• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Ultrasonic Cleaner

Share this page

Tullamore

Tullamore

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
I just fired up my new ultrasonic cleaner this weekend. I took some carbs off an old Sprite I had sitting around, took out the float and threw them in.

The results were amazing, cleaned them like new inside and out. After the wash you just blow out the water and soap with an air gun, much nicer than working with carb cleaner.

IMG_1813.jpg


IMG_1815.jpg


IMG_1820.jpg
 
This kind of cleaner is new to me. What brand, model and price?
 
It is the OmegaSonics 7800, it does both heat and sound with either a timer set from 1 to 30 minutes or a continuous mode.

https://www.omegasonics.com/industrial/table_top.shtml

I am using their standard soap at the moment. It does get some rust off the parts I have thrown in and does a great job on grease/oil. I am planning on trying some of the rust removing soaps in the future.
 
I just got one a few months back, barely used, that is about a one gallon tank and gives a nice strong signal for $90. It's a Branson Scientific unit and they go for about $2000 new. I still have my jewelers size units I bought new, a few years ago. I have a variety of soaps and solvents that I use but if i can get away with just water and mild soap, I'll try that first. I also never do any work directly in the tank. I put the part in a more disposable and appropriate size and material tub with the solvent. I then put the tub in the machine and fill with water accordingly. It's best if the inner tub floats, so you don't get any hot spots on the inner tub. That's only important if you are using a polymer inner tub. For instance, don't use any type of Tupperware. It will melt and deform into a nice mess. Having a few different size metal or strong plastic mesh baskets is also a good idea so you can inspect things as they progress. Or you can just string a wire through the part if that is available. All the industrial users used to use a liquid Freon (tri-chloro-tri-fluro-ethelyne, if I recall) in these tanks and they were left with toxic waste that was more expensive to dispose of than it cost to buy. When I was manufacturing medical devices, that was the protacol I was left with when I took over. We did an experiment and got better results putting the parts in a standard kitchen dishwasher. That, buy the way is also a good idea if you have large parts and don't ever use the dishwasher again for food bearing items. If I had a shop with extra space that is what I would do, go out and buy an old used machine for about $100. That's basically what the engine re-builders are using, only on a high tech and larger scale. It will do most of what the Ultrasonic cleaners will do only they use more water. Having a closed loop system with clean out traps and water/ oil separators will be the ideal system.
 
We have a 30 gallon Grease Monkey brand. We use Simple Green or Jungle Jake. We get over a month of steady use before we change the water. The filters help. Saves labor and the parts are paintable.

Peter
 
I'm gonna have to break down and get one of these, I keep looking at them, thanks for posting.
 
I used to have a small one and it was great. Which reminds me...never leave your ultrasonic cleaner running all night so that it dries up. Guess how I know not to do this.
 
I was wondering how much the heat is needed. Couldn't I run it over night using just the sound without the heat?
 
I just picked up a cheap/small ultrasonic cleaner - looks like I'll be able to lay a stripped down Weber DCOE flat in it and have it immersed a bit past the mid point. ANyone use an ultrasonic with the part not fully immersed? and what have folks worked for them for the fluid? Distilled water? with Dove added? with a Simple Green (which one)? Interested in learning from everyone else's screw-ups....
Thanks, Doug
 
The model I bought was about a $ 110 Cdn on sale, and 2.5 litres. A couple of learning experiences:
- put the parts in, then add the fluid to the max. level. Being as dumb as a post, I filled it, then added parts. There's a horizontal seam above the manufacturer's high water mark that I exceeded, and I was getting leakage out of the bottom. Not good for long term use.
- have something (a spoon?) to move the fluid around, as I didn't completely strip the Weber DCOE body and there was a hollow centre section that didn't fill up. I ended up using a milk bottle cap to top it off. Dumb
- have a toothbrush/whatever to scrub out the gunk from various locations. Paper towel, pipe cleaners, toothpicks as appropriate
- kind of looked like my personal lava lamp, as the dirty/cruddy fluid flowed and moved
- I was thinking of maybe running it through a coffee filter to - ummmh - filter it. I don't think I'll bother, as life is short. Just dump the tank in the toilet and flush. Several times. I poured Simple Green (purple bottle? talked about being tough on grease and oil?) into the basin up to the minimum line, then filled to the top with distilled water. (anyone know why distilled water is required when you're ideally cleaning crud off vs. depositing it?). Next shot I'll just use distilled water and throw in some amount of Dove dish washer soap. Figure I'll put the same body et al in and see if the fluid darkens up again to the same extent. Or not.
-Did it come out brand new/shiny? Probably not. But a lot shinier than the other carb body on the bench.
- and for the final 'rinse', I'll strip the body down as much as I can (and run all the bits and pieces through separately, later) as my big concern/hope is to clean out any and all boring/apertures/whatevers.
Later, Doug
 
The lid wouldn't close; I slipped a plastic bag over the whole cleaner for the first pass, but took it off and didn't see any problems with that. I'm going to make up a 'bucket' out of bug screening to put small parts into so they don't get lost. The fluid was opaque after the carb body wash, and I dumped it into a plastic milk jug through funnel with a screen at the bottom (caught a small washer); quite messy operation as there was no obvious pour spot out of the cleaner and my funnel wasn't larger enough to really empty the cleaner quickly without it running down the exterior and onto the floor. Later, DOug
 
Distilled water allows the ultrasound wave transmission without dampening interference from inclusions/chemicals. Steve D's info re: second container or suspending the parts is what we've done for decades.

My small cleaner finally stopped working after decades, now on a hunt for replacement. Trying to avoid the ones with "digital controls" is a task.
 
DrEntropy said:
Distilled water allows the ultrasound wave transmission without dampening interference from inclusions/chemicals. Steve D's info re: second container or suspending the parts is what we've done for decades.

My small cleaner finally stopped working after decades, now on a hunt for replacement. Trying to avoid the ones with "digital controls" is a task.
Click to expand...
I have three ultrasonic cleaners and rarely have enough use for them.
One is small for eyeglasses, the second is about a 4 liter and I have a 20 liter one with heat.
None of them are what I would consider digital.
What exactly are you interested in?
Contact me offline for details.
Steve
 
Steve (and all): what do you use for a cleaning fluid? your thoughts on using a tin can vs. a plastic margarine container to 'float' in the tub? For small stuff, I was thinking that your floating can idea with just the cleaning fluid in the can and distilled water/whatever in the main tank would cut down on waste (?). Thanks, Doug
 
clevercreations.org

Ultrasonic Cleaning: The Ultimate Guide for Spotless Results | Clever Creations

How does ultrasonic cleaning work and what can you clean in an ultrasonic cleaner? Read this and everything you ever wanted to know about this topic here!
clevercreations.org clevercreations.org
Just read the above (lengthy) article and - once I got past the part about not dumping yout pet into it for cleaning - found it interesting and worthwhile. Recommended for us neophytes. Doug
 
Back
Top