Ultrasonic Parts Cleaners

wmk0002 · Mar 11, 2020

Can anyone who has one share their thoughts on them? I've been considering getting one mainly for carbs, but my Chem Dip still does the trick so not sure if it's worth the investment or not.

nccatfisher · Mar 11, 2020

I have not had anything to do with them in years. Bought one when they first came out and was not impressed at all. but I have heard they have made great improvements in them. Have some friends that swear by them now.

CedarRiverScooter · Mar 11, 2020

I have one, it works fine, although using a solvent works just as good.

I mainly use mine to clean my musical instrument parts (euphonium).

Pappy · Mar 11, 2020

With all due respect. A solvent will never work as good as an ultrasonic cleaner unless you are just talking about cleaning the outside of a part or parts. Cleaning acids are getting prohibitively expensive as well.
A simple plugged passageway sometimes cannot be cleaned by a solvent because the solvent sees only the outside "face" of the debris plugging that carb circuit. Very often it will not penetrate well.
Ultrasonic waves however can break up whatever is plugging that circuit and the cleaning solution aids as it is being broken up.
We have two at the shop. Both smaller units. They do okay. We also have an acid tank for the aluminum carbs that works well.
I bought a 5 gallon one for myself. I can put complete carb banks into it usually and it will clean them. I can do several individual carburetors at one time. It has heat and four transducers that are wicked powerful.
I clean the outside of the carbs with solvent and or a soap and water solution prior to submerging them into the cleaner. I remove as much grease as possible from any part I want to have cleaned prior to putting it in the cleaner. With just simple steps like these the ultrasonic has been one of my better "tool" investments.

wmk0002 · Mar 12, 2020

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm gonna pick one up I just don't know what I should jump into cost wise. Before I drill that down any further what kind of cleaning solution do you use in the machine? I know they sell special cleaners for them but I have read a lot of people who just use basic stuff like Simple Green.

Pappy · Mar 12, 2020

Best answer is ......"it depends"
Alkaline cleaners for oil, grease, etc
Acidic cleaners for removing scale, corrosion, etc.
You get the idea.

I use Simple Green PRO HD in mine most of the time. It is safe for what I clean for the most part and is ultrasonic friendly. So far it has done exactly what I want it to.

turbotodd · Mar 13, 2020

Yeah we have a Crest 7 gal unit at work. For carburetors it works awesome, assuming the proper chemical is used. For a while we were using Yamaha's carb dip; one bottle (quart) to 7 gal of water, let it degas, then drop the carb(s) in. In 5 minutes they came out looking shiny new. Problem is (in our case) the heater in the ultrasonic unit also heats the water to about 140 degrees, and the carb dip evaporates out quickly so after a couple carburetor cleanings, the stuff is basically just dirty water with little of the "good stuff" left. Just today I flushed it out and put some simple green in it at the advice of a shop owner across town. We'll see how that works. He uses it for rifle and pistol hulls and it works great. Ours is 99% carburetors with an occasional dirty part that needs to be cleaned. We had to get the big unit because we also do motorcycle carbs and on a 4 cylinder bike with a bank of carbs, it's not really advisable to split the carbs apart; just pull the bowls and diaphragms and drop them in as a unit, come out clean. Similar with a lot of outboard 4 cylinder carbs but those have to be at least partially split in order to get the bowls off.