Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

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Trigger1212
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Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by Trigger1212 »

Afternoon Everyone

I did not want to hi-jack Glen's thread so thought I would start a new one. I have a Dillion vibratory cleaner that was used for many years, was not satisfied with the performance with cleaning the primer pockets and inside the necks. Shortly after joining the herd here I saw some interesting threads relating to cleaning cases with tumblers and media. I had heard about them from MLV (or whatever's) writings over the years but did not pay that much attention to them. Getting into the BP all of a sudden it was more relevant! I ended up picking up a Thumbler's Tumbler and the SS pins. I got the pins as I thought it may do a better job on the primer pockets.

So far I've been very impressed with the cases when they come out of the cleaner. I did learn a few things though:

1. Don't use too much dawn, as it will cancel out the lemi shine, acid canceled by base, a dab will do ya!

2. I give the cases a quick pre clean. Throw them in the kitchen sink for a quick soak and then pull them out and run a bore brush in and out of the neck quick. I chuck the brush in an electric drill so easy to do. Knocks out a TON of crap from the cases and ensures clean inside necks. This keeps all that fouling from rolling around with the cases. Found the cases come out MUCH shinier and the pockets are cleaner.

3. I use hot tap water, seems to clean a little faster/better.

4. During a discussion on mouth peening I THINK it was Woody who suggested that you should only put in enough water to cover the cases in the tumbler which helps keep the cases sliding over each other rather than going "over the top" to bang back down. Don't know if it helps or not as I currently shoot greasers and use a stepped sizing die so even if I were experiencing peening I would not know it.

5. I use my dillon media separator in the tub, dump pins and cases in the separator then run water in the separator tub to keep a steady overflow of water draining over the side of the separator tub. Then slowly turn the separator which is about half submerged in water. All pins fall out IN the tub, none fly out to go down the drain. This way I separate and rinse all in one go. I then tip the separator tub to carefully drain the water out. and then pour the pins back in the tumbler. Pins CAN be a PITA as they stick to the walls and are very hard to pick up with fingers. Now use a magnet, much faster. Cases come out looking like Kurt's in the other thread.

SO, no real complaints other than it takes a bit of effort to separate the media, screwing the lid on and off and keeping the pins were they belong.

That got me to thinking of the ultrasonic cleaners. I DID do a search on the foum and also google, not a whole lot out there. Some guys say they are the greatest thing since sliced bread and others are a bit more ho-hum about it. I've got other uses for an ultra sonic cleaner, I'm mechanical so LOTS of things can go in there, including AR bolts which I've always hated cleaning, even in the Corps!

Who has experience with one of the higher-end units? Not the Harbor Freight or Lyman or RCBS units. Say in the $300-500 range from Amazon or the like.
Looking for a 1.5 to 2.5 gallon unit, something along that line. Want something a little bigger as more features, power, heat, drains, timer for 30 minutes blah blah blah.

Any body want to admit they use one of the more expensive units?! In the scheme of things $300-$500 is not a lot considering what the rest of this hoby costs. To reiterate, not a fool trying to be separated from my money (this time!), pretty satisfied with the tumbler, just wondering if there is a better mouse trap out there and I would have other uses for it.

Cheers!

Wade
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by Glen Ring »

Wade
This small cleaner was just a trial by us. It works so well, we'll probably up grade to a bigger unit. For most of our shooting, this small unit works well...If I were shooting pistol again shooting a min of 1000 rounds a month, I'd get a bigger one...and a progressive press.
I'm retired, I love casting bullets and piddling with load development, but the primer pocket cleaning and case brushing got really old for me. The sonic cleaner save me a BUNCH of time.
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by Woody »

While you are at it, I would be interested in your thoughts on ultrasonic parts cleaners. I'm shooting enough bullseye that I'm falling behind on detail cleaning some of my pistols. I too dislike cleaning the bolt carrier groups and other small parts that I constantly seem to get dirty.

Woody
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martinibelgian
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by martinibelgian »

I'm using an ultrasonic cleaner for case cleaning, been doing so for years. For the larger quantities / bigger cases, I switched to a rotary SS pins cleaner, but for smaller quantities / delicate cases, I still use the ultrasonic unit. It is quite a bit faster, and much easier to manage, no separating pins and cases - obviously.
You need a unit with heating for best cleaning, but that doesn't mean more is better - 30°C is good enough. And yes, obviously, a timer. As to the cleaning solution, again, more is NOT better. For my small unit, coffespoon of citric acid granulate and a few drops of detergent work best. More will discolor the cases.
A full load of cases (I set them case mouth up in the basket) takes 40-45 min. to clean, less or smaller cases can be done in as little as 15-20 minutes.
I for one don't like the drain feature, a potential weak point - don't forget, the unit is made to loosen things up, whatever is inside... Add the use of acid and that is also something to help joint degradation along.
Trigger1212
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by Trigger1212 »

Martin

Couple questions:

Can you share the brand, model and size of your US cleaner?

How many liters?

Dimensions of tank? Some are long and skinny, some are square etc...

What do you consider as a small batch? 20, 30, 40?....

Assuming you have a relatively small US cleaner and it is capacity limited, not that it will not actually clean the larger cases (like 45-70)?

I’m looking at one in the 1.5 to 2.5 gallon range.

Want plenty of capacity for the larger cases and if I’m just using dawn and Lemi shine not worrying about cost.

Also want it big enough to clean other firearm parts.

When cleaning like a small carbureator you can fill the tank w water then put carb in a sealed glass container w your favorite cleaner and just set it in the water. The US waves will go through the glass w little drop in effectiveness. Plastic jars will work too, just not as well as they will soake up more of the US wave energy.

Wade
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by martinibelgian »

Mine is a german one - Emmi Emag, 3 litres I think. Rectangular tank, will clean bigger cases too like 45-70, no.2 Musket, 577-450. About 25-30 bigger cases max. I don't stack 'em, I just stand them on the base, next to one another. Case length with the cases mentioned above is not an issue, longer cases done the same way would be. 32-20 cases, I could of course put in a lot more. But cleaning efficiency decreases with the quantity of cases, so make sure the transducers are powerful enough. After all, brass also soaks up US energy. A industrial-grade unit usually is quite a bit more powerful, and would cut cleaning time at least in half.
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by bpcr shooter »

This is the formula we use when we purchase one for the labs here at Dupont.

L(in)x W(in) x. (H -2″) /231*100=Avg. Watts Power.

We try to keep things between 60-100W per gallon of water. Also look to see the rating of watts is in Average Watts NOT Peak. Peak is for start-up and may be stated to make the unit more appealing. If you want you can get one with an adjustable power, this will keep down on the cavitation erosion (use enough power to get it clean and thats it) Using a lower frequency will clean heavy soil and high freq will clean really fine particles. We work with cultures so ours are normally pretty high in freq. I would look in the 20-60kHZ, that should be good for grease, oils, soot, etc and would think BP fouling would be in that class as well. Multiple transducers will help too, I would rather see 2 small than one large! Im not a scientist by ANY means just a mech/millwright that has to order new machines when they break :D .

I hope this helps somewhat..........Matt
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Trigger1212
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by Trigger1212 »

Matt

Thanks for the info, good stuff! Re the transducer watts, virtually all of them just state watts, never say average or start/peak, so I would have to imagine they are listing the latter as it works in their favor.

The vast majority of the USC units you see for sale are of Chinese make. Step up to US made and it starts to get real expensive real fast.

For what I’m planning to use it for a higher end Chinese unit would probably be fine.

Having said THAT, do you have any recommendations for a good unit in the 1.5-2.5 gal range that won’t break the bank?

Thanks!

Wade
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by bpcr shooter »

Not knowing your budget, its going to be hard because, yes they go up in price.....FAST! We use Branson cleaners here at work but, they are over the $1k range and they arnt that big but, we very seldom have issues and they are used everyday. But I have heard some good things about https://totalfinishingsupplies.com/prod ... ic-cleaner on other forums. FWIW, most of the time dealers will also include the heat as part of the power too, 350w for sonic cleaning and 350w for heat for a total of 700w so it really comes down to price and getting a GOOD solid unit. German or US units are really at the top. https://www.amazon.com/ROVSUN-Ultrasoni ... chdope1-20 these dont look terrible. really all the china ones are going to be the same with different stickers or different controls. I would just get one from a reputable dealer like Hornady, RCBS, or the like and go. Really to get into industrial your going to be over $1000 if not $1500.

We dont really deal with cheaper units here because of the reliability and being able to replace with a like for like unit(FDA/USDA) requires this, otherwise we have lots of paperwork to do.

I will poke around the internet and if I come up with something I will let you know though!!!

Matt
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by TexasMac »

Here’s my take on ultrasonic cleaners. I’ve had a SonicWave brand 6.5 liter unit since 2006. It was advertised as an industrial grade made in China. It has a heater and timer – a definite requirement. And I highly recommend one with a bottom drain. At the time the unit was $320 and was shipped from the supplier in China. I’ve used it extensively to clean many items including firearm parts and brass. Based on my experiences with it there’s no question that it will clean brass much faster than using the Thumler’s tumbler with either stainless pins or ceramic media. The one negative is it does not remove any stains on the brass regardless of the cleaning solution. For some additional comments on brass cleaning with ultrasonic see my article at http://www.texas-mac.com/Case_Cleaning_ ... _Pins.html.

BTW, I’ve been using a commercial concentrated cleaning solution called MICRO-90 made by International Products Corp. It’s a mild alkaline aqueous solution. You can likely get a nice size sample bottle by contacting the company at mkt@ipcol.com. It’s concentrated so it goes a long way.

If the cost is not an issue Branson brand cleaners are definitely the way to go but as noted earlier in this thread, they easily cost over $1K for a reasonable size.

As a final comment, although the ultrasonic is much faster, I like my brass nice and shiny with minimal stains so I tend to use the Thumler’s tumbler with ceramic media over ultrasonic unless time is of the essence.

Wayne
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Re: Ultrasonic case cleaners - who has experience with what would be considered a High End one?

Post by TexasMac »

I should have added that my unit is rated at 150 watts. And the prices have dropped substantially since I purchased mine over 14 years ago. I just checked eBay and an equivalent unit is less than $110. At that price it's worth taking a chance on a Chinese unit.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-6L-Ultraso ... SwLFJfaEXg

Wayne
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