Squeaky - not forgotten

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I haven't forgotten about Squeaky, the Record Cleaning Robot... hope you haven't either. Since I have about 500 records give or take 100, I have plenty of records I can use to practice manual cleaning. There's no worrying that I'll be done cleaning my collection anytime soon.

Now that I am getting the right technique figured out, I can start to design the robot. I figure the best approach is to build the machine to operate manually and add on the automatic controls a little at a time.

I'm using a small handheld vacuum similar to the one pictured. It comes with an extension hose and various attachments, one of which is wide enough to cover all the LP tracks. I wrap a microfiber towel around it to prevent scratching the LP surface. When it comes time to build the real thing, I'll create my own nozzle attachment and mount it on a moveable arm that will eventually be actuated by servos.

To apply cleaning fluid I am using a small discwasher squirt bottle. This will be replaced by a sprayer from a garden drip system, powered by a spare 12V car window washing fluid pump I have on hand (means I need to build another DC power supply).

I'll mount the sprayer on another arm that is servo controlled. Or maybe I will try to mount it to the same arm as the vacuum fitting. Not sure yet.

Before vacuuming and after applying fluid, I lightly hold a paint edger pad against the wet record to "scrub" and will do something similar with Squeaky, mounting an edger on the sprayer arm.

At least that is the plan so far.


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