I am planning to do some early Spring cleaning in Feb. Might be a good time to get an ultrasonic cleaner to restore old parts that are horribly dusty. I don’t know much about them at all. Anyone have some guidance/recommendations? I think around $100 would be a good budget to start with.
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GN recently talked about theirs… lemme see if I can dig it up.
rossman would be the other source but I think hes probably spending more money on his.
edit: DK Sonic
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Perfect, thank you!
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Following this
So I definitely don’t need a cleaner as big as that one, but still good info. I was wondering about alcohol and flammability, so glad to know not to use alcohol. I think I’d like one just big enough to submerge a keyboard.
I wonder if using the vinegar with the ultrasonic would have been an option…
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That one they show is the biggest one they have iirc. So you can totally go smaller. Vinegar is fine but I’d use dilute stuff unless you wanna pay up every time to clean something.
Before using vinegar, I’d check to see if diluted acetic acid will slowly corrode the tank walls.
Depends on what you want to clean.
In some cases a carbon fiber brush will do a better job than a ultrasonic cleaner.
Compressed air is another good tool to have at your disposal.
Concerning what can and what should not be used in them:
1- Acidic solutions: This kind of ultrasonic cleaner solution comes with a pH of 5.0 or lower. These are often used for removing the deposits such as limescale, rust, and other minerals from metals.
Being acidic in nature these ultrasonic cleaning solutions should not be used for machines that are made up of materials that are vulnerable to corrosion.
In order to protect your ultrasonic cleaner bath either avoid using these solutions or use a plastic insert for tank protection.
2- Alkaline solutions: This comes with a pH level of 10 or more. These are formulated for effective cleaning of items made of tin, brass, zinc, copper, stainless steel, ceramics, glass and even materials made up of plastic.
If using alkaline ultrasonic cleaning solutions doesn’t work, high caustic solutions are sometimes used which works well to remove oils, grease, waxes from materials made of cast iron and stainless steel.
3- Neutral solutions: These types of ultrasonic cleaner solutions are used to remove the contaminants (like grease, dust, pigment and other organic compounds) from materials made up of rubber, metal, glass, ceramic and plastic.
These neutral solutions can also work best with expensive jewelry pieces and precious metals.
4- Enzymatic solutions: These types of solutions for ultrasonic cleaner are basically used in the medical and food industries. These are formulated with an aim to remove the contaminants that are protein-based.
You can use these types of liquids to clean materials like glass, aluminum, brass, titanium, plastic and stainless steel.
5- De-ionized water: DI water, DIW, deionized or demineralized water is a specially produced water from which almost kinds of mineral ions (cations like sodium, calcium, iron, and copper, and anions such as chloride and sulphate) are removed.
This water solution for ultrasonic cleaner has a pH of 7 and can be safely used to clean any type of material. These work great for materials like rubber, plastics, glass, and metals, especially at times when very tough cleaning is not required.
Avoid all kinds of flammable liquids!
That includes liquids which produce flamable vapours (such as gasoline).
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This one is looking pretty good for me. Looking at the larger ones, they’re listed as 20A+ which would blow my fuse if it ever actually got that high. This is small for a keyboard, but I think I could partially submerge it and do it in 2 phases.
I have one of those. I use it for cleaning firearms but it works well enough. Would recommend
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Ayeee that’s a fantastic source and post! Thanks!
In my head though, I couldn’t imagine placing oily substances (ex. bearings) inside of an ultrasonic cleaner would be too good for the walls of it. Maybe I’m wrong?
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Yeah, I wonder what the best way to clean the cleaner is. In that case, I would probably wipe it down with alcohol…
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I’ve used mine for car parts. With the proper cleaner it isn’t a huge deal.
IDK if it is right necessarily but I drain it and wipe it out with a paper towel
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That’s good to hear! Thanks!
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