cheap Ultra-sonic cleaners?

[mitchman]

I've seen some of the cheap ultrasonic jewelry cleaners on amazon for $30-50 and was wondering if they would work well to clean parts. I own about a dozen reels that I service every year. I would degrease parts before putting them in and mostly use it for gunked or corroded parts. I know that the cheap ones have small capacities but I would mostly just be putting small parts in anyways. Thoughts?

[foakes]

Sorry, Mitch --

Those little plastic ones will not work.

However, the Ultrasonic cleaners have come down so well in price -- you can get a very good one online made of stainless steel for a little over $100, I believe.

They need to have the solid state power, plenty of wattage, as well as the SS reservoir.

Keith (Handi2) bought a couple of these, I think -- and sez they work well.

Daron recently bought one, also.

Best,

Fred

This is $73 -- ebay -- free shipping

[Tiddlerbasher]

Yep - bought the same 18 months ago - works fine and does the job. Can't say any more

[Dominick]

Yep!  I got one.  It works well. Dominick

[handi2]

I have them too and almost one year on one of them. It still works great.

I do like the heat function but don't let it get too hot in case you need to stick your hand in to get a parts that fell thru.

[Shark Hunter]

I still haven't used mine yet.
It will be there when I'm ready.

[oc1]

Don't run them without a nearly full tank of liquid.  Without the weight of the liquid they will vibrate themselves to death.
-steve

[Tiddlerbasher]

A full tank of water (cleaner) is necessary to prevent overheating. Even without the heat facility, when run for a few minutes, it will get quite warm.

Don't forget you can also clean the wife's jewellery (except real pearls - they will disintegrate - a lot of semi-precious stones are in the same category)
Always worth a few brownie points.

If you are a fan of vinyl records - they can also be cleaned very effectively and easily.

The larger cleaners have a tap for draining them - very useful

[mitchman]

Thanks for the input everyone!

[FatTuna]

I've tried the jewelry cleaner ultrasonics and they do almost nothing to remove grease and grime. They are not powerful enough.

[Tiddlerbasher]

The one Fred indicated is not simply a jewellery cleaner - it is more than capable of cleaning our reels, as several of us already know.

[FatTuna]

I know, that's one of the Chinese made Ebay ultrasonics. I almost bought one of those but a friend gave me an old jewelry cleaner to test. It's one of the plastic ones. Doesn't do much.

[Tightlines667]

I love my labratory grade Fisher.  It has a large basin, and is more powerful then most.  Gotta be careful with shims, and dog springs though.

John

[handi2]

Don't use it to remove grease. Use it to get metal parts shining better than new.

It will break down the corrosion on a chromed brass spool. The corrosion will then come off very easy.

[Lensters]

The cheapest one now is $64 + $6 shipping but it come with the UK power cord.  Is the power jack on the machine (where the power cord plugs in) the typical one where I could use one of my many old PC power cords?