Printable View
I'm looking to buy an ultrasonic cleaner to speed case prep up.
My research shows:
- Price varies from $80 - $700 with a cluster between $100 - $200 on TradeMe
- GunCity Accu $300
- Volume varies from 800ml to 32 litres!!
- Watage varies from 40 - 140w
- Frequency seems consistent at 40mhz
So what's the deal?
Are the cheap n cheerful ones good?
Is it a pay once, cry once expensive thing?
What volume & wattage are you using?
What's your recommendation?
Which are the crap ones to avoid?
I got one of the cheapies off TM. Does 15-20 cases at a time depending on size of case. Seems to do the job.
the $80 ali/temu jobs are nothing but an electric motor and offset weight. as much use as a chocolate teapot
I have an rcbs one which I have found to be great
I started with a Jaycar one, it did the job but would only run for 7 minutes max before you had to reset it, each button press added 30s to the timer so for 7 minutes it was 14 button presses. It didn't have a lot of capacity either.
I upgraded to the RCBS one, it has a heater for the water which I like, and I can drain the fluid through a tube using a valve, meaning I don't have to lift it off the shelf and slosh water around to drain it. It also cleans more aggressively. If I had to buy a new one tomorrow, I wouldn't bother with a cheapy again.
One thing to factor in is that it is better not to have it right at your bench, (noise and steam) so any worries about it taking up bench real estate is a non issue.
been looking into one as well.
I just use the one at work. Holds about 1.5 litres of water from memory, shit loads of 223 or a decent number of 308 cases. I’ll check brand on Tuesday, does a good job and knowing workplace it will be a cheaper one but gets a lot of workshop use cleaning small carburettors etc. Seems to handle it ok, at least 8 years old now and still doing the job.
Don't bother getting one with a heater feature, not necessary.
Also not necessary - fricken expensive propriety cleaning fluids... Get ShowerPower BAM! (that's the exact labelling) in the supermarket cleaner aisle - it's a shower cleaner with citric acid, natural surfactants and detergents and it's virtually the same product as the Hornady ultrasonic cleaning fluid at about $5 a bottle. It's also quite a good shower cleaner apparently... I keep having to buy another bottle as mine is generally empty when I need it.
The next thing is actually getting an ultrasonic cleaner which uses a transducer to create a high frequency vibration in the fluid. Some are vibratory cleaners and not true ultrasonics as noted by the man above. Ultrasonics are noisy, and it's a shocking noise to work around - I normally use hearing protection just for comfort. If you have damaged hearing you might be fine though haha.
Also timers and the like are pretty much just fluff in my opinion based on my experience of using these things - once you have them correctly set up most timer settings run far longer than you actually need!
Tuning ultrasonics - this is a bit of an art form built on by experience, but basically the story is filling the ultrasonic's bowl with fluid and chucking your cases in both wastes your time and uses way more fluid than you need. What happens is there is a sweet spot or node a little up off the bottom of the ultrasonic cleaner's bowl where the sound waves are concentrated and if you suspend your cases there they'll vibrate way more effectively and you'll see the crap basically explode off them. The easiest way I've found is using a pyrex beaker that you find in scientific supplies places and often times shops like payless plastics have them. These are the go as they are thin walled and transmit the vibrations effectively. Then I made a lid that fits over the ultrasonic cleaner out of plastic sheet with a hole in the middle that the beaker sits through and a couple of bumps of some sort to stop the plastic from sliding to the side and letting the beaker touch the side of the cleaner's bowl. An o-ring that's fairly chunky and a tight fit on the beaker allows you to set the ride height, fill the cleaners bowl with water so that the water and beaker won't overflow and set the beaker up about 10mm off the bottom in the ultrasonic cleaner. Then mix your cleaner and water 25:75 and gently place your cases in the beaker throat down with enough that they can't fall over and cover them in cleaning fluid.
Crank the cleaner up and just experiment with the height of the beaker - you'll know when the ride height is right the cleaning fluid will just about jump it will be that energetic.
Don't touch the cases after they've been cleaned, I use a dehydrator to dry them and then chuck them into a bag and give them a quick spray with a lube of some sort. They will come out so clean that they can corrode or tarnish quite quickly just in the air, no protective layer at all. A spray type case lube will work, then rattle them all around in the bag to coat them.
It will get an extreme amount of loose crap off but won't remove mechanically adhered carbon deposits - but even vibratory cleaners won't tend to shift those!
https://www.trademe.co.nz/business-f...4922676787.htm
$60 Hugh.
I use a shower/bathroom cleaner as the liquid. Mild acid with a surfactant are the ingredients. . Can’t tell the difference between this and my mates $400 units
Feel free to borrow and use it for a while.
Up for a new machine, little Jaycar machine has died, used for 2 or 3 years. Saw them for 35 bucks but all sold out, bugger.
I use dishwash and a tea spoon of critic acid, poor boiling water from the jug, 7half minutes was enough to do the job, give them a good rinse hot water, then dehydrator at 50 degs to dry.
https://nzcandlesupplies.nz/search?t...&q=critic+acid
Remembered to check Ultrasonic cleaner today. Purchased from ultrasonics.co.nz
Attachment 259915Attachment 259916
But there are also good ones... I bought a 6L one from Aliexpress, worked well the first few times then stopped working. It was just the onboard 5V power supply for the controller, The seller was very helpful, ended up sending me a new set of boards, I swapped them out and its been going well for well over 2 years now. I mainly use it for cleaning bike chains, cassettes, etc - we are mainly a mtbing family...Quote:
Originally Posted by gonetropo
same thing is around double the price in NZ...
https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/10050...yAdapt=glo2vnm
Gotta ask the question.... I was talk with my neighbour about sonic cleaning cases. He dived inti the back of his truck and came out with 5ltrs of Jasol EC17 RTU/Non Caustic Oven Cleaner and said, "Try this, I got it at the auction with a LOT and don't need it"
What do you chemists reckon? Safe to use on brass cases or not? How much would you dilute it by? The Directions for Use says, "Neutralise with vinegar."
Its got a frog on the label, so must be safe for cleaning case.....right????Attachment 260567
just pour some neat onto an old rooted case and see what happens. The MSDS wasn't very informativeQuote:
Originally Posted by Hugh Shields
I have switched to stainless pin tumbler for cases but still use the Hornday US for parts and supresser cleaning, great for that.
The heat cycle is real usefull.
I use Simple Green as the cleaning agent , works fine for me
What is MSDS?Quote:
Originally Posted by Russian 22.
Material Safety Data Sheets.....Safety info. All commercial and industrial chemicals have one with safe handling instructions, what to in the event of poisoning, spill, fire etc. Sometimes they have good formula info.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh Shields
Material Safety Data Sheet. Often just Safety Data Sheet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh Shields
Provides safety info for handling chemical based products. Also includes info about the recipe/ingredients.
Apparently 2-5ml injected into the area above your hemorrhoids will stop them dropping out of your arse. Apart from that Wikipedia wasn't that helpful either... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanolamine
It's an alcohol based solvent. Probably great for washing car parts. I'd imagine highly flammable.
Stick to the usual formula.
Water, vinegar, dish washing detergent. It works and safer.
Or, Shower Power BAM! and water. It's the best thing you can get in terms of formula and cost next to the propriety reloading company cleaning fluids...
I'm new to this sonic cleaning business.
Can you over do cases?
And how often should I change the solution?
cheap aliexpress one works like a charm.
for cleaning solution use boiling water, tablespoon of citric acid and a bit of dish soap.
rinse with plenty of water.
also works wonders with carbon on suppressor baffles...
Although it is not suggested by manufactures to put anodized aluminium in ultrasonic cleaners.Quote:
Originally Posted by STC
If using propriety solutions which are fricking expensive, I tend to keep them longer than what is probably good. Hence the ShowerPower BAM! recommendation - its virtually the same as the Hornady solution but between $5 and $7 a bottle. Works good in the shower too, and does some stains on concrete... With that stuff I just dump it each time, a good solution is about 20% concentrate 80% clean water.Quote:
Originally Posted by 7mmwsm
You can't overdo cases, but what it will do is not leave any form of protection on the cases so they will be prone to tarnishing from finger prints and the like. A non-hydrocarbon protective spray like a wax protective one sprayed onto the cases in a bag, seal and jumbled the cases around after U/S cleaning and drying works well.
The next thing is you can't actually overdo the cases, but longer is not necessarily better or getting the cases cleaned. A tuned U/S cleaner will clean anything it can get off in about 5 mins or so, longer won't help. Tuning the cleaner is an art form, but the easy way is a lid made up out of a piece of 6mm plastic with a little block glued or screwed onto each side so the lid is retained onto the cleaner's tub. In the middle of this, cut a hole slightly larger than a low-form pyrex scientific beaker the largest diameter you can get that will easily fit into the cleaner's tub and still clear the sides. Get an O-ring that will be a tight fit on the beaker. You use the o-ring to set the height of the beaker in the U/S cleaner's tub, fill the beaker to the point the cases are completely covered (I have them standing up mouth down so everything drops down into the beaker and they can't fall over). In the tub, just have water so that it won't overflow the sides.
To 'tune' the cleaner, just move the beaker up and down until you see the most activity inside the beaker's solution - you'll basically see the crud explode into the cleaning fluid when you have it set right. You are effectively setting the beaker up so that it is in the middle of a frequency node inside the ultrasonic cleaner's transducer sound wave pattern. If you set it up like this it will do all the cleaning you want in the first 30-odd seconds, anything left on the cases is adhered on and will basically need mechanical removal (carbon in the neck and primer pocket etc).
I use a nylon bore brush rubbed over sizing wax inside the case neck as well, as the cases are sticky when this clean. A spray outside as mentioned helps with tarnishing and the inside the case neck lube helps with seating and sizing there. I use Redding full length bushing dies set up on comp shellholders with no depriming pin and a Lee decapping die for resizing duties.
I use mine for motorcycle carbs - the heat cycle is very useful.
If I was doing brass cases I would still use heat , plus whatever cleaning fluid additive floats your boat.
What works for one may not work for another but its trial and error to find the happy spot.
