New ultrasonic vinyl cleaner in the works: Humminguru

Angsty said:
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.
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I had a chance to run that test today in a convincing way. One of my favorite albums for Sunday mornings is a thrift store find. I’ve vacuum cleaned it a couple of times, yet my Shibata stylus still manages to find crud in the crevices that the elliptical does not.

I played it today, heard some residual surface noise and got a bit of crap on the stylus. So, I popped the LP into the ‘guru for 10 minutes. When put back on the platter, the surface noise was noticeably lower and there was no dirt on the stylus after playing a side.

Convincing to me that the deep cleaning I get from the two-stage cleaning is better than vacuum cleaning alone, even though vacuuming produces a clean looking surface.
 
Angsty said:
I had a chance to run that test today in a convincing way. One of my favorite albums for Sunday mornings is a thrift store find. I’ve vacuum cleaned it a couple of times, yet my Shibata stylus still manages to find crud in the crevices that the elliptical does not.

I played it today, heard some residual surface noise and got a bit of crap on the stylus. So, I popped the LP into the ‘guru for 10 minutes. When put back on the platter, the surface noise was noticeably lower and there was no dirt on the stylus after playing a side.

Convincing to me that the deep cleaning I get from the two-stage cleaning is better than vacuum cleaning alone, even though vacuuming produces a clean looking surface.
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Also raises the question of whether that first step is even necessary.
 
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Russ I said:
Also raises the question of whether that first step is even necessary.
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I do have an experiment/experience along those lines. A used bin buy from my local last week got the 15 minute ultrasonic treatment today. Even using a bit of detergent, I could not get fingerprints completely off. A quick run on the vacuum RCM solved that. So, here is my current cleaning heirarchy:
  • Used, uncleaned records - Vacuum and 10 minutes ultrasonic with detergent
  • Used, previously vacuumed - 5 minutes ultrasonic with detergent
  • New records - 2 minutes ultrasonic with or without detergent
For detergent, I use 5 eyedroppers of my regular RCM detergent mixture in 400 ml of distilled water; minimal concentrations seem to work best. Of course, YMMV, but this is what is working for me right now.

I'll later test to see if detergent is required at all after previous vacuum cleaning. Initially, I did not have the best results with just plain water with previously uncleaned records.
 
folsom_lives said:
Anybody have opinions/thoughts on the guy on Facebook saying the surfactants leave a ton of residue?
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I have not read the Facebook guy (not really a Facebook fan), but I have experienced detergent/surfactant residue on records, but never enough to definitively impact sound quality.

All detergents are surfactants, but all not all surfactants are detergents; it's why you have both detergent and Jet Dry dispensers in dishwashers. I use minimal quantities of detergent in my cleaning regimen to reduce the possibility of residue. I generally only use enough surfactant in the Humminguru to deter water beading and get full wetting of the record.

Purer surfactants like Tergitol and Photo-Flo tend to have less residue than household products, but require more careful handling and storage. Household products can be preferable when there are kids or pets around.
 
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Have just finished going through all the records I have in my apartment (still around 50-100 or so at my parents' house), and I have to say that without this thing I would have maybe considered leaving the record collecting hobby due to bad experiences with vacuum RCMs, but my new setup of manual cleaning with GrooveWasher G2 for dirty records then Humminguru, or just the humminguru for 'clean enough' new records has completely resparked my love for this hobby. I just use distilled water, and it works fantastically - sometimes the difference is minimal, other times it has completely saved records that otherwise were too noisy. Amazing stuff.
 
inalone said:
Have just finished going through all the records I have in my apartment (still around 50-100 or so at my parents' house), and I have to say that without this thing I would have maybe considered leaving the record collecting hobby due to bad experiences with vacuum RCMs, but my new setup of manual cleaning with GrooveWasher G2 for dirty records then Humminguru, or just the humminguru for 'clean enough' new records has completely resparked my love for this hobby. I just use distilled water, and it works fantastically - sometimes the difference is minimal, other times it has completely saved records that otherwise were too noisy. Amazing stuff.
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I use a Discwasher to pre-clean noticeably dirty records as well. :)
 
Anyone have any power issues? The record had wet spots so meant to put on an extra dry cycle but selected standard cycle with no water in the trough. It just powered off, now there's no power at all.

edit - sorted, I think it needed to wait so long before ere-initialising. when I unplugged at the mains & re-inserted everything started to work again.
 
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