It has arrived! Pretty cute little piece of kit. It consists of:
- a neat heating bag that doubles as a carrying case for the whole setup
- the Record Pi flattener plates, pretty much just a prettier VinylFlat design
- felt rings for various record sizes
- a WiFi-enabled temperature controller
- a temperature probe that is inserted into a small suction cup and attached to the bottom plate of the Record Pi, near the center
You get the temperature controller on your network through the Smart Life app, which is quick and easy, at which point you'll see a live temperature readout of the probe plus the current target temperature of the controller. The heating pouch then plugs into the temperature controller, which cycles the power as needed to maintain the target temperature within about a degree.
One of the design peculiarities of the Vinyl Flat's Groovy Pouch is that it's using an off-the-shelf Sunbeam heating element that's located along one edge of the pouch, meaning that the whole thing does not heat evenly. I haven't yet examined the Record Fi pouch to figure out where the heating element is located, but I'm hoping this is something they've addressed, otherwise the 'center' temperature the probe is measuring may not align with the temperature at the edges of the record.
That aside, I'm guessing that you could use a Groovy Pouch and VinylFlat with this controller set-up just as easily, which is probably one reason they do not sell it as a separate item. (Though I bet
this would do the trick.)
Running a test heating cycle now. I don't have anything on hand that needs to be flattened, but once I do, I'll report back.
