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
I wonder if you could someway retrofit a filter? maybe by keeping the pump outside??  I know it’s beyond my abilities :)


Interesting idea! If the pump turns out to fail more frequently this could be a way to make it more accessible. 
However, once the bottom plate and tank bottom are attached with silicone and/or gutter sealant, removing them will be much easier than with an original machine. So far my cleaner performs fine after the repair I did a few months ago.
It’s not a big deal now that all the hard work is done to just pull the bottom off and replace the pump if needed ,,I bought 2 spare pumps for down the road,,( yes im hoarding pumps,,Not TP ) LOL
I’ve had several people I know try to get these units serviced. They’re not serviceable and the only way to recover some of your losses is to reinvest more money into a new one at cost. I wouldn’t touch this product; even the latest version which is suppose to be more reliable. At $4500. You would think it would last a good 20 years without issues. Yes I heard the sonic improvements, but for my money reliability and serviceability are of equal importance.
Thanks for sharing your opinion hiendmmoe! That's why I posted these repair procedures here - to give those handy people that already have one of these machines another option.