Audio Desk Systeme - Vinyl Cleaner – Repair of Water Pump Failure


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

decibell
@decibell Would appreciate some photos, in particular the part about accessing the water pump as I have the same issue and was quoted about USD900 to repair via dealer. 
@decibell - this is good information and worthwhile for someone who has an out of warranty unit that cannot be traded in for an upgrade. @jwpstayman is fortunate- Robert Stein at Ultra Systems, the distributor here in the States, has generally tried to accommodate customers with problems.
 I had one of the earlier AD units, before the new "Pro" model, which is supposed to be better, but I think all of these units  (not just the AD) will eventually fail.
I did talk to the distributor of Elma in the States about field replaceable parts and was told that was a non-starter-- I don't know if the ultrasonic transducers can be found on the open market-- i have to believe that unless there is some special tuning that is employed, that would be the other remaining 'part' that fails here. (The AD is obviously more complicated, with not only a drive system to spin the LP and a blower to dry the record, but also those rollers used as part of the wash cycle).
As to Loricraft v ultrasonic, I have a Monks Omni- same principle --and still find that ultrasonic brings something extra to the cleaning process, so I use both. 
Thanks for the post, decibell.
From my experience, AD units unfortunately are more prone to issues regardless of model but I also have the KLAudio unit which while a lot less reported issues, do have occasion problems as well. The difference for me at least is KLAudio is much more responsive and field service is actually possible.
 Everyone I know who was an early adopter of the vinyl desk had problems. It’s shameful the company is not taking care of those people even though it’s out of warranty. It’s obvious there were design flaws and the pro model was brought in to address this.  
Make sure you use the AD unit relatively often, like once a week. Or empty the tank if not in use. If it sits a few weeks with water in it the pump gets unhappy and will eventually break. This is a problem with the first models more than the second Pro version which has an upgraded pump. I made the upgrade myself and I’m very happy with new AD unit but it’s still good practice to keep the water circulating or empty it.