ultrasonic cleaners

[Guest]

Has anyone ever built their own ultrasonic cleaner for bike parts. It would have to be deep enough to fit a motorcycle head into. Any input from anyone who has built one or even used one would help enlighten me. Any good instructional websites? Since we're such a resourceful group I thought I would try here first.

Paul

[cberkeley]

Not putting a damper on this thread and not trying to discourage your project, but IMO something that size would require quite a bit of power electronics and may be a bit much for the average home shop to construct safely and economically. I've repaired smaller units up to half-gallon I believe and some of them have heated tanks. Once upon a time I worked at an early computer memory plant where we had a massive (20-gallon unit) that used heated liquid freon as the cleaning medium, it also had a freon vapor wand. It was made by Branson.
If you have a commercial or even semi-commercial requirement for such a large unit, I am sure there are pre-owned units out there that would most likely be more affordable than rolling your own.
The Branson Brand is just about the king of ultrasonic cleaning machines IMO.

Here are some links to start you out:

http://www.gocctech.com/techdoc/cleaning.pdf#search=%22ultrasonic%20cleaner%20diagram%22

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/samschem.htm#schahv5

http://www.blackstone-ney.com/pdfs/T_Fundamentals.pdf#search=%22ultrasonic%20cleaner%20diagram%22

However, there's another approach: an inexpensive pressure washer may do the trick (1300 PSI) ... Harbor Freight has one for about 90.00 Item: 92146-1NBH and it can inject a detergent in the blast stream.
Hope this helps.

[ghwrenchit]

Often toyed with the idea of a old dishwasher in the garage with modified racks. Seems simple enough... toss in a couple buckets of water, choose a soap that won't tarnish aluminum, use the heat cycle and let it rip until the end of the wash drain cycle going into a five gallon bucket. Open it, bucket in some rinse water and let it finish and drain.

Thoughts???

But I do agree.... ultrasonic ROCKS!!! We had an ultrasonic freon cleaner where I used to work. The freon we used boiled at something like 103~F and weighted a ton...

Greg

[cberkeley]

Often toyed with the idea of a old dishwasher in the garage with modified racks. Seems simple enough... toss in a couple buckets of water, choose a soap that won't tarnish aluminum, use the heat cycle and let it rip until the end of the wash drain cycle going into a five gallon bucket. Open it, bucket in some rinse water and let it finish and drain.

Thoughts???

But I do agree.... ultrasonic ROCKS!!! We had an ultrasonic freon cleaner where I used to work. The freon we used boiled at something like 103~F and weighted a ton...

Greg

Maybe too gentle to really get heavy things clean, that old dishwasher.

Yes, I can remember that boiling Freon. Just a mild fever will set that stuff boiling.

I was just thinking about that high pressure washer. Would sure like to see that thing go at some cruddy aluminum with maybe some scouring powder like Ajax as the injected detergent. Would like to see what those tiny particles do to the surface at high velocity.

A buddy and myself are partnership buying an industrial grade pressure washer next week: 16 HP Briggs & Stratton, elec start, V-twin with a ceramic pistoned, stainless steel pump delivering 4000 PSI (I'm adding industrial cleaning and maintenance to my engineering business). Anxious to see what that bad-boy can do:-D

[Guest]

My buddy Jgordon uses a bead blaster and it works great.

[skreemer]

I use an ultrasonic cleaner on my guns and it would be awsome to have a large one (Jay Leno has 2)... Just remember when / if you clean things in an ultrasonic solution re-oil the parts... There won't be any left.. Also it cleans most things great but small spaces may still be an issue... For example my gun barrel. It cleans and stips the outside but the inside is "insulated" well enough it just gets a superficial cleaning.

[lord1234]

I prefer the crest brand of ultrasonic cleaners

[first timer]

what about getting a old speaker and creating some sort of feed back loop that will maintian a good vibration then place the cleaning buck over the speaker so the vibration is transferred into the solution.

-ryan

[cberkeley]

what about getting a old speaker and creating some sort of feed back loop that will maintian a good vibration then place the cleaning buck over the speaker so the vibration is transferred into the solution.

-ryan

Not enough coupling, remember air is compressable while liquids are not.
You'll need to find a way to directly couple the transducer to the bath/liquid.
In commercial ultrasonic units the transducer/s (piezo electric) is/are directly epoxy-bonded to the stainless steel tank (usually the underside) thus there is direct transfer/coupling of the wave energy with very little loss. Also, in the better units, the frequency is tuned to the tank (resonance) thereby increasing energy transfer efficiency. Further, the AC is usually not filtered so the high frequency oscillator is modulated by the 60Hz line frequency. This on-off switching at line frequency is claimed to enhance the "Scrubbing effect".