Ultra Sonic cleaner

No real recommendation, just a suggestion. As with a gun safe, DON'T buy a small one, buy the largest that you can afford.
You will find other uses for the cleaner and some may require a larger bowl.
I purchased a .75 Gallon unit and wish that I had bought a large enough one to fit a handgun in it. Parts are okay, but larger is better in this case.

mike

I no longer have one but the cheapie I had was underwhelming.

If I buy another it will be a better quality unit.

David

A word of caution on the bigger units. They are significantly more powerful than the units sold to clean glasses and jewelry. I bought a 15L Vevor unit which has a decent transducer in it. The heater, however, is weak. If you want a hot bath, use hot water and also turn on the heater. The 15L size was the largest I could go before a big jump in price. It comes with a basket.

But here's the caution, do not, I repeat, do not immerse your glasses in them. A 10 second exposure removed the anti-reflection coating on my prescription reading glasses. The AR coating de-laminated and literally slid off. Fortunately I was due for new glasses.

The cleaning action is pretty good. I put machined parts in the cleaner in a closed jar of isopropyl alcohol and the parts come out really clean, especially the internal threads. No grit, no oil left, and because of using pure alcohol rather than water, no flash rust. Yes, I had to learn that the hard way... Makes sense once pointed out, hot bath of water + very clean unprotected steel = flash rust!

i recently picked this one up ..kinda smaller sized..only .8 liter capacity
came with a mesh basket ..you will need to get some type of cleaning solution
1st one i have ever used, so i do not know how it stacks up to others in the same price range.

I purchased this cleaner solution, but you can easily just use common household dishwater soaps..i wanted to see if it was any better ..meh
NEVER anything acidic ..can create lead acetate which is poisonous

I bought this 6 Liter -> ultrasonic cleaner for processing my 3d printed resin parts back about two years ago. I see now the price is more then double...
This one has a heater and Fullwave,Semiwave,Degas Cleaning Modes based on 40KHz ultrasonic frequency.
I used it so much that some of the buttons wear out the colour.
The cleaning liquid solution? I tried many for my resin cleaning applications, best to search the internet/youtube what is fitting your parts.

WobblyHand said:

A word of caution on the bigger units. They are significantly more powerful than the units sold to clean glasses and jewelry. I bought a 15L Vevor unit which has a decent transducer in it. The heater, however, is weak. If you want a hot bath, use hot water and also turn on the heater. The 15L size was the largest I could go before a big jump in price. It comes with a basket.

But here's the caution, do not, I repeat, do not immerse your glasses in them. A 10 second exposure removed the anti-reflection coating on my prescription reading glasses. The AR coating de-laminated and literally slid off. Fortunately I was due for new glasses.

The cleaning action is pretty good. I put machined parts in the cleaner in a closed jar of isopropyl alcohol and the parts come out really clean, especially the internal threads. No grit, no oil left, and because of using pure alcohol rather than water, no flash rust. Yes, I had to learn that the hard way... Makes sense once pointed out, hot bath of water + very clean unprotected steel = flash rust!

Click to expand...

Clarify please, @WobblyHand

Did you put the closed jar of parts in Isopropyl alcohol into the bath in the cleaner, or into an empty cleaner?

Thanks
Edward

I have a cheap small one from Harbor Freight that works well enough for me. Its big enough to hold a bolt carrier group from an AR or a disassembled pistol, though most of the time I just submerge glass jars of small parts (saves on solvent). I was worried a bigger unit would fracture some of the smaller hobby projects I use the cleaner for so this has worked well enough. It's not as fast or powerful so I just run more cycles.

SilentSquirrel said:

Clarify please, @WobblyHand

Did you put the closed jar of parts in Isopropyl alcohol into the bath in the cleaner, or into an empty cleaner?

Thanks
Edward

Click to expand...

I put warm water in the cleaner. Then the parts in a small glass jar. Poured the isopropyl into the jar making sure the parts were fully covered. Then loosely put on the lid. Then the jar goes in the water. The jar does not need to be fully submerged. Run time is somewhat arbitrary, until clean.

This minimizes the amount of solvent used. The cover is simply to potentially starve of oxygen if it ignites, or more usefully, helps prevent old fumble fingers from accidentally tilting the jar too far and losing alcohol. You have to be careful with flammables. Not sure I'm doing it right, but that was my method. Depending on what I am doing, the used alcohol is stored in the jar for future use (after filtering), or disposed of. Using a glass jar and lid for storage minimizes loss.

Hope that clarifies the process. If there are safer better ways to do it, please let me know. I believe some folks put the materials in a plastic bag and cleaner, and dump that in the tank. The parts I was cleaning had sharp edges and were heavy, so I didn't want to do that. I also don't know the chemical compatibility of alcohol and whatever plastic bags are made of these days. Glass is pretty impervious to most solvents that we use.