VPI HW-17

Hi, If you put household bleach in a spray bottle and mist the mold it will dye, You will need a warm room with air flow. After this process starts you can wear plastic gloves and scrub the wood. If you wish the wood can then be painted. I never had this problem with mold because I chucked the vpi suction moter befor I ever used it. I added a plactic vacuum cleaner hose with a plastic hose end fitting where the other moter used to connect to the unit. I used 25 feet of this hose drilled a 11/2" hole to my basement and hooked this up to a used rainbow vacuum cleaner power unit. This machine is designed to clean with water as a filter, you would fill a water basin with 2 quarts of water befor you clean then dump water and dirt in toilet. The machine water basin is plastic, cant rust. The only things I did was insurt a plastic nipple in the hose line and drill different sizes or hold to relive the massive air flow ( suction ) to relive the pressure on the VPI suction tube , and I wired a heavy duty extension cord to the orgional connectios of the VPI motor. I have been using this for at least 20 years with out a problem and have cleand as many as 25 LP and never need to empty the water pan. I know this works. I was in the vacuum cleaner business for 50 years. Good luck with whatever you do , David.

David,

Chance you'd wanna take a job of converting mine for me as well? Course I'd cover parts, shipping, and whatever you want for labor. All in one unit versus linked hose to basement though.

With all the HW-17 VPI's in the world, surprised there isn't already a niche market for fixing this poor design. Also makes me wonder about the quality of VPI turntables, not that I'd ever want to downgrade from my idler wheel transcription tts to find out.

I notice the new VPI typhoon has a stainless steel chassis, perhaps a way of circumventing the mold problem without addressing the engineering flaws causing it in the first place? Who'd want to spend $2K on a leaky machine though?

GC

GC I am actually using a Rainbow vacuum it needs to be used as a self contained unit, wouldn't fit in the VPI box.Someone would have to find a good running Rainbow at a reasonable price , I got mine at a garage sale, a new rainbow motor only cost about $ 300.00 . I paid around $ 100.00 many years ago. This fix isnt cheap but it solved the empting of the water , otherwise I am happy with my VPI. If you lived near I would gladly help you with your VPI for free. David.

Hurricane,

If you are still looking at these posts I want to add something to Rushton's post. Using the Walker or AIVS to best advantage requires two cleaning wands on your VPI. The reason for this is that these are multi stage cleaning procedures where the first two stages are cleaning agents, the last stages are rinsing. You don't want to use the same VPI Wand for both so you will need one dedicated for each. I suggest you buy a tower and wand for your VPI so swapping them in and out is a quick and easy procedure.

David,

Thanks for offer, but Elinor's post has got me thinking I need to fix two problems now. I've become sick and tired of switching wands between wash and rinse cycle for every disc, not to mention all the wand water splashing around on top trying not to cross contaminate. The VPI machine simply needs to be redesigned almost completely, after all these years you'd think VPI would address these problems. They've ignored my email as expected. I guess if you're not buying a $12K tt from them then they don't care.

Does anyone here actually use the super stiff bristle brush/liquid applicator on the VPI? That pump jets out liquid like spilling a cup of coffee on the table, what audiophile actually uses that? They need to get rid of it and replace with a second vacuum wand. Perhaps I can get my engineer to customize this for me.

The only reason 'upgrading' to Loricraft/Monk/Odyssey is a non-starter is the cleaning time for a disc, basically waiting for them to 'play' every disc twice, you gotta be kidding? As a pure 78 collector I have a hunch shellac wouldn't like staying wet during the play/clean time either, so the quick vacuum clean's my preferred method.

I've come to realize in audio, if you want the real thing and are deep in historical music, you have to have it customized, and spend years waiting for design and production. A test of patience, blogging about it on forums is probably therapeutic LOL.