Thinking about getting a Humminguru soon. My Record Doctor does a good job but takes time and I get tired of turning, brushing and vacuuming each side twice. I use hearing protectors when running it and am planning g on using them with the HG if I get it. I'm wondering if any of you have noticed US machines bothering your dog? Mine would be upstairs while I was cleaning records in the basement.
Not the Guru. The noise it makes comes from the roller action and not the US. Produces no very high squeals.
I've been using the GrooveWasher surfactant without a separate rinse and haven't noticed any residue. Just be sure to only use one drop per tankful of water. The stuff is really concentrated.
I may be over thinking this but does the filter remove the GrooveWasher fluid from the water? The little white filter on the drain tank I mean. Should I put a drop in each time I fill even though the water is the same? I know that's deep in the weeds. I was thinking about removing the filter.
The water filter only removes solids. The surfactant is a liquid that dissolves into the water, so it is not removed by filtering. You only need to add more surfactant when you're changing to a fresh batch of water.
In the interest of fairness, a report on a not-so-positive development. The drive motor that spins the disc has stopped working on my unit after 1650 (+/-50) discs. I have had an excellent experience with customer service to this point - I reached out to them Thursday morning, when the problem first occurred, and heard back early enough in the evening that I was able to exchange a few emails before heading to bed. They asked me to check a few things, and then based on those responses asked if I would be comfortable with doing a partial disassembly of the machine and making the repair myself. After a bit more back and forth on Friday, including a couple of photos from my end, they confirmed they would be shipping the replacement part(s) out early this week. Given the time difference (Hong Kong is 13 hours ahead of Des Moines/Chicago), I'm very pleased with how quickly I was able to get to that point, and impressed they were responding to emails on a Saturday. A few observations based on that exchange and having removed the upper cowling on the unit. First, from the quick diagnosis and the use of PDFs and a short video in their communications, I am far from the first person to have this problem - take from that what you will. (I'm wondering if some of the noise associated with the unit has been a result of the gradual failure of that part, both for me and for others.) It suggests the owners of the original Kickstarter units should be aware of this issue, particularly as the year under warranty reaches its end. I would hope this also means that the more recent (gray) units have an improved part in place of the one used on the original version of the machine. Second, the upper portion of the machine (with the drying fans and the disc drive motor) is laid out very well internally, and it doesn't appear that I will need more than a screwdriver to swap out the part in question. Electrical connections are made using computer-style jumpers. Removing the cowling was a bit odd, as the instructions literally called for wedging the piece off from the main body (using a chisel or something similar along the seam and a firm tap on that to separate the two body sections), but that wound up being comparatively straightforward. Finally, this does bring up one of the potential shortcomings of their Kickstarter development model - long-term testing. I am skeptical they ran a more-or-less final prototype through multiple thousands of cycles to see what failed - I don't see where in their timeline they would have had time to do that. I'm also not sure they foresaw the usage pattern some folks (like myself) would be putting these through. After contacting them Thursday, I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, and came up with a cleaning rate of just under 50 discs a week for the 35 or so weeks I've had the machine, and a per-disc cost of about 22 cents if I depreciate the cost of the machine to zero. Initially I figured I must be in the top several percent in terms of usage, but based on that only being ten or so discs a weekday I don't know if that's the case (particularly with so many people working from home like I am). I would wager I'm using mine more than average across all owners, but I'd also suspect there are a few folks using these more-or-less commercially who have run several times more discs through than I have, so I don't know that my usage pattern is quite as unreasonable as I initially thought. However, given their response to this situation in my case, I would also say that they have done a great job adapting to and dealing with this issue to this point, so hopefully that same level of attention is being given to any other issues that may be arising. I will post again once the parts arrive and I have a chance to make the repair.
I reported the same issue back in post #904 of this thread, intermittent drive motor issues, although after many less discs than you report. No doubt they have provided the same instructions as I received. Does seem to be a weak point of the machine.
R&D is expensive. Many large well known companies look at it in how much would it cost to develop vs letting John Q. do it for me. I can think of one well known motorcycle manufacturer whose tech guy admitted it is a calculated decision and policy. As long as when it happens they quickly fix the problem for me I'd OK with limited failures on good products.
Ah - I had forgotten about that, so I went and re-read your posts. How did the replacement of the motor go?
Replacement of the motor (it’s rather tiny) was straightforward following the instructions, no further issues so far although admittedly I have not used it a great deal since then.
I've just become aware of this record cleaner and I am considering purchasing it. I've scanned this thread and the response seems to be very positive. However, I have a couple of questions for those who own a Humminguru if you folks would indulge me: 1) How does it compare to a VPI 16.5 in terms of effectiveness? 2) Would it make sense to use the Hmminguru in addition to a VPI 16.5 to clean a record? I'm thinking use the VPI first, then a spin through the Humminguru. Thanks!
I get excellent results using a Nitty Gritty vacuum RCM to remove excess dust and dirt prior to US cleaning in the Humminguru.
I've not used the 16.5, but I have used the Cyclone, so my response is based on that. 1. Provided you are willing to invest the time to refine your cleaning process with the VPI - working to find an effective combination of cleaner(s), brush(es) and brush technique, and a final rinse - the results should be similar. See the excellent book by @pacvr (linked to in the first post of this thread: Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records-3rd Edition ) for a potential starting point for your process, and the science behind it. The bigger advantage of the Humminguru (to my mind, at least) is lack of involvement - I can walk away while it does its thing, while the VPI is a more manual process. 2. If you were to use the VPI for a wash step and the Humminguru for a distilled water rinse, I suspect you would get very good results.
Does anybody have any suggestions as to descaling the reservoir tank, or, just to replace it eventually?
Replacement motor arrived just a little while ago - it beat the expected delivery date of Monday, so I am all-around impressed and very pleased with the customer experience. It was a quick replacement (two screws and a jumper, pull the drive wheel and the adapter that sits between the motor output shaft and the wheel, swap that adapter over to the new motor output shaft, reassemble), and they provided an excellent PDF to walk through that process. There is a series of reduction gears on the output of the motor proper, which explains why they refer to the piece as a 'gearbox.' I am guessing this is a fairly generic motor, and if someone knew what they were looking for, they could source one without too much difficulty and swap out the gearing, but I'm not the guy who's going to undertake that. It's run through a few cycles as I type this - Robert Frost reading some of his poems, followed by Steve Miller's "Book of Dreams," in case anyone's interested in my acquisitions for the week. The Frost was quiet, like the unit was at first, but the Steve Miller had some groaning/whining like the old motor, so I'm not sure what to make of that. At any rate, it's back up and running, so I'll be back to my usual cleaning regimen next week. Assuming everything else continues to work as it has, if this motor conks out at about the same point the last one did, I should be able to get through the remainder of my current collection as well as any acquisitions over the remainder of the year, which would probably get me down to a per-disc cost of about ten cents or so. I consider that a worthwhile investment, and if that were to happen, I think I'd shell out for another Humminguru to replace it. The ease of getting clean discs with this unit continues to impress me... ...and that has made all the difference.
I've not noticed any scale in mine, but I do wipe the tank out every time I change water just to make sure there's no sludge building up. I think if I had anything resembling scale, I'd seriously look at changing my water source. You might try something like CLR or white vinegar for scale, though I'm not sure what that would do to the plastic - replacement seems like the more prudent option.
I've cleaned about 900 albums with distilled water only; no other pre or post cleaning. I have had virtually no issues. There were maybe three albums out of the whole bunch that didn't spin properly in the device, but I attributed that to an oddly shaped edge and not a motor problem. The noise hasn't bothered me or changed over the course of use (at least not that I have noticed). Most dramatically there have been a couple of times where I was about to return a new album because of some noise, gave it a once through the machine and the noise was gone. Two lessons I learned while cleaning - keep a microfiber cloth handy for those few albums where a few drops of water are left after the dryer is finished. This seemed to happen on my older used records maybe 5% of the time. Pull out and manually clean the water filter every so often to keep water easily flowing from the tank into the machine.
Anybody else seen this? VinylSonic Appears to be a clone of the HG, and apparently cheaper, though I can't see a price anywhere on the site. Why, though, would anyone buying an ultrasonic record cleaner want a crappy turntable to go with it?
^^^ you have to pay $1 now to be in their launch. The $1 payment goes to a company called Dope Tech. They collect the $1, your email, and your name. Then they ask you to follow them on FB Messenger. Never seen anything like that before.
There are zero details on that site, nor any clickable links of other company profiles or info - just that dodgy video and text. Inspecting the HTML behind it, the whole site is being fed by a group called kickofflabs.com who make 'viral contests easy'. Looks like a joke to me. If not, I'd have serious questions about the people behind it. and I wouldn't be submitting a single thing on that page until I had a LOT more to go on.
