Happybuy Ultrasonic Cleaner 6L Ultrasonic Vinyl Cleaner 7-12 Inch 8 Records Ultrasonic Vinyl Cleaning Machine 180W Ultrasonic Records Cleaner with Drying Rack for Home Store

I have a huge record collection that was in a flood a few years ago. Most of the records literally have paper and dirt caked onto them.I also have a VPI 16.5 washer but I can't really use it for the really nasty records. Under the best of circumstances, it overheats after extended use and shuts off. Under the worst, I'd be constantly replacing brushes and felt pads if I tried to scrub down all these exceptionally filthy records with it.So I decided to have a go at this ultrasonic.Altogether, I'm very satisfied. It's not perfect but it's a huge help. It takes several passes for the extremely nasty records and even then it doesn't get them completely clean, but it gets them clean enough that I can use my VPI to finish them off.Remember: when I say extremely nasty, I mean EXTREMELY nasty. Maybe 2mm of paper that has somehow become glued onto the record and a bunch of river silt. This is stuff that isn't even coming off by soaking it in water for hours. After 2-3 30 minute passes in this thing, the solid crap is mostly gone and it just needs some scrubbing to remove the rest, then back in the ultrasonic for one more to get the last of the grime out.But how about records that aren't in such desperate shape? For those, nothing beats this washer. The VPI doesn't even come close.Many of these flood records are just loaded with small dirt particles that are just too small for the VPI brush and vacuum to get out. Even after several passes on the VPI, they still sounded extremely noisy. I've found that for these, I can skip the VPI entirely and just use the ultrasonic, and they come out sounding nearly new. It also doesn't hurt that I can do 8 at a time and leave it unattended for the whole cleaning cycle, then just take them off to dry. With the VPI, I have to do all the cleaning by hand and it's a much more manual process, so I can't do anything else when I'm washing records with it.And now some more neutral-to-negative observations.It's noisy. The cat loses his mind when I turn it on so I make sure he's out of the room and close the doors. It's kind of like someone scratching their nails on a chalkboard in hell for 30 minutes straight. It's not bad if you're in another room but you will not want to hang around right next to it while it's running. It also beeps very loudly when you turn it on or press buttons. In short, you will not be doing any late night cleanings with this if there are other people in your home.It can only do 40kHz. Much more expensive ultrasonics have options for faster or slower vibrations, which make for larger or smaller bubbles. Those different rates are better for cleaning different sizes and kinds of grime. I find that 40kHz is working for most of my needs but it's possible a more expensive washer could get some of that nasty adhesive or solid matter off of there easier. The thing is you just can't beat it for the price. A washer with those options is much more expensive.This is clearly a generic ultrasonic cleaner with a motor addon for spinning the records. It works great but someone may care about that note. For what it's worth, the motor mount and its casing are well made and the motor seems to have plenty of torque.The knob that's used for adjusting vertical positioning of the motor is a little janky (it's a threaded knob with simple serrated locking flange nut on the other side) but it gets the job done. I had some concerns at first but it's held well and TBH it's a fine solution, just not fancy.I think others have noted that the motor seems to spin too fast. I swapped out the power supply it came with with a 3A 12V supply. It spins slower and seems to be getting better results.The drying rack comes with no instructions and at first I had no idea what those parts were for. I've attached a pic of it assembled in case that helps someone else. It's great once it's set up and can hold quite a few batches of records so you don't get backed up waiting for them to dry.The heater takes a while to warm up. I usually just let the records spin in the cleaner while it's heating up as a presoak.The heater is also completely capable of getting hot enough to ruin your records. Run it at the default setting of 30 and you'll be fine though. That said, you *may* notice some minor bowl warp in some records after running them in the washer with the heater on, but for every one of those, it's gone right back to normal after cooling off and drying. If that bothers you, don't use the heater. The heater gets better results but it may not be worth the risk for some people. In my case, these records were mostly lost already so I run them all with the heater on to get things cleaner.There are some acrylic spacers that go between the records. When you have 8 records, a couple of them and their spacers will be on the threaded part of the spindle. If you're not careful, either or both of the spacer and record could crack in the middle. After months of use, my spacers are starting to crack in the middle and I'm not looking forward to trying to replace them. Also, the spacers come with some plastic coating that needs to be peeled off. If you don't, the coating will stick to your labels and pull some of them off.I have not had the problems some have mentioned about getting their labels wet. Just don't overfill the washer and it'll probably be fine. You won't get the entire runout spotless but you're probably not listening to the runout. The height of the records is also adjustable so if you overfill it, just don't lower the records as far.The manual doesn't have much in the way of specifics for fluid. It suggests water or water with some "detergent." I fill mine up with distilled water to the first edge line around the top, then add a couple of caps of Photo-flo so everything will drip-dry nice and clean with no spots.Finally, like most ultrasonics without filtration, you may end up with redeposit problems after a few batches with the same fluid. I had a pump / filter housing 3D printed and it helps quite a bit.Altogether, this is a great washer and in many ways does a much better job than my more expensive VPI washer. I absolutely would recommend it to anyone considering one.

I have to say I am totally impressed with this set up. Contrary to what some early reviewers said set up was easy and fairly straightforward. It would have to be since the included “instructions” make an Ikea build sheet look like a Space Shuttle manual. With a name like “Happybuy” you shouldn’t expect miracles. I get the distinct impression the makers improved the design in recent weeks/months as reviews before then mention set up things that are not pertainable to the one I received.So-this thing is a workhorse! I've cleaned well over 100 LP's this week, three at a time with zero issues. The record mounting system is really well designed and made. After owning a Spin-Clean for years that I wrote a positive revue on back then, I can say this far exceeds the capabilities of that set up. It's noisy because the process needs it by design-the motor is relatively quiet and the tank makes no noise on its own. But once I had my assembly-line cleaning method up and running it sounded like an all-night tattoo parlor in Sturgis during bike week.I almost didn’t buy it. Like most questions you may have related to this and any other audio and especially vinyl subject, your biggest hurdle when looking for answers is sifting through the BS of over (but mostly under)-qualified “experts” telling you how they would do it…if they ever do it. I fell into a freaking sinkhole of interweb forum debates about what chemicals, the exact ratios of each to mix down to debating the size of a drop (!), what temperature to heat the finished potion and how much running time. I have at least 10 hours of my life I'll never get back reading conflicting testimonials from a lot of people who have a lot more spare time on their hands than I do, diving into the cleaning properties between 40khz, 80Khz and 120Khz oscillation rates, and the sonic differences .05% of Triton X-100 verses Tergilkleen and how much quat to IPA to use… Really... It was next to no help. I never got a definitive answer, because there isn’t one. The condition of each record you run will dictate the best result. So I took a general mixture consensus as a starting point, tweaked the formula every 20 LP’s or so and made sure I didn’t let them dry without rinsing. In the future I will still tweak it-maybe even using the Spin Clean as a final distilled water rinse…as long as it’s still fun and I can hear the results why not?The bottom line is it made a measurable improvement in quiet passages to what looked like otherwise perfectly clean LP’s already done with my Spin Clean. I didn’t have any junky Garage Sale buys to try. And you should really clean the worst gunk off of those first before you go here. So that means you have to suit up and dedicate the time and place if the noise is an issue to do it- Even more so than the Spin Clean that I used to just sit in front of the TV and mindlessly run records through. Mixing the solution to fill a 6L tank and heating it is an hour + process before you do your first album means this is best done as a cleaning party and not one-offs. And cleaning new LP’s is just as important (some say more so) than used ones-I won’t get into that here but again it makes a noticeable difference. The good news is once you do the deep clean, replace your inner sleeves with non-static ones and handle them like you should, normal pre-play dustings will keep you golden.Hope this helps. If like me you do a lot of late night vinyl listening with SOTA headphones every little bit helps a lot…