A Worthwhile Untrasonic Cleaner

25ml should be more than enough.  If you notice any rinse problems, reduce to 20ml or even 15ml.  Using too much is worse than using not enough.

Hepastat 256 is a Bactericidal, used to disenfect surfaces.  However, it has at 0.5 ounces per gallon, 886 ppm active quaternary ammonium compounds, and these salts are also used for antistatic in shampoos and fabric softeners.  However, if you are going to add Hepastat why use distilled water, you are just adding salt to the distilled water; Hepastat its intended to be used in tap freshwater.  Download the MSDS for Hepastat and look at the ingedients, its a spot cleaning agent complete with non-ionic surfactant and highly alkaline silicates. 

If you want to keep a tank full of the DI water-Tergitol solution for weeks, keep covered, and once a week operate the tank (no records of course) at 165F for about 15-30 minutes, and any criters should be  killed.  PS, the recommendation discussed to store the Tergitol in a non-food refrigerator is based on preventing any accidental ingestion by a child, but at 33-41F, you may need to allow the Tergitol to warm up so can pour it out.

Otherwise, the wet cleaning process will remove any static charge from the record.  Air dry or use an antistatic cloth to dry, such as Kinetronics Anti-Static Microfiber Cloth, 10x18-Inch Tiger Cloth (you can buy Amazon), and you should not cause a static charge to develop post cleaning.

Thanks, antinn.  Will the Tergitol mix well in distilled water?  The Triton X-100 that I'm using now does not, hence pre-mixing it in IPA is necessary.  

Anovak,
The data on Tergitol shows that one of its benefits is improved dissolution rate, i.e. how quickly does it dissolve.  Temperature and agitation improves the dissolution rate, but only up to point.  When the water is close to the cloud point (about 60C for both), the dissolution rate decreases.  Based on what I have read, it should dissolve much faster - first you will be using less Tergitol than Triton, and combined with the improved dissolution rate, it should mix easily.  However, you may want to add in 2 steps if if does not mix easily with one step, but keep in mind at 25C, it may take about 1-2 minutes for it to dissolve with agitation (simple shaking).

FYI, I bought the Tergitol 15-S-9, and the Vinylstack label protector and should (weather permitting) have both  tommorrow to do my own testing with simple manual cleaning.  I got back into vinyl about 4 yrs ago, and have since accummulated about 300 albums, mostly new or like new.  But I have a few new old stock that are very noisy, so I am going to try the Library of Congress method of scrub and rinse to see what I can get.  My library does not yet warrant the cost of a UT process. 

However, from the 1980's to early 2000, I was the U.S. Navy technical authority for precision cleaning of Oxygen and Compressed Gas/Life Support Sytems.  Did a lot or work with the Navy labs and NASA when we were all working to replace the CFC solvents, and ultimately developed precision aqueous cleaning processes using UT that are now documented MIL-STD-1330 and 1622.  So, I have some background; its been over 10 yrs since I was deep in it, but not much has changed, and as they say all that goes around, comes around.  There is a good short article by Blackstone Ultrasonics you can find on the web, with a NASA address, that discusses the UT theory and items to consider.  This was all done 20 yrs ago.  UT frequency, duration, temperature, surface tension and items to be cleaned stacking are critical factors.  Rapid rotation, i.e., more than 1 rpm, will not leave the surface exposed long enough to get the full benefits.  Also, too much duration/power at low frequency can damage the surface.  There is an old test where you place a piece of aluminum foil in the tank; if it perforates, you probably have too much power/duration for cleaning a vinyl record.

Antinn, I would think that getting the tank up to about 30-35deg. C and then turning it on, the transducers that is, as you add the Tergitol should then produce the desired result as far as dissolution is concerned.

Great you are getting back into spinning vinyl!  Good luck with your cleaning method and enjoy the music!

Thanks again for your input.

Anovak,

I received the Tergitol 15-S-9 and have worked out a good manual cleaning process.  Manual clean with a brush, and then two rinses, first with tap water to remove cleaner, and then rinse with distilled water from a spray bottle, overall, uses very little cleaner and very little distilled water.  The Tergitol has the consistency of a light weight oil, and at about 0.35% mixed very fast.  When sprayed on the record, it wets the surface almost instantly, very little foam, and under flowing water rinses very quickly.  But, for an ultrasonic tank where you may not be doing a follow-on water rinse, a 0.5% solution will be way to much.  The product will achieve lowest surface tension with margin at 0.1%, so for your tank size, 5 ml may be all that is required, but as I said, 0.5% will be way too much, even for manual cleaning.  The Tergitol is way more efficient than Triton X-100.