Ultrasound Cleaner, parts touching each other

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ladra

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Quick question regarding ultrasound cleaner usage.

Does it matter if parts touch each other during the cleaning process? I place the parts in a glass beaker.

Does the vibration cause any scratches or damage to the finish from the parts rubbing against one another?

I just started using UC and not sure if there are any long-term effects to worry about.

Thank you in advance for your comments!
 
Ultrasonic cleaners are designed to pump energy into a liquid filled volume. There is a mark on the tank that lets you know what that volume that is. It is important to keep that volume fairly close to the mark as a dry tank puts tremendous strain on the transducers.

Furthermore, ultrasonic cleaners are not designed to have parts sitting on the tank bottom as the transducers are bonded to the other side of that same tank. This form of abuse can be very hard on the better ultrasonic cleaners.

If you place your parts into a wire basket hanging from the sides, as you should, then I wouldn't worry about any damage to parts (other than some hard plastics and gemstones such as opals) as the liquid is transmitting all the cleaning power exactly as it was designed to do.
 
@Iowviz,

I concur with your statement above and I have the wire basket you mentioned, but I also have a wire frame that accepts beakers, so the beakers are suspended in water (not touching the bottom or sides).

I place my parts in the beaker and cleaning occurs as usual, of course with water in the tank.

My question is, due to the vibrations the parts will eventually touch within the beaker and I wonder if the "micro vibrations"(rubbing against each other) between the parts will harm the finish (over time)...

My guess is it's not a big deal but I would like to hear from someone with more experience, like a regulator technician?
 
Used top end ultrasonic cleaners (and repaired them) for years to clean highly polished stainless steel parts for a scientific instrument. Unless the parts differ wildly in hardness, I've never seen and wouldn't expect them to scratch each other.

Maybe a reg tech will post...
 
Can't say with any absolute certainty, personal experience over several years is I haven't had any funny wear issues using my UC (Crest 500) on regular parts, carb parts, or anything else. Found out the hard way though about using vinegar and chrome together in it. (*HINT: dont try it if you want to keep the chrome attached)
 
This seems strange to me. I've used vinegar with chrome parts several times and even strong vinegar such as 10% solution. I recently used it on my Deep6 reg parts. @cerich can you offer any guidance about the use of vinegar solution in an ultrasonic cleaner with reg parts such as those found on deep6 and hog regs?
 
With ultrasonic cleaners, do you want to have one for scuba and one for everything else?

Buying one for my guns (handguns and my AR bolt) but I'm considering using it for scuba gear as well. Do I want to buy a second because of possible lead contamination or should it be fine?
 
use a glass container inside the cleaner to hold your parts.
 
Verdigris (that green stuff) is to brass what rust is to steel. If you're seeing it through the chrome, you can be sure that there's more going on underneath and neutralizing it with vinegar is a good thing. Cleaning it at the same time with the ultrasonic is even better! If some chrome flakes off, then the bond was already weakened by the verdigris and you can be sure that it's not a good chrome job. If the parts scratch or are abraded during ultrasonic cleaning, then they are inferior parts, weakened in some way and should be replaced as well.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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