bolek
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Ultrasonic cleaner recipes.
What your ultrasonic cleaner solution recipes?
Mine is:
For steel:
- 1%~5% NaOH + 0.1% dishwashing liquid
Great for cleaning all kinds of steels soiled with varnished oils, greases and fats
For brass (it will discolor slightly)
- 3% citric acid with same amount of dishwashing liquid
(don't wash blued steel in brass solution or your bluing will disappear)
But I have nothing for aluminum. If anyone has anything that cleans oil/grease/fats and steel rust that got transferred onto aluminum parts, please
share.
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Benj-NH2
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Well, you can't use anything too acidic or basic (NaOH) for aluminum because it will just dissolve the piece. Also, if your aluminum part is too thin,
like foil, the ultrasonic cleaner can create holes in it due to cavitation. So, before putting anything important into the cleaner, I would suggest
testing it with scrap/ leftover aluminum.
For a basic cleaning solution, plain water might be sufficient for some amount of dirt. However, if the surface is especially greasy, adding a mild
soap can help dissolve the nonpolar substances. Nevertheless, be cautious as even this approach can potentially harm the aluminum
(micro-cavitations?).
Using a sponge/brush... and mild soap under running water might be the safest way to clean your parts.
I hope this helps.
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bolek
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Quote: Originally posted by Benj-NH2  | Well, you can't use anything too acidic or basic (NaOH) for aluminum because it will just dissolve the piece. Also, if your aluminum part is too thin,
like foil, the ultrasonic cleaner can create holes in it due to cavitation. So, before putting anything important into the cleaner, I would suggest
testing it with scrap/ leftover aluminum.
For a basic cleaning solution, plain water might be sufficient for some amount of dirt. However, if the surface is especially greasy, adding a mild
soap can help dissolve the nonpolar substances. Nevertheless, be cautious as even this approach can potentially harm the aluminum
(micro-cavitations?).
Using a sponge/brush... and mild soap under running water might be the safest way to clean your parts.
I hope this helps. |
Thanks for the reply, but suggesting manual cleaning with a brush under running water in a thread about ultrasonic cleaner recipes is a bit strange...
If one is using an ultrasonic cleaner for cleaning I'd assume it is because the parts are so dirty they can't be cleaned with a simple rinse, or the
geometry makes using a brush pointless. (or one has hundreds of them and manual cleaning is a chore no one wants to do).
Indeed aluminium foil is often used to check if a ultrasonic cleaner is working as it should get perforated very quickly. But anything made of
aluminium thaf is half a mm or thicker (20 thou) I never had any issues with. This includes parts lapped to mirror finish. No surface deterioration
was visible.
For example, recently I was cleaning a parametric vacuum valve. The body can't be disassembled further, it is full of caked in soot, burned oil,
various crud and one better not use anything abrasive on very delicate components. I used a commercial "aluminium safe engine block degrease" plus
some dish washing liquid. It worked fine.
However, I much prefer using my own recipes rather than trasy made products (That can change their recipe without letting anyone know).
So it is obvious one can't use sodium hydroxide for aluminium, but what about acids? Citric, acetic? Do they attack aluminium? How about mildly basic
things like sodium carbonate?
I've previously used isopropanol (in an ultrasonic cleaner) to clean mildly soiled aluminium. Unfortunately it's not good enough for stuff with burned
on oils etc.
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