Going to run no fewer than FIVE cleaning cycles. We’ll see who’s no-filled then.

n.b.: sometimes records just sound bad
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For sure. I'm staring at three copies of CDW's Alpha that sounds like a crackly mess. Even after cleaning...
 
@folsom_lives Shockingly…I think this last-ditch experiment made a real difference. There’s still some between-track noise but it is much reduced. The record is at least listenable now.

I’d maybe try the super-ultra-deep clean regimen on your CDW record.
 
kvetcha said:
@folsom_lives Shockingly…I think this last-ditch experiment made a real difference. There’s still some between-track noise but it is much reduced. The record is at least listenable now.

I’d maybe try the super-ultra-deep clean regimen on your CDW record.
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I'll give it a shot. Not really hopeful on one copy since it seems like the noise is cause by a splatter or smear in the color. Makes that telltale zipper noise.
 
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