The ultrasonic cleaner thread

[anglia4]

So, brought an ultrasonic cleaner, filled it with simple green and water.

cleaned a carb.

then it did this…

Any idea what I’ve done wrong?

have i stripped the anodising off?

is there any saving it?

[tortron]

That's new to me and I have cleaned similar with simple green before

 

What colour simple green did you use? I use the purple one

Did you dilute it?

How long?

 

I never looked into what's in either, bit I remember reading stuff like this

 

 

Il tell you a secret for next time

Cheap dishwashing liquid like dawn works just fine. Jar of solvent for the baked on stuff

 

[anglia4]

Aha. Yeah I used the green stuff at a fairly grunty mix

 

[anglia4]

I think it went in for 2x 5min sessions at 40deg.

i might run it again with just water, and see what happens.

[mjrstar]

Looks like caustic attack.

You might get away with a quick blast in the cleaner, then a thorough rinse /neutralize.

[tortron]

Yeah probably too strong for the green, it's got citric acid and washing soda etc in it.

 

 

[tortron]

Oh, as for my ultrasonic fk up

 

I transported a chemical jar of frys reagent in my cleaner when we moved

 

It leaked

 

Frys reagent, it turns out, dissolves stainless steel, so it now looks like a colander 

If I can salvage the board etc I will attach it to a stock pot lol, but I'm not hopeful

[mlracing.co.nz]

Did you wash and scrub it down with normal water straight after? I hear sometimes that can happen. 

[anglia4]

I ran it once and it looked a bit odd after a few hours and I thought that might have been from needing the cleaner rinsed off, so ran it again to clean it up, then rinsed it jn a bucket of water and dried it.

came back to it a couple of days later and found that…

[NickJ]

How hot was the tank? Ali is best at low temp or it does horrible things, especially with high pH cleaners

[anglia4]

~40deg 

[Muncie]

A certain company i worked for uses this in their cleaners https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/eoxacquart.php cleans up SU carbs didn't damage anything doesn't fry your skin off.

[anglia4]

I’ve just run it back through the cleaner for 10mins in plain water and it looks heaps better. 
fingers crossed it doesn’t blow up in corrosion again tomorrow.

[Lord Gruntfuttock]

Oh interesting. I've done a few carbs in simple green and only ever had one go a little like that. I dilute and rinse off immediately though.

Will investigate the SG purple. Didn't even know that was a thing...

[Carsnz123]

I use mine on carbs a lot and have found that usuing distilled water also helps a lot. I use a solution that RCS sell which is literally called ultrasonic cleaner fluid. For some shit it's not quite as aggressive as I'd like but it works pretty well. Especially when dealing with unobtainable carb parts. 

[Lord Gruntfuttock]

Ah maybe cos I'm on tank water it goes ok, had it tested for brewing and it's near as dammit distilled water quality...

[anglia4]

I just did 2 more carbs in it with 4 squirts of dishwashing liquid and its worked OK. 

6 mins and then turned the parts over for another 6 minutes and its cleaned up pretty good. Could do better but at least I'm not melting them now.

Will explore the Purple stuff or the ultrasonic cleaner fluid as I need to work out a safe way to use it before I go jamming my Holley parts in there.

[Tiger Tamer]

I cleaned a carb in the ultrasonic cleaner I have. The carb is a Holley style carb and the secondary bowl had a brown film coating on it due to it drying out through evaporation I was told. I put the metering block and jets etc in a zip lock bag and sprayed a shit load of CRC carb cleaner into it, so it was in fluid. Put it into the ultrasonic without heat and nothing much happened. Rinsed it out and put warm water and detergent into the bag and placed it back into the ultrasonic and as soon as i turned it on you could see all the film dissolve into the detergent water mixture.

[GARDRB]

Is this as good a deal as it looks??

https://www.jaycar.co.nz/1800ml-80w-ultrasonic-cleaner/p/YH5416

[kws]

I have a 2L one and it's fairly small, so depends what you want to use it for I guess. Mine just fits a small motorbike carb body in it