After the water
pump of my beloved Vinyl Cleaner from Audio Desk Systeme stopped working I
searched the web and found that I’m not the only one with this problem. But
nowhere did I find a blog or post that would describe a repair procedure –
other than to mail the machine back to Germany for an expensive repair.
If your machine
is still under warranty you should of course send it back for warranty repair.
But if your machine is out of warranty (like mine) and your only option is to
spend lots of money to get it fixed, you might want to consider repairing it
yourself.
The way the
vinyl cleaner is designed does not allow any maintenance or replacement of any
component located inside the machine without destroying something. The whole
machine is glued together! Something I have not seen before to this extent –
especially not on a high dollar item like this. Only the components in the
upper compartment where the white cleaning rollers are located can be accessed
thru the opening in the top cover.
To get started
you need to separate the bottom PVC plate from the bottom of the tank. Both
plates are glued together. I used a flat pry-bar to carefully
separate the bottom plate without breaking it. Shining a flash light thru the
water sight glass you can see the blue water pump thru the drain hole of the
tank.
To get to the
water pump you need to remove the bottom of the tank (or parts of it) which is
glued to the recessed side walls.
Use a permanent
marker to draw straight lines on the tank bottom – 5 mm inbound from the side
walls. The PVC side walls are 5 mm thick. Try to cut slightly inside that line
to not cut into the recessed side walls. I used a Dremel with a cut-off wheel.
Once the bottom
of the tank is removed you have access to the water pump and all other internal
components. To disconnect the pump wires from the main board you need to remove
the front panel with on/off switch. Follow the pump cable from the tank and
disconnect both wires from the terminal.
In my case it
turned out that the pump actually did not fail - it was simply seized up. Once
I rotated the little impeller by hand and hooked it up to the 24 V DC power supply
in the sink it started to pump fine again.
In case you find your pump to be
dead and need a replacement look for “Barwig Tauchpumpe Typ 3 24 V DC”. Price
is around 18 EUR (appr. 20 USD) at amazon.de or conrad.com. Unfortunately I was
not able to find a supplier who would ship to the U.S.. You may need to be
creative – or plan your next vacation in Germany ...
If you use
aquarium grade silicone adhesive instead of strong PVC adhesive to put it all
together you will be able to undo everything easier in case you need to access
the inside of the machine again.
Feel free to email me if you have questions or need pictures.
Decibell
