Hello Decibell-My friends's AD cleaner's pump has failed. Would you kindly send me some photos of what you did to get to the pump please? My email is wdemars@beautyofsound.com
Thank you-Bill
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
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Hi All, if anyone is interested, I am currently in the process of developing a repair to this machine that not only replaces the pump, but makes it replaceable in the event of further failure (the pump in this should be considered a servicable part in my opinion), upgrades the pump connection to the upper tank, makes the bottom plate removable, uprates the draining mechanism and in general makes the machine serviceable in a non-destructive way. I have also developed replacement rollers for the upper tank that are replicas for the nonsense-expensive ones from ADS, which I will probably look to retail around $15/20 a set (but many may have worked out how to do this already - would love a bit of input here). The upgrade process is being fully documented at the moment, and I may look to offer it as a send-to-me to fix service, or offer the step-by-step instructions as a DIY pack.
I essentially love this machine, It’s really good at what it does, but is, for such an expensive machine, just about the poorest manufactured example of engineering I’ve ever seen in a retail item. But I guess it makes it a fun project when it does actually fail!
So please, reply to this with thoughts on such a repair service, DIY guide or cheaper rollers.
Happy vinyl hunting everyone :) |
Hi David and all who have been generous with their responses: Looks like you might be in the UK gosh darn it, or maybe I’m in luck and your a transplant. I have the Pro version but a very early one that was purchased in April of 2019 by original owner. Pump just failed yesterday and I think I have made it worse. It’s only cleaned about 200 records. I am the second owner (purchased in 11/22) that did the second 100 records. so it had basically been sitting for years and never cleaned (foam filter was pretty bad) or fluid removed. It took 11 cycles of partially filling and draining to get it to drain clean but I shook it too hard on a few of the cycles and water entered the the upper areas. I took off the panel with the circuit board and dried out the area there was just a drop or two of water (I used a paper towel) and then gently dried with heat gun. I was going to wait a day to let it dry some more but instead I refilled the machine hoping the pump would have freed itself from my efforts. When I restarted it the 2 rollers nearest the front did not rotate at all and a small puff of smoke came up from near the base of the rollers. Pump was not working. I shut the machine off instantly. So I really don’t know if it’s fixable now. I am hoping others will chime in I only have about 400 records to do all of which have already been cleaned with at least one other method. I have HW -17F for over 20 years and working perfectly.. Thanks to all in advance, Jim Decibell et al, my email address is jkingtut@yahoo.com |
Hello everyone ! Same problem here. Gave it to the swiss importer, they ask 800€ for repair or alternatively propose a new one for 1900€...not cool. So David, where are you with your repair offer ? I'm very interested indeed ! Mine worked fine for 5 years (around 600 vinyls cleaned) then the pump stopped working. I never cleaned it with vinegar or so, with distilled water tought it wouldn't be useful. Guess I was wrong... Here my email: cedboe@hotmail.com Thanks all for your help ! Audio Desk broken pump community ;-) Cheers, Cedric |
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