New ultrasonic vinyl cleaner in the works: Humminguru

The whole story is a bad look for them.
Im a supporter of fixing something if possible first. But come on, you went through a lot of troubleshooting allready and have clearly tried and spent a lot of time on this. If they want it fixed they should send you a shipping label , at the end of the day a replacement unit would save everyone some extra time and probably money too.
I feel like they've generally tried to help but, this does highlight the downside of a product not having a domestic distributor who can handle these sorts of issues in-country.
 
The whole story is a bad look for them.
Im a supporter of fixing something if possible first. But come on, you went through a lot of troubleshooting allready and have clearly tried and spent a lot of time on this. If they want it fixed they should send you a shipping label , at the end of the day a replacement unit would save everyone some extra time and probably money too.
Yeah, I like the machine, but this isn't great. If the machine is broken under the warranty, they should be offering prepaid shipping labels and send out a new unit. Counseling laypeople halfway around the world to open up the machine and tinker with it is an inexplicably dumb corporate decision.
 
There was a similar situation with the Glass Audio Systeme Desk cleaner in its first several years of production only it is a sealed box with no user access to the internal parts. They had to be shipped back to Germany for warranty repair with shipping on the user, at least one way, I believe. I also think the US distributor is now able to perform some warranty repairs but it took years to get to that point.
 
Not to mention short circuiting a heat sensor that is literally a safety feature is absolutely incredibly bad bordering on criminal advice from the manufacturer.
Criminal? We are talking a low voltage (probably a thermistor) that trips at a pretty low temp. It's not like they asked me to pull the ground prong out of the plug or something.
 
Criminal? We are talking a low voltage (probably a thermistor) that trips at a pretty low temp. It's not like they asked me to pull the ground prong out of the plug or something.
I guarantee it would not pass the CSA (or whatever your national safety rating is) after you make that change. No reputable company should be counseling a product owner to rewire the product in order to bypass a safety feature.
 
I guarantee it would not pass the CSA (or whatever your national safety rating is) after you make that change. No reputable company should be counseling a product owner to rewire the product in order to bypass a safety feature.
Fair points. But I am sure they have something in their manual or Terms that says not responsible for damage to vinyl etc. I think the "safety" is for the vinyl, not my home wiring or even for a fire risk in the machine. A short circuit in this case is not a hazard since we aren't talking service amps coming into your house, this is more or less a bypass of the thermistor so it doesn't trip the shutoff.

If the machine gets bricked from my tinkering with it (at their direction) it's still under warranty which they assured me in writing. I'm sure that's worth about as much as the paper it's printed on but I have entered into the agreement in good faith and that's about all I can expect them to honor at the end of the day.

It is tough for me to play devil's advocate against myself on this too. I am rightly pissed off that I have had to do this much back and forth over their failing. I'm just doing the best I can to try and save my money for return shipping until it's absolutely necessary.

If anyone has any advice on how to avoid paying return shipping I'm all ears.
 
Fair points. But I am sure they have something in their manual or Terms that says not responsible for damage to vinyl etc. I think the "safety" is for the vinyl, not my home wiring or even for a fire risk in the machine. A short circuit in this case is not a hazard since we aren't talking service amps coming into your house, this is more or less a bypass of the thermistor so it doesn't trip the shutoff.

If the machine gets bricked from my tinkering with it (at their direction) it's still under warranty which they assured me in writing. I'm sure that's worth about as much as the paper it's printed on but I have entered into the agreement in good faith and that's about all I can expect them to honor at the end of the day.

It is tough for me to play devil's advocate against myself on this too. I am rightly pissed off that I have had to do this much back and forth over their failing. I'm just doing the best I can to try and save my money for return shipping until it's absolutely necessary.

If anyone has any advice on how to avoid paying return shipping I'm all ears.
Yeah it's tough, I've definitely had some companies require return shipping be paid, but it's not a large percentage. But since these guys are small and based in China I'm not super surprised, that's a lot of return shipping to have to send everything back there. They really should just be sending you a new unit.
 
Was your kickstarter payment made via paypal? Because they have a return shipping reimbursement policy, up to $30. If not, does the credit card you used offer a similar reimbursement policy for returns?
I'll have to look into that. It's been so long that I can't even recall what I used.

EDIT: was a CC and there is only a 90-day policy.
 
So for all the worry warts, the only thing I shorted was the water temperature sensor. They told me it was only supposed to trip at 130 degrees. So it’s ironic that a fairly cheap part caused the whole unit to become inoperable.

The fix was easy and quick and now I have a better understanding of the machine’s wiring.

So if anyone runs into this problem in the future let me know and I can give you some advice.
 
I’ll be a son of a bitch it actually worked.

Back up and running.
So for all the worry warts, the only thing I shorted was the water temperature sensor. They told me it was only supposed to trip at 130 degrees. So it’s ironic that a fairly cheap part caused the whole unit to become inoperable.

The fix was easy and quick and now I have a better understanding of the machine’s wiring.

So if anyone runs into this problem in the future let me know and I can give you some advice.
That's great!

I would maybe email them and let them know what went wrong, it could factor into any future design updates.

Very happy to see you're back up and running. I was feeling vicarious frustration for you.
 
That's great!

I would maybe email them and let them know what went wrong, it could factor into any future design updates.

Very happy to see you're back up and running. I was feeling vicarious frustration for you.
The thing is I feel like I could now save someone almost a weeks worth of back and forth with them over troubleshooting this specific issue. Aside from stripping the wires everything else is not going to show signs you messed with it.
 
The thing is I feel like I could now save someone almost a weeks worth of back and forth with them over troubleshooting this specific issue. Aside from stripping the wires everything else is not going to show signs you messed with it.
So was it the case that the new board they sent wasn't necessary after all?
 
Finally figured out what was causing that high powered whine when it's in the throws of the cleaning process. It's all about where the record is sitting when it starts. if its in the center where the record meets that piece at the bottom of the well then it wont whine, but if its off from the center then it will. maybe there's some way to make sure it consistently hits the center, but for now I gotta eyeball it.
 
Finally figured out what was causing that high powered whine when it's in the throws of the cleaning process. It's all about where the record is sitting when it starts. if its in the center where the record meets that piece at the bottom of the well then it wont whine, but if its off from the center then it will. maybe there's some way to make sure it consistently hits the center, but for now I gotta eyeball it.
Hmm maybe I’ll try to test that then. Mine feels like it rests on that piece but maybe mine isn’t…
 
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