Is there any decent record cleaning machine in the <$500 range which operates like the VPI 16.5 ?

[Kingrex]

Tima knows. I ruined 2 cartridge till I learned how to clean.

 

[tima]

Talas

If your VEVOR is 6L, try 0.3 ml.

@PHAA_ -- I was mid-message when I wrote the above, left, came back to it and hit 'Post Reply' without completing it. Duh.

If your VEVOR is 6L, try 0.3ml to start. That will make the wash water sheet off more easily / wetting and is a good test for first use of Tergitol. For cleaning (detergency), go to 0.8ml up to 1.0ml. Check for excess foaming though I don't think that willl happen. If you get too much foam, dial back to, say, 0.7ml - 0.8ml. My ultrasonic is 12.75L and I use 2ml in it with minimum foam.

 

[PHAA_]

Tima knows. I ruined 2 cartridge till I learned how to clean.

The cartridges!?!?

I haven’t ruined any cartridges…well, except for the one I fumbled on the floor; jettisoned the stylus off the cantilever to some place I know not where. That hurt, 400 bucks down the drain. The latest re-tip just in cost twice that. To say I am being exceedingly careful and monitoring everything would be an understatement.

I understand “wicking”; never play records wet and very rarely use anything but a good brush on the stylus. With the UCM (and associated process) there is really nothing left on the stylus save a few specs easily brushed off and nothing on the record that would take out my cartridge other than an unnoticed, deep scratch…and maybe the cannons at the end of that infamous Telarc pressing we all play while simultaneously grimacing and praying.

 

[Neil.Antin]

Talas

If your VEVOR is 6L, try 0.3 ml.

Tim,

Someone actually measured the water volume to fill a 6L Vevor tank to a level for record cleaning, and the volume was 1.2-gal (~4.6L). For ease of use, just assume 5L. And I would suspect that any of the Chinese made 6L UT tanks are all the same volume since they are probably all using the same tank.

If adding 0.3-ml Tergitol 15-S-9 to the 5L = (0.3/5000) = 0.006% = ~60-ppm which is still fine for wetting. Even decreasing to 0.2-ml and 40-ppm will still get wetting, but in both cases, no detergency, and I would consider <60-ppm to be a no-rinse concentration.

Take care

Neil

 

[Neil.Antin]

I received a VEVOR system for Christmas 2 years ago (almost 3); less than $200, IIRC. It has cleaned upwards of 1,000 LPs, a handful of 10” LPs and a handful of 45 rpm’s. Effort from me and time consumption has been minimal. That’s important to me. Worth every penny, IMO. [Caveat: water level must be filled above recommended UCM stopping point for 45’s and some LP’s with shallow run-out.]

After transcribing each side of a record I examine the stylus under a 10x microscope. Even at that magnification, I generally only see a few specs of dust. I would call that impressive; no special cleaning solutions, usually just purified water and air dried. Glistening vinyl makes me happy.

Truly, visibly grungy records get wiped down and run in the UCM along with a few drops of Dawn in a batch. Afterwards, they are run through the UC again with just water. These days, I try to avoid those kinds of records unless they are truly worth the extra effort (eg. rare, super cheap or gifts).

Interesting water results:

Drinking water from our under sink reverse, double osmosis system filtering city tap water = no issues
Purified store bought drinking water = no issues
Water condensation from the portable AC unit in my workshop (no joke) lightly spritzed with hydrogen peroxide = no issues
Drinking water from our refrigerator filtering city tap water = left water spots, no good
Straight tap water = not even going to try, forget about it

FWIW, here are some items to consider if you want to get the best achievable results from the UT tank you have:

The standard 12 or 24VDC power supply to the record spinner will result in too fast a spin speed. For the VEVOR record spinner motor, dropping the VDC to about 3VDC (lowest easily obtained) will get about 1-rpm which is good spin speed for record cleaning. Variable VDC power supplies are inexpensive, and you can use a 3V-12VDC or 3V-24VDC power supply such as: https://www.amazon.com/SoulBay-Univ...-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1, or https://www.amazon.com/AlloverPower...r+Adapter&qid=1758977565&s=electronics&sr=1-5

Dawn is a quality dish detergent but it has some 18 ingredients of which maybe 4 are actually doing the cleaning. Dawn like all dish detergents uses a thickener (generally salt) to make it thick, so the thickness of the detergent has no bearing on the cleaning agent concentration. Dawn is somewhat unique since it uses no nonionic surfactant, only anionic surfactants, and anionic surfactants are the heavy hitters of the surfactant world. But for wetting, they need a lot. Dawn is about 40% concentrated (way more than cheaper detergents), and if each drop is about 0.05-ml, a couple of drops adds about 0.1-ml of which only 0.04-ml is actual cleaning agents. Now Dawn because of the anionic surfactants will foam at very low concentrations, but it's not really doing much at very low concentrations.

Tergitol 15-S-9 is a high-performance nonionic surfactant and what you buy is ~100% concentrated. Tergitol 15-S-9 at <0.006% gets you wetting; at 0.0075% you begin to get some detergency, and at 0.0150% you pretty much get all the detergence it can provide.

As far as water, the residue test you are doing is a quick easy test. If you want more accuracy, you can measure its total dissolved solids (TDS) and this meter (which many use) is about the cheapest that you can get that will deliver accurate results: https://www.amazon.com/HM-Digital-7...db2f4&pd_rd_wg=mjVSG&pd_rd_i=B000VVVEUI&psc=1.

If you want to watch a video on someone who has taken most of the UT concepts in this free book https://thevinylpress.com/precision-aqueous-cleaning-of-vinyl-records-3rd-edition/ and put them into practice, here it is; he speaks slowly, and the video is longer than it should be, but the info is there.

Good Luck,

 

[tima]

If you want to watch a video on someone who has taken most of the UT concepts in this free book https://thevinylpress.com/precision-aqueous-cleaning-of-vinyl-records-3rd-edition/ and put them into practice, here it is; he speaks slowly, and the video is longer than it should be, but the info is there.

Good find. He's obviously read your book and covers many of the basics with 'how-to' information on setting up a machine. I think you need some general background to appreciate the video and connect a few dots. Thought his comments near the end on beading as an indication of cleanliness were interesting. Apparently he's using a horizontal vacuum machine (like a VPI) to do rinsing.

Liked your note on reducing the rotisserie RPM with a variable power supply. Good advice - the video guy also mentions it.