Hello 00,
Yes, my column will most certainly raise the records out of the tank completely. You would be as to rotate while drying just as you can do on my version 2 hinged arm setup.
Cheers,
B B
Ah, nice, thanks. I'll probably try either hitting up Lowes or Rat Shack tonight to try to find some kind of case for the motor, along with power cable and connectors. Rigidly attaching the motor and case to the spindle assembly is my current challenge, as the holes on the motor don't QUITE line up with the 90 degree angle attachments on my spindle assembly. I'm also inclined to mount the motor pointing down to lower the center of gravity, but I'm not sure yet.
Also, I did notice that the wires on my synchro motor seem to both be the same color. Does polarity not matter on these? I don't want to burn out the motor before I've even gotten everything assembled. :/
@esls: The cork stoppers that I use are just under 1" thick. I've thus far only tried cleaning two records at a time, with two spacers between them, for just under 2" separation. Hopefully I can find something to bulk up these stoppers and get them to just OVER 1" thick so that I can clean more than two records at a time in the 60kHz tank.
Hi, I used a battery operated motor for a BBQ grill to turn the shaft. It originally needed two "D" cells but I removed and bypassed one so it would go slower. It is perfect and battery life is quite long...probably about 30-50 hours as there is virtually no load on the motor. BTW I have not tried the heater in my US cleaner. I find that the solution increases in temperature when you do a bunch of LPs.
You know, gofar, a battery-powered solution with a DC motor is probably wiser than being plugged into the mains near that much water. Probably best to add some kind of power level indicator LED so that you know when the battery needs changing, though. I like your solution overall! Much cheaper and easier than the route I took. 
And thanks for the heads up, bb. I was concerned about the polarity issue.
Regarding the spacers, though, I'm not as concerned about the diameter. When I turned the records in the bath, the water either didn't stay on the record at all, or in the case of the Equinoxe, stuck to the record so much that it wouldn't roll off at all. I haven't added the PhotoFlo to my solution yet (it arrived yesterday), so this could change, but the speed being so slow makes me far less concerned. Again, we'll see. My early tests are still with records about which I have little concern anyway. I'm more worried about the heat at the moment. I look forward to reading about your new spacer solution, though! There's ALWAYS room for improvement.
And thanks for the heads up, bb. I was concerned about the polarity issue.
Regarding the spacers, though, I'm not as concerned about the diameter. When I turned the records in the bath, the water either didn't stay on the record at all, or in the case of the Equinoxe, stuck to the record so much that it wouldn't roll off at all. I haven't added the PhotoFlo to my solution yet (it arrived yesterday), so this could change, but the speed being so slow makes me far less concerned. Again, we'll see. My early tests are still with records about which I have little concern anyway. I'm more worried about the heat at the moment. I look forward to reading about your new spacer solution, though! There's ALWAYS room for improvement.
??? The ultrasonic machine is plugged into the mains...
There's really no risk using an AC motor as long as the connections are made properly and the motor is protected in an enclosure.
B B
And hopefully wired and sealed by professionals, which isn't the case with some of these motor assemblies. Certainly not the case for mine.
Pack, Please remember this is a DIY forum, and probably 90% or more of the projects are electrical in nature. Nobody should do anything for which they don't have the knowledge, skills, or proper comfort level, but it's not rocket science and "professional" credentials are not required.
Cheers,
B B
Cheers,
B B
Was just trying to compliment gofar on his build choices, with a little self-deprecation thrown in for fun. :/ I'm already going the AC route anyway, but am just wary of my own inexperience with electrical work. I'm naturally paranoid with regard to stability and safety anyway, which serves me well in my programming job (ie: avoiding bugs before they show up in production). Low likelihood of issues with the AC motor route, sure, but I do like the battery idea a little better. *shrug*
Hi, Thanks, yes my idea was on how to do it cheaply, and for those folks that don't want to work with the AC line voltages it eliminated one source of concern. Me, I work with the AC all the time and both design and build tube gear so potentially dangerous voltages are nothing new to me (been at it for about 50 years now). An AC clock motor is a fine solution as are any other low RPM ones. I find that about 0.5 RPM is about right when you use 5 minutes for cleaning. Using multiple spacers you can do a number of LPs at once....but I find that one at a time is good as I next dry the LPs on a Record Doctor vac machine. The time works out pretty well. From removal of LP from the jacket to return it to the jacket is a nice flow.
Hi, The first battery has not quit yet.....around 20 hours on it now. I expect very long life as the power demand is a lot lower than the normal load. I measured the current on this one at 105ma. So as I recall an alkaline D cell is good for about 5 amp hours it should run for around 50 hours. At 5 minutes per disk that is over 200 disks. So I figure a battery every 6 months or so.
Ha! For some of the vinyl freaks in this community, that's probably less than 1 month!! ;-)
Nice, that really is decent battery life (although the "spin-dryers" might find it a little short.)
Cheers,
B B
Version 2:
The motor works great, even if mounting everything to the case was kind of a pain. The spindle does seem to bend downward a little more than I'd hoped, so I may need to add a support.
The one real downfall of my latest design is that the corners of these beams are sharp. I wasn't careful enough when lifting the motor assembly off of the stand, and scratched my copy of The Doobie Brothers - The Captain and Me. Fortunately it was on my least favorite songs on the album, but still. I wish that MakerBeam made plastic push-on end caps that didn't cover the sides as well, as the stand is (intentionally) a snug fit with the aluminum channel/bearing assembly, and I don't have anything available to grind down the points.
I also finally tried using the heater after letting it air out on the balcony for about a half hour. Not sure yet whether it helped or not, as I don't have my better monitoring gear with me at the moment. It seemed to have helped when I checked on the recording process, though that might have also still just been excitement over having finally gotten everything working.
At the end of the day, even if the results aren't significantly better than hand scrubbing and vacuum cleaning, it is at least WAY less labor intensive (once the unit is assembled, anyway), much faster and far far less noisy. Neither my wife nor my animals seem to be particularly bothered by the noise. This means that I can actually even clean records while the wife is home, which I really couldn't do previously. *AND* I no longer feel discouraged when I look at a double album, of which I have many.
I still haven't tried an AIVS No. 15 pre-scrub on really nasty records to see if there's anything else that only gets loosened by an enzymatic wash. Maybe next weekend. Again, hopefully that won't provide any improvement, so that I can eliminate that step entirely. *crosses fingers*
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An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The motor works great, even if mounting everything to the case was kind of a pain. The spindle does seem to bend downward a little more than I'd hoped, so I may need to add a support.
The one real downfall of my latest design is that the corners of these beams are sharp. I wasn't careful enough when lifting the motor assembly off of the stand, and scratched my copy of The Doobie Brothers - The Captain and Me. Fortunately it was on my least favorite songs on the album, but still. I wish that MakerBeam made plastic push-on end caps that didn't cover the sides as well, as the stand is (intentionally) a snug fit with the aluminum channel/bearing assembly, and I don't have anything available to grind down the points.
I also finally tried using the heater after letting it air out on the balcony for about a half hour. Not sure yet whether it helped or not, as I don't have my better monitoring gear with me at the moment. It seemed to have helped when I checked on the recording process, though that might have also still just been excitement over having finally gotten everything working.
At the end of the day, even if the results aren't significantly better than hand scrubbing and vacuum cleaning, it is at least WAY less labor intensive (once the unit is assembled, anyway), much faster and far far less noisy. Neither my wife nor my animals seem to be particularly bothered by the noise. This means that I can actually even clean records while the wife is home, which I really couldn't do previously. *AND* I no longer feel discouraged when I look at a double album, of which I have many.
I still haven't tried an AIVS No. 15 pre-scrub on really nasty records to see if there's anything else that only gets loosened by an enzymatic wash. Maybe next weekend. Again, hopefully that won't provide any improvement, so that I can eliminate that step entirely. *crosses fingers*
Well, even with inferior listening gear, there does indeed seem to be a difference between the recordings that I'd just done the vac cleaning on, and equivalent recordings done after the ultrasonic bath. There's still many of the same clicks that I'd been hoping to remove, but the key difference is the lessened veil. The instruments and voices have more clarity, impact, and separation. It's kind of subtle, but it's definitely a pleasant result. Good stuff!
Waveform differences with Ultrasonic cleaning
Further emphasizing my surprise with the results, have a look at these. The first one shows the recording that had been done after cleaning the record multiple times with the KAB EV-1 using the AIVS No 15 and Ultra Pure water. My regimen was obnoxious: 3 minute scrub with Listener Select brushes per fluid per side (1 minute clockwise with light circular scrubbing, 1 minute counter-clockwise with light circular scrubbing, 1 more minute clockwise just going with the grooves), followed by about a minute vacuuming, one rotation counter-clockwise, then reversed. I got good results doing this, but I suspect you can see why I'm sick of it, and jumped head-first into this ultrasonic project.
The second image shows the same passage of the same exact record after the ultrasonic cleaning. The ultra-sonic noise haze is visibly reduced on this later waveform, which certainly reinforces my assertion about improved clarity in the sound. What's both interesting and kind of annoying is that I seem to have MORE clicks after the ultrasonic bath. Much of it is just that the quieter ones are no longer obscured in the noise haze. It's certainly disappointing that the majority of these clicks didn't go away as I'd hoped. That said, perhaps tools like ClickRepair will have less of a negative audible impact so that I can use that instead of having to declick the recordings by hand with iZotope. I can certainly hope!
Further emphasizing my surprise with the results, have a look at these. The first one shows the recording that had been done after cleaning the record multiple times with the KAB EV-1 using the AIVS No 15 and Ultra Pure water. My regimen was obnoxious: 3 minute scrub with Listener Select brushes per fluid per side (1 minute clockwise with light circular scrubbing, 1 minute counter-clockwise with light circular scrubbing, 1 more minute clockwise just going with the grooves), followed by about a minute vacuuming, one rotation counter-clockwise, then reversed. I got good results doing this, but I suspect you can see why I'm sick of it, and jumped head-first into this ultrasonic project.
The second image shows the same passage of the same exact record after the ultrasonic cleaning. The ultra-sonic noise haze is visibly reduced on this later waveform, which certainly reinforces my assertion about improved clarity in the sound. What's both interesting and kind of annoying is that I seem to have MORE clicks after the ultrasonic bath. Much of it is just that the quieter ones are no longer obscured in the noise haze. It's certainly disappointing that the majority of these clicks didn't go away as I'd hoped. That said, perhaps tools like ClickRepair will have less of a negative audible impact so that I can use that instead of having to declick the recordings by hand with iZotope. I can certainly hope!
What would happen if you just reversed one of the 2 Dcells? Would you not get 1.5 volts but twice the storage capacity?
Is there a thread where "traditional" vacuum RCMs are discussed? Perhaps I should start a thread for a DIY vacuum RCM project, but I have too many interests already, and won't start to do this for months, or more likely years.
Back when I cleaned records regularly, I often used an ordinary toothbrush for aggressive cleaning. Yes, I tried with a throwaway LP first to see if it would do any damage. I didn't detect any, but your mileage and toothbrush may vary.
I've wanted to make an RCM that lools like an automatic turntable, and does everything automatically under microcontroller control. You put the LP on, press one of several buttons from "light clean" to "uber-aggressive" and it pours on the fluid, does brushing or not dependent on what button you push/level of aggressiveness, and then vacuums it off much like a Keith Monks machine.