I bought a Degritter in April and have been slowly working through my record collection.
I’ve been really pleased by the results and ease of use.
A couple of really noisy albums have been rendered almost noise free, something multiple runs through my Moth couldn’t come close to.
However, I’ve had two water tanks crack on me now. Anyone else had any problems with these tanks? They’ve both cracked in different places too. It’s a mystery to me how they can fail to be honest. All I do is rinse the tank in Luke warm water when I’m doing the weekly change of the distilled water. I then just leave the tank to air dry.
Both have been replaced under warranty but the warranty won’t last forever and I wouldn’t want to be forking out every year for replacement tanks.
My dealer and I have wondered if it’s something to do with the higher than normal temperatures we’ve had this year.
One broken tank was unlucky, the second has me worried.
I’ve had mine for at least four years and no cracked tanks or other problems. I used 20% isopropanol for the first year or so but now just home distilled water and various surfactants. Either you’ve hit a bad batch of tanks or you’re using a more aggressive solvent mix that’s making them brittle.
The summer of last year, it was getting quite hot in my living room, 30C+, for most of three months. My 500 and ND555 didn’t shut down but were certainly over 40 and maybe approaching 50. The Degritter was fine.
The first tank cracked near the outlet on the tank into the valve where the Degritter takes and returns water to the tank. The second tank has cracked around where the holes for the carrying handle are. I can see how these might crack if too much pressure was applied during assembly but the first was a real surprise.
Even though I was sure I hadn’t caused the crack in the first tank by mishandling, I’ve been especially careful with this second tank yet it’s still failed.
As for hardening the plastic with an improper mixture I use the supplied Degritter surfactant at the 2ml per tank recommendation.
I haven’t had a cracking problem but my Mk2 had a sensor issue where it wouldn’t recognise the tank.
Great communication with the Degritter factory where they suggested a couple of fixes. Sadly neither worked and I’ve just sent it back to them. Looking forward to getting it back because it is an awesome piece of kit.
Obviously an incorrect chemical composition of the material from which the water tanks are made. A curious error considering how easy plastic manufacturing is, perhaps Degritter should consider changing subcontractors.