Ping ultrasonic cleaner gurus ...

[T i m]

Hi all,

A while back I was given an old but potentially functional ultrasonic cleaner.

How much! ;-(

It seems to work in that it powers up and makes plenty of noise and does make some holes in silver foil, but I'm not sure of how much difference / importance things like 'de -gassing' may have to it's functionality, or additives (detergent?) in the water?

I think it's leaked (possibly the built in drain hose / tap) as the inside of the base has areas under the plumbing with a while powdery deposit (aluminium oxide?) that seems to be dissolved with vinegar. It's also affected the ally chassis of the SMPSU but not the PCB luckily and I think will all clean up ok.

The only other issue is the LCD display is a bit weak but there many be a contrast control on there, once I get to it. There is also what looks like thermister hanging off.

If all else fails I might be able to replace their control electronics / display for an Arduino?

Any general advice on these things please? Like, do you think it's worth (in the spirit of d-i-y) spending any money / time on this one or buying something new from China?

Cheers, T i m

p.s. A guy has done an interesting pictorial overview of the internals of the same model here (and I have posted a q about the user manual there but no reply as yet):

[Brian Gaff]

Well a lot of the older ones were designed for a specific fluid now banned as it had cfcs in it. Of course its been a long time since I saw one, so maybe they have a new fluid now to use instead. Brian

[T i m]

I'm guessing you can also use plain water, depending on what you are trying to clean?

My mate bought one for (mostly) cleaning PCBs and just put some sort of additive in plain water?

Cheers, T i m

[Andrew Gabriel]

Water. A tiny dash of washing up liquid helps the cavitation cleaning process by changing the surface tension.

Mine is mostly used for cleaning my stainless steel fine chain-mail watchstrap, shaver foil and cutter, and beard trimmer.

Had a few rust like stains on stainless steel kitchen knives, and it took those off easily.

Not recommended for jewelry with stones, as it can find flaws in the stones and break them, particularly larger (more expensive) ones.

Items and eventually the tank can be damaged by having them in contact. Mine has some plastic accessories such as a basket and a watch stand (to keep the watch clear of the water but allow the strap to be submerged), ring stand, etc. However, the plastic does absorb some of the cleaning power so longer is required in such cases.

[Theo]

I bought some of that additive, which I thought would help clean fluxes off soldered PCBs, and it turns out it's essentially washing up liquid with a fancy label.

It did approximately nothing to shift rosin-based fluxes. I've returned to using organic solvent sprays (not in the ultrasonic bath, since having large vats of them around is a fire hazard)

Currently we're a bit haphazard about what kind of flux is being used - I need to pin down whether to standardise on water soluble (must be cleaned), rosin (with cleaning) or no-clean rosin. An interesting discussion here:

Theo

[T i m]

I have a little (Lidl?) plastic US cleaner and I have to say I've only ever used a couple of drops of Fairy in that.

I tend to use meths and a cut down paintbrush. ;-)

Understood.

For me I think this big US cleaner would be for more mechanical things, like carbs but I'm not sure how much better a job it would do over hand cleaning with carb cleaner?

Quite a bit to read, bookmarked for later. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Terry Casey]

Yup! My wife has got a small one she uses for her jewelery and that is exactly what she uses.