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Rushton's DIY approach to ultrasonic record cleaning published by Positive Feedback

Over the past several months I’ve invested a fair amount of time exploring ultrasonic cleaning because I’ve fallen way too far behind in my record cleaning. With over 6000 LPs, I needed a faster way to clean than my trusted multi-step manual wet/vac cleaning process. That manual process got the best results I’ve ever found, but I was not keeping up with my collection and it is just painful to me to play a record that I’ve not cleaned.

In exploring ultrasonic cleaning, my hope was to find that I could complete multiple LPs in a single US cleaning cycle and greatly speed up my rate of cleaning records. My goals were to FIRST do no harm and then SECOND see how close I could get to the results of my manual cleaning regimen.

My past experiences with ultrasonic cleaning demonstrations were completely underwhelming. What I heard did not approach the excellence I was achieving with my multi-step wet/vac cleaning regimen.

What I’ve learned, and now apply in my new ultrasonic cleaning regimen, are multiple elements to the cleaning process that must be used in combination to achieve the best possible results. And these results have far exceeded my expectations.

I’d thought of posting here on Audiogon the summary of what I’ve learned and am now applying as my new record cleaning regimen, but the inability to post images and to apply formatting here caused me to send my summary to David Robinson at Positive Feedback who has graciously published my comments as a guest essay. Please read that essay, and then come back here to Audiogon with comments and to share your experiences:

http://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/rushton-paul-diy-approach-ultrasonic-cleaning-lps/


I look forward to some further discussion and sharing of experiences.

.


rushton
rushton's avatar
rushton OP
2,430 posts
 
Oilmanjojo, I also thank  you for your contributions. Very helpful! FWIW, here is a YouTube video showing the aluminum foil test presented by a U.S. manufacturer of ultrasonic tanks, Vibrato LLC. They manufacture high quality tanks in South Carolina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhhTRPvLRFg

And, here is a picture of the results when I ran this test in my own tank. This was with heavy duty Reynolds Wrap brand aluminum foil, as was the test demoed by Vibrato. I just left my aluminum foil in the tank for longer and eventually the cavitation will make holes in the foil. As oilmanmojo says, the key result to look for is uniformity across the foil.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analogue-source/218276-my-version-ultrasonic-record-cleaner-147.html#...


whart's avatar
whart
1,930 posts
 
Isn't the point of rotating the disc in the US cleaner to even out the effect of the standing waves? 
rushton's avatar
rushton OP
2,430 posts
 
whart:  Isn't the point of rotating the disc in the US cleaner to even out the effect of the standing waves?
Yes, precisely so. But the transducers in the ultrasonic tanks can gradually decline in function or fail, and the foil test clearly demonstrates why you need to position your records an inch or two from the sides of the tank that are parallel to the surface of the LP. 
oilmanmojo
468 posts
 
Whart--what i found was the intensity was not uniform. The ideal situation is equal intensity at every point. However, depending on the tank size, number of transducers, location of the transducers and the amount of surface area in the bath impacts the intensity pattern. the quickie test tells you two things, is the bath functioning, and are there dead spots in the bath. I initially tried 4 records and found i got poor results on three of the records but one of them was really clean. When i ran 1, 2 or 3 records, all were done well. i was curious of what was going on so i did some checking online and talked to a couple of guys on a DIYaudio site and found out about the test and checked it out. With 4 records, they just barely fit in the bath (about 3/8-1/2" off the side wall), where when i did three, or less, there was about 1 inch on each side. That was how i found i had a very low intensity close the the wall on my bath. There are some guys actually designing their on transducer layout on some of their DIY ultrasonic baths. 
 
whart's avatar
whart
1,930 posts
 
Oilman-makes sense to me. What US unit are you using? I had mentioned in another thread that having field replaceable parts would make great sense. Your 'foil test' seems to be one some manufacturers themselves use, which led me to wonder whether there is a purpose built instrument used to measure cavitation intensity. I was in discussion with a manufacturer of large industrial US systems for parts (not vinyl), who was a very solid source of information, but he would not/could not make a custom built machine for me. (I have had both "audiophile" units and like Rush, am interested in optimized performance, rather than simply a cost-effective alternative to those). This seems to be something of a dark art. The DIY/crowd-sourced information is invaluable. 
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