FIRE DAMAGED Commodore Amiga A600 Ultrasonic Cleaning! 🔥 Sneak Peak at my Crystal Case from PCBWay! 

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Hey Mark. Fill the cleaner with tap water. Now grab some large zip-lock bags and drop what you want to clean into them. Fill up with the cleaning solution and get rid of any trapped air as you're sealing the bags. This will save a fortune when cleaning but more importantly, when filling with tap water you can use hot water saving time waiting for the cleaner to warm up. Impressed with how well it came out though!

Tip for next time: it's often worth spraying PCBs down with 99% IPA after an ultrasonic bath. The ultrasonic cleaning solution does lower the surface tension, but water still has a tendency to get trapped in small amounts under SMD parts. The trapped water takes a long time to dry out at ambient temperatures. While it's there it starts to leech oxygen from the air and metal salts from nearby pads/leads/vias, which can lead to hidden corrosion. It's particularly a problem on BGAs but it also happens with QFP/QFN/SOIC and larger passives. If you tilt the board and spray 99% IPA over it, straight out of the bath and while the board's still warm, it'll run down under the parts and mix with any water in there, lowering the surface tension and increasing the volatility of any trapped liquid, allowing it to evapourate away much more quickly :) EDIT: I also echo what others have said regarding the water - it's usually fine to just use it straight from the tap instead of distilled. Most of the ultrasonic cleaning fluids contain citric acid, which is a water softening agent, so even if you're in a hard water area it'll quickly pull out the minerals and just knock down the potency of the cleaning fluid a little. Our water is super hard here so I tend to add a teaspoon of citric acid powder to the mix to offset the issue - it's _way_ cheaper than the ultrasonic fluid (about £9 on eBay for a whole kilo) so it's well worth it. It's also honestly a miracle chemical. You can use for all sorts of things - it's safe on basically every household metal including jewellery, it's safe on plastics and rubber, it doesn't bleach clothes, it's an incredible limescale remover, it's great as a dishwasher cleaner, it's what's in espresso machine cleaner (except you don't get charged £15 for 100g!), it's used as a pickling agent for preparing copper pipes and brass for soldering, and even in pretty strong concentrations with hot water you can get it on your skin and it's no big deal, just wash your hands and you're good to go. Seriously magic stuff.

There's no need to buy lab-grade distilled water. The distilled water at the grocery store for a couple dollars a gallon works just as well, and for hobby related cleaning, is more than sufficient.

The boards cleaned up so well!!! I don’t have a proper cleaner so I’d have just tossed the boards and case pieces into my dishwasher and prayed for a miracle. 😂

Very nice. Been thinking of an ultrasonic cleaner for a while. I would use tap water and then just rinse the board in distilled water at the end.

Its amazing how well that board came up. That new case looks great.

Amazing result!

First time seeing some one using a ultrasonic on a retro motherboard the results are spectacular, a must have tool in the arsenal in my opinion!

I'm not so surprised at how well it came out. I've been using a smaller ultrasonic tank for a few years now, it's proven really useful especially with boards that have been got at by leaky capacitors and backup batteries. Not a tool I use every day but when it's needed, it's priceless.

Truly astounding.

Nice jugs ! That Ultrasonic cleaner is so impressive. Those boards look fantastic.

It all cleaned up rather nicely it must be said!

It's amazing how satisfying it is to watch a good cleaning vid. Great result!

That transformation was truly remarkable, My face was exactly the same when I first saw Patsy Kensit's baps in Lethal Weapon 2 when I was a kid

3:39 Probably the best advise I've ever gotten from the Internet: If it's already broken, what do you have left to lose trying to fix it? Of course time is money etc. etc. but we do lots of things just because. At least in your case, it would make an interesting video, no matter the outcome! And the ultrasonic cleaning did an amazing job with the boards! Can't wait to see how this project shapes up!

I'm staggered. Simply staggered. What an amazing job that ultrasonic cleaner did!!

Seeing the after had me astonished saying "holy shit". What a difference! It's nice seeing you rescuing things presumed lost in that fire, it's got to be cathartic for you. Well done.

Wow! Never thought it'd be that effective - amazing!

just a tip, before you clean the parts you can turn on the ultrasonic cleaner as well as the heating element and that will make the liquid heat up a lot faster instead of waiting one hour

It’s good to have Mark Fixes Puns back! We’ve all had hangovers leaving us feeling in need of an ultrasonic bath.

Amazing results. I know first hand just how terrible fire damage soot is, so wasn't expecting that.

That turned out a whole lot better than I thought it would, and now it's getting a nice new crystal case to go in. Great stuff, looking forward to seeing the final result.

Incredible results. Great job mate!

Perfectly done nice and methodological especially the jugs 😄

The first song sounds like DM Stripped intro! Nice!

Amazing results.

Wow that is impressive!

Amazing results! Looking forward to see where this is going :)

It's fabulous and so heart warming to see. Even the anodising on the choke coils is gleaming. 😊✔

Wow! I've seen a few restorators use ultrasonic cleaners but never seen the difference, but I have to say, looks VERY impressive!

Wow, amazing!

Blimey! And they printed the case as well. Double Blimey!

Been looking forward to this one 😍

I used my Dishwasher 2 weeks ago, to clean a fully smoker PC. It was so disgusting brown inside. Mainboard, CPU cooler, Mini Tower, even the fans. It came out like new and after 2 days of drying it worked again like a charm :)

Marky Mark and the funky A600... its looking good, cant wait for the second video :)

Wow!!! Now I need an ultrasonic cleaner, too. Unbelievable!

Definitely a good tool to have.

That case is amazing, and the cleaner worked better than I hoped.

Your comment about too much Ultrasonic cleaning for electrolytics being a thing has got me wondering if that's part of the problem with some re-capped Sega Saturn motherboards that I have. After re-capping, they went from perfectly fine to dead. My initial reaction was "Maybe they need more cleaning??". I'm thinking I want to re-do the capping entirely on one of them to see if that revives it. In case you're curious, I've imported, successfully refurbished and resold 10 units from Japan with at least 10 more awaiting attention. 5 boards on the dead pile has eaten away at my confidence lately :)

Excellent results Mark. I would love to get an ultrasonic cleaner.

A very entertaining watch, looking forward to the see thru case. Duncan

i love your collection of computers :) i still have a few amigas ,a c16 motherboard ,a spectrum 48k rubber key . best times of my life going to woolworths and w h smiths to by games . 5 pound saved up .that should buy at least 2 games :) haha

That was amazing, I doubted the efficacy of these cleaners but now I might just buy one.

Well that came up really nice didn't know they worked so fast

Wow, that board will did clean up well in the ultrasonic cleaner.

Wow, nice.

Wow! What an instant difference in the ultrasonic bath! I remember when I was a kid they had a little one at the o-to Ian and when we went in for adjustments or checkups the first thing they would always do is pop your glasses in it for a couple of minutes. The result was always perfection. An Amiga motherboard is a bit of a scarier prospect though.

I hope that board works, that was amazing!

"I ran down the shops and grabbed the first pair of jugs I saw" OOooohhh Matron!🤣

That came up amazingly! Expensive I'm sure with the consumables, but still worth trying out.

Super cool vid! My fav kind of vids! :D

Very impressive! I want one now. 😆

That was a massive difference after the first bath... Its tempting to stick everything in the US bath before trying to fix it but you often find you wash away any evidence of where a problem may lie. better to US bath it after fixing any issues although I can see why you took a gamble with this one. Looking forward to the next part.

Nice work Mark. Less is always more with ultrasonic cleaners. I ruined several things before I figured that out 😢

UltraSonic Cleaner is definitely on my list of things to get soon. I want want for removing paint from plastic models, but cleaning things like jewellery, glasses and other things will be a bonus really. I'm curious what solutions to use really. I've seen some suggest washing up liquid, or stronger detergents (US YTers have used things like Simply Green iirc). I've seen some use Isopropynl Alcohol! I won't be doing that however as I don't want a fire in my house!

I really should invest in an ultrasonic cleaner soon. I very nearly bought one last year (for PCBs). Hope all is well, mate. ;)

I think I'd have put it through the dishwasher first. Great video as always though Mark!

The board came out great and i learnt a bit about sonic cleaning .Brian from tech yes city youtube channel often uses a sonic cleaner on pc parts with great results .Will you be looking at your amiga 1200 at some point as well .

I'd recommend washing in soapy water before going into the ultrasonic cleaner. That way there is less contamination in the cleaner and the board should come out even better.

Rumour has it the Gummies are using the ultrasonic cleaner as a jacuzzi….

5:20 .... oh err missus :)

A Gotek drive with a big ARM chip; not seen one of them for ages. I hope it works.

I think someone will print you an Amiga case in clear plastic. That's my prediction. Also, the ultrasonic was like magic.

You can save quite a bit of money by using deionised water instead of distilled. Carplan stuff is usually around £2.75 for 5litres

I've been using an ultrasonic cleaner for years but I've no tips because mine is teeny tiny, intended for jewellery and I use it to knock paint off little warhammer men.

I'd say using tap water should be fine. There is so much dirt coming of the board that the water is less clean than tap water within a fraction of a second. If you are worried about minerals you could do a small clean with distilled water afterwards. Ethanol works well too. However, I have succesfully cleaned so many computers in the dishwasher in the kitchen that I'm convinced the minerals problem maybe exists in theory, but in practise isn't a problem at all.

I bought an ultrasonic cleaner a year ago, turns out it was significantly bigger in the picture. Couldn't fit much in the little basket and it has mostly stayed in the box, so I guess size really does matter 😅

Full jugs are useful

Hey Mark. Have you ever used an ozone generator to get rid of bad odours from electrical equipment. I have an eBay purchase and the previous owner was a smoker. It’s a 90s hifi stack. I am toying with the idea of an ozone generator but find little UK info. I read great stuff but also that’s it’s dangerous and I’m too nervous to commit

some 20+ years ago i had an early 1970s thorn 1590 black n white portable tv given to me that'd been in a house fire, the front moulding was quite badly heat bubbled but still intact, also knobs very wonky, but strangely the main outer case unaffected, maybe 'cause different type plastic? the case and innards werent too mucky luckily and the gunk just mostly brushed off, amazingly the thing worked perfectly after that, still got it but not easily usable now analogue transmissions stopped, booo, damn you tony blair!

i put my stuff through an ultra. clean. i have a soft bristled brush i run over the board during a 2min ultrasonic clean.. one minute on each site.

I wish I got the 22l version of the cleaner. I got 15l and have to have half of a large board stick out then turn it over. I wrongly thought that 22l would be too big. They work well, but make sure to unplug it when done, they're made in China!

1000 thank you for the headphone warning Mark.

Just realised this one was a few months old... was there a follow up? How did it all go?

😍😍😍😍

How long was the board actually in the cleaner for ?

Hope you asked before just grabbing random juggs!

It looks like its a new motherbord

Forgive me if this is a silly question, is distilled water harder to come by in the UK or do you have to use that brand of distilled water? in the US its about .70c to $1.00 a gallon (3.78L)

Personally I prefer 2 jugs the exact same size

Is that a 30L?

You could always ditch the ugly RF modulator entirely, since it's not critical to the display circuit like the modulator on a C64. That way if you want to use an RGB2HDMI later on you'll have a spot to run the cable out of the case.

helpful advice......dont try and wash your tackle in there!

So you grabbed two jugs but failed to mention who they belong to?🤪

DOES THIS WORK ON GRUBNUTS?

Is there something special about that water? They sell distilled water in stores really $1 or $2 a gallon by the other water here. People use it for humidfiers and drink it.

That ultrasonic cleaner needs an ultrasonic screwdriver

There is some really doubtful advise in this video. Clearly he never used an ultrasonic cleaner. It's not smart to use distilled water that way. It's more filthy then tap water after the first rinse, not economical at all. And if you live in a area where water has low mineral content its useless. If you really want to use it. Put it in a small bag with the device and put that in ordinary water. You can also just rinse with distilled water afterwards or IPA.