New Hobby Ultrasonic Record Cleaning


Purchased a cheap $199.00 stainless steel digital ultrasonic cleaner with a very nice record cleaning attachment off Amazon and I am having a blast.

This thing is heated, has a timer and an electric motor to rotate the records in the US tank. It is a 6L unit and it is made in China. Seems well built and it cleans records like a much more expensive machine.

I have cleaned a half dozen albums that are 40 plus years old and have only been cleaned with vacuuming machines and this thing is great. The albums I have cleaned sound darn near new and my wife thought I bought another new cartridge or phono pre-amp.

Can not recommend this type of cleaning system enough.

Rediscover those old albums.. if this thing lasts a couple of years I will be a happy dude. 
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I'm using 10 drops of Tergitol 15-S-9 per gallon of distilled water.  But I'm new to ultrasonic record cleaning so that might be the wrong amount.
Wow, they charge as much for shipping as the product! Any other alternatives to this product to be used with the US cleaner? 
So based on the OP and others I purchased one of these Happybuy machines. Mine came about three days after the order via Amazon. I got it out of the box today and with a slight bit of trial and error since the directions are a little sparse I got it all together. Not being a chemist and being impatient with all the various DIY formulas that are out there I just bought some Degritter record cleaning fluid (made specifically for an ultrasonic cleaner) from Music Direct. I figured out you use about 5ml of the fluid concentrate per gallon of distilled water. I ran a half a dozen LPs through the cycle (5 minutes) and wiped them with a microfiber cloth that I had also purchased from Amazon.  My initial test was with the water in about 25°C. I do plan to run subsequent tests with a little more heat but I was anxious to give the machine a try and so did not give long enough to warm up the water.
Once they were nice and dry I gave them a play and they were considerably quieter than they had been before. I purposefully used some LPs I had bought at a garage sale in the fall and had never played or cleaned. I did a before and after on each of them and it was very very noticeable.
The machine is easy to use and I have gotten good results in my modest test so far. Now, could I have gotten just as good of results with a good scrub at the sink or using my Discwasher system more heavily? Unknown at this time. I certainly don’t feel like this was money wasted, especially considering the namebrand alternatives run 10 times this cost or more.
@larryincmhGlad it worked out for.

I love passing on what I think is a great find/deal.
@garyalex,

10 drops = about 0.5 mL; 1-gal =  3785 mL, so 0.5/3785 = 0.0132%.  I wrote the following as the 1st post of this 2nd page of this thread -  "Tergitol 15-S-9 is a preferred non-ionic surfactant for record ultrasonic machines because you only need about a 0.01 to 0.025% solution for both superior wetting and some detergency and it has a high cloud point. This low concentration equal to 100 to 250 ppm allows you to forgo the rinse step."

So, your 10 drops/gal is in the zone. 

@rajivhifi,

In the same post I referenced above, I also said:  "Triton X100 is a 50-yr design, and is not as efficient - it requires ~4 times to do the same, and because of the high concentration you really need to rinse otherwise you will leave surfactant behind."  Triton X100 you can buy Amazon.  Depending on your system (how resolving is it) and your own hearing (how acute/sensitive) you may not hear the effect of the residue which tends to effect the higher frequencies >5000 Hz.