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.
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Astro58go--Thanks for feedback. having a large record collection that was fundamentally put together with yard sales, flea markets, etc, led me to finding ways to restore or clean records to get the most out of them at min cost. I guess a am a cheapie. However, i found that experimenting around with various ideas led me to some interesting discoveries and substantial cost savings. I was on the cusp of trying to build a Keith Monk type cleaner as its design is very good but the cost is just too much when i learned about the Ultrasonic bath idea. THere is a lot of data out there and hence i piddled around with a lot of ideas before coming up with my DIY design. Again, thanks for feedback |
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: 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. |
