Reply With QuoteJust use warm water. If desired add a drop of washing up liquid for your glasses etc
The recent Lidl thread piqued my interest in these but I know nothing about them at all. I know there's a thread on the subject from a couple of years back
http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...ght=ultrasonic
but I have loads more questions.
What sort of fluids do you need for what applications?
I believe my prescription sunglasses for driving have some sort of coating - will the cleaners fetch this off?
What fluid would you use on something like a Swiss army knife (which fills up with all sorts of crud) as water lingering around it all, especially the hard water where we live, is probably not a great idea.
Can you use a chemical like a mild descaler such as Viakal to speed up or improve shower-head descaling say?
I told you I knew nothing about these things!
Just use warm water. If desired add a drop of washing up liquid for your glasses etc
The ultrasonic vibrates at such a frequency that the water dislodges the dirt. I generally add 1 drop of washing up liquid. There are all sorts of solutions for sale but I have never bought them as I have never needed them. Interesting point about descaling a shower head. I live in a hard water area. I must try that and see what it does.
What folks don`t realise is that u/sonic will travel through glass readily.
The best way to use the bath is to fill with plain water, then use cleaning solutions inside a glass jar, swapping the fluid as you go. This avoids contamination; it's far more convenient particularly when using non-aqueous fluids. I do all my watch parts cleaning this way, using small glass jars filled with cleaning solutions. It's very effective.
Ultrasonic isn`t good at breaking down thick layers of sticky contamination/crud unless the crud is soluble in the cleaning medium.
For aqueous cleaning, I find good old fairy liquid is as good as anything. A final clean in plain water removes detergent residues. Using hot water also helps.
Paul
Last edited by walkerwek1958; 26th November 2014 at 13:39.
I do what Paul does also. I use mini jam jars.
One thing I also do which I don't know if it brings any benefit is to use quite warm water in the ultrasonic. I then place the glass jar with the cleaning solution in it. I find the heated solution shifts grime well.
The cleaner I have will get rid of water soluble dirt.
Ideal for watch bracelets, or something with nooks and crannies.
You will need the correct fluid to clean up corrosion or baked on paint.
For stuborn stains, I have used Xylene paint thinners in a glass jar to dissolve dried adhesive tape glue on metal.
I means you can keep the jam jar lid closed to stop the stink,.
It also prevents the plastic machine case from being melted by the solvent.
I have an ultrasonic cleaner. One from Maplins that came highly recommended.
It's either broken of they are a waste of money.
It did nothing to my wife's jewellery, my watch straps or even odd coins I threw in it.
Maybe I was expecting too much, but I did expect something to happen.
they are for dislodging dirt, not reversing the effects of oxidisation.Originally Posted by guinea
Silver jewellery will remain tarnished (although clean).
Coins will remain tarnished (although free from dirt).
Gold/platinum jewellery (which does not tarnish) will become lovely and sparkly and diamonds will become super sparkly. My wife notices if i've cleaned her diamonds even if I don't tell her i've cleaned them.
I know what it's supposed to do. I wasn't looking for a polish.
The crud is what I was hoping to remove.
A toothbrush and fairy liquid works fine, but I thought that the ultrasonic cleaner would remove the bit I can't reach.
It didn't.
Sounds like you got a duff one.
I didn't mean to come across like i was teaching you to suck eggs, but my wife chucked a silver bracelet or something in my ultrasonic bath when i can cleaning some other stuff and when it came out still tarnished she thought it had done a poor job expecting the tarnish to be cleaned off. When you said you chucked some coins in I assumed you'd had the same thought (coins tend not to get ingrained dirt on them as they are pretty much flat, they tend to just get tarnished)
I've a pretty heavy duty ultrasound that I use for de-crudding various diving bits and pieces. In it, I use a cleaning fluid called Biox. It's pretty expensive (so I tend to re-cycle it), but it blasts through any amount of build up in minutes.
Super information, thanks. I'm definitely going to try one of these, I'll take a look in Lidl when they arrive next Monday.
I work in an optical lab and I use one to clean glasses. It won't strip anti reflection coating off of lenses so no worries on that front.
Like a couple of other posters, I use mini glass jars for non-aqueous stuff - L&R watch cleaning gubbins, naphtha, iso-propyl alcohol. For grubby watch cases, watch bracelets, jewellery (people bring you stuff when they know you've got one!) etc, I use hot water, washing up liquid, washing soda and a hearty splash of IPA. Sometimes you need to fish it out and have a scrub with a toothbrush, dental crevice brush, whatever works. Between the ultrasonic and a bit of mechanical action, anything will clean up.
If you suspect it's not working, bung a strip of aluminium foil in and leave it for a couple of minutes. It should have loads of tiny holes in when you look at a light through it.
They're handy things!
John
For general cleansing of a watch and/or any other pick up n go items,I find an old toothbrush and washing up liquid works just perfectly.
Im not on about the cleaning of small watch parts here,which it may work wonders.
My preferred ultrasonic cleaning solution is two drops of washing up liquid and half a teaspoon of ammonia per 100ml of medium/hot water. I never clean ANY jewellery containing gemstones or pearls in the ultrasonic cleaner though, I just use the same solution and an old toothbrush.
If I want to clean something that is extremely dirty/encrusted, like a very old coin for instance, then I soak it for a week in olive oil then give it the toothbrush treatment. Results will depend on the degree of encrustation but be aware that there are occasions when cleaning an old coin can decrease it's value.
+1
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