Vacuum Record Cleaner Rreplacement

I try not to buy used records that are in dodgy shape. I want M- in most cases, unless its something I really am interested in. When I got my Huminguru Nova I cleaned what remained of my collection, which has been through an Okki Nokki, or a CleanVinyl 132 kHz tank, or both. So with those records I use straight distilled water and a longer clean time. 

If I buy vinyl that is used and not cleaned. I will run it through the Nova with a drop of their cleaning solution. If necessary, I run it through a second time. Finally, if a stubborn issue remains I clean it one last time on the Okki Nokki. This process has given me quiet sounding vinyl, and excellent sound. The process works well enough for me. I will cycle distilled water through the Nova from time to time to rinse the pump and lines. 

I used my ultrasonic record cleaner for over 30 years with excellent results and never had the need for any additional cleaning methods. Most of my records were purchased new and I only purchased used records that were visibly in excellent condition with no visible defects or contamination. So for records that are visibly dirty, perhaps a precleaning step would be beneficial.

When I assembled my first ultrasonic cleaner I used several surface analytical techniques in my laboratory to evaluate the effectiveness of my ultrasonic cleaner. My initial experiments to evaluate several ultrasonic bath variables were done on a sacrificial record that was cut into ~1 cm squares. Controlled amounts of various known contaminants (oils, greases, lubricants, fingerprints and hard water) were applied to these samples. These samples were then heated in an oven to drive off any volatile species and to induce interdiffusion and/or any chemical interaction, which would simulate aging and make them more difficult to remove. These samples were then analyzed before and after various ultrasonic cleaning variables, one of which was exposure time in the bath. The results for exposure time indicate ≥ 95% removal of all contaminants after 1 min exposure and ≥ 97% removal of all contaminants after 2 min exposure and ≥ 98% removal of all contaminants after 3 min exposure. There was some variation in the rate of removal depending on the particular contaminant.

These 1 cm square samples were suspended vertically in the ultrasonic bath and were static and not rotating on a spindle as in a typical record cleaner. To compare these static exposure times to a rotating spindle, the time has to be multiplied by 3 because 1/3 of the record is in the bath solution at any given time. 

We also used the same analytical techniques to compare manual cleaning with a brush using a surfactant in distilled water solution to several RCMs using their recommended cleaning solutions. We found that they all removed a significant amount of contaminants. The differences in contaminant removal were more similar than different. For these cleaning methods, the contaminant removal varied between 60 to 80%. Mineral deposits from hard water and fingerprint residue were typically more difficult to remove with these cleaning methods. None of these cleaning methods came close in contaminant removal to the ultrasonic cleaner which had a contaminant removal of ≥ 98% in these experiments.

Besides its superb cleaning capability, the speed of cleaning with an ultrasonic bath is hard to beat. I could clean, rinse and spin dry 10 records on my spindle assembly in less than 20 min. The total time includes mounting the records and removing the records from the spindle.

Ljgerens, kudos to you for your careful scientific approach to the question. But have you ever investigated the possibility that US cleaning might also damage recorded information, like high frequency response? There’s no question that US can clean surfaces. In my mind the question is what does it do to the base medium?

I have a Nessie... not ultrasonic. Works great, I have had no problems with it. Quite small, beautifully built, and effective if you don't want ultrasonic. 

@lewm 

 I was  concerned about possible damage to the record surface when I first set up my ultrasonic cleaner. That is one of the reasons I looked closely at the effects of exposure time in the ultrasonic bath. For exposure times of up to 3 min in a static mode (which corresponds to 9 min on a rotating spindle) we did not observe any surface damage. At 4 to 5 min static exposure (which corresponds to 12 to 15 min in a rotating spindle) we did not detect any surface damage but  did detect diffusion of plasticizers, stabilizers or other additives from the bulk to the surface of the record. At  6 min static exposure we did observe possible evidence of some surface pit formation and possibly some rounding of the peaks on the groove sidewalls. This is not conclusive because it was observed with an SEM which could not analyze the same identical sample before and after cleaning (this is due to the preparation required for SEM analysis) unlike the other techniques we used.  

Based on these experiments, I never exceeded a 9 min cleaning cycle on my rotating spindle. Typically I used 6 min for newly acquired records and 9 min for previously owned records which might have more surface contamination. 

I would also state that the rotation speed of the spindle has an effect on the efficiency of ultrasonic cleaning. We observed that the cleaning efficiency decreases as the rotation speed increases.