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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.

.


128x128rushton
bcowen
68 posts
 
@astro58go

I, for one, have found Rushton's postings on this very useful, and his very detailed and thorough instructions on the process spurred me on to set up an ultrasonic system of my own.  I'm very appreciative of his efforts and his generosity and time spent sharing this with the community.  I simply commented (and hopefully contributed a little) in another forum where he also posted, as it's a forum I post on more frequently.

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/vinyl/messages/114/1140139.html

I do agree with your general comments on the sharing of info though.  Even in the forum linked above, there's not a lot of activity on this subject.  Probably due mostly to the general apathy you point to, but I think on this particular topic there's a number of people that just don't care about cleaning their LP's.  I've known 3 different guys with expensive and meticulously set up analog front ends that never did anything beyond running a carbon fiber brush over the LP surface before each play.  My comments to them about the benefits of wet cleaning/vacuuming (before US cleaning ever surfaced) did nothing to change their minds.  To each their own.
rushton's avatar
rushton OP
2,445 posts
 
Very nice, elegant and simple solution! Thanks, bcowen. I'd been looking for a quick disconnect and never was able to find one at a reasonable cost. This looks like the ticket.
oilmanmojo
472 posts
 
astro--not the first time i have tickled with my slaughter of the english language!
terry9
2,210 posts
 
My experience with US, in order of importance:
1. record spacing should exceed 1.5 wavelengths (one wavelength is 1.5 inches at 40 KHz, 1.0 inch at 60 KHz, 0.75 inches at 80 KHz);
2. US energy should exceed 50 W per record, or more if the tank is filled to more than 70% capacity;
3. cleaning chemistry should consist of distilled water and a good lab grade detergent at recommended concentrations;
4. cleaning chemistry should be 45-50 C (added benefit is that it tends to straighten warped records);
5. 80 KHz;
6. 15 minutes;
7. multiple rinses in pure water, ending in distilled water rinse. Don't worry about exotic distilled water - by the time you've washed or rinsed a few records, the only difference will be a hole in your pocket.

That information is all in the DIY thread, some of which I posted.

rushton's avatar
rushton OP
2,445 posts
 
Thanks for the additional information, Terry. Great to see more experiences shared.

I'd continue to encourage the use of a higher purity water second rinse with about 3% by volume of Ethanol added. I find it makes a further improvement. Type 1 Reagent grade water is a luxury if you have a FREE source for it. Otherwise, the RO/DI water I'm getting from my local Whole Foods bulk water dispenser is excellent at $0.39/gallon. 
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