What is a couple good vibratory tumblers and your recipes.

Lot-O, Thumler's, Diamond Pacific, RayTech...

All of these vibratory tumblers can give you good to great results if you can get dialed in on the correct amounts of water and rocks/ceramic to use.

As dillonf mentioned in the other thread, I use a Thumler's UV mini bowl on a RayTech TV-5 base. I think that pebblesky and velodromed get great results with the RayTech TV-5 bowls, but those bowls gave me some trouble when using 500 AO and more trouble when using 120/220 SC. Primarily because I have to let the vibe run 12 to 24 hours without attending to it. Many times I would find that the contents had become too dry and stopped moving. The shape of the bowl contributed to the problem. More of a bundt cake shape than a toroid, but even less rounded. The mini bowl is much less tempermental in regards to water.

I don't run a fine grind stage in the vibratory tumbler anymore because I use 220 SC in my rotary tumblers for the coarse grinding stage. So I start with 500 AO. Depending on how hard the rocks are and how long they stay tumbling in 500 AO, they may achieve a good enough polish without going any further. For softer rocks or for great rocks I want to get a great polish on, I will continue on with finer grits of AO.

So here is my recipe:

220 coarse grind in rotary
Clean rocks well

Fill mini bowl to 90% with wet rocks and ceramic media (mix of large and small)

While running vibe, add the following:
Add 1 tbs of borax and a drizzle of Dawn (once around the bowl)
Add 1 tsp of 500 AO
Add 2 to 4 tbs of water

Run for minimum of 48 hours, adding water as necessary. When ready to remove, fill with water and run for 5 to 30 minutes.

Repeat these steps, including thorough cleaning, for each subsequent stage of AO. The subsequent stage is normally AO polish, but could include a 1000 AO stage for softer rocks.

To finish, run the rocks and ceramic in the vibe for a few hours with just borax (no grit!) or clean the rocks in a ultrasonic cleaner.

I have only been tumbling for 5 months, so you can regard my guide with some scepticism. But it seems to be working well for me.