The Most Underrated Tool? (DIY or Buy) Ultrasonic Cleaner! 

Tip for cleaning small parts in ultrasonic cleaner: Add cleaning solution and parts in a small glass jar and put that jar in the cleaner filled with water. Easier to clean and no need to use so much cleaning solution. Especially handy, when some small parts require different cleaning solution than what is normally used.

I'm working in a company which uses ultrasonic baths a lot. Funny thing is, that the Aluminium Foil Tests are officially performed regularly to make sure every ultrasonic bath is working properly. It apparently is the best way to make sure everything is all right without the need of disassembling the machines all the time.

Before PCB washing always READ DATASHEET. Some parts like crystal oscillators can be damaged with ultrasonic cleaning.

It's also worth mentioning that if you DIY, the basket is an essential part of the machine - they only do their job right if things do not sit directly on the bottom.

One of the big things to consider is that while it may be a bit faster to do it by hand, you can also do something else while it does the cleaning

Just to add something further to be cautious about: Do not clean MEMS-devices (accelerometers, gyrometers, microphones) in an ultrasonic cleaner, they will break. I think 'breaking taps' made a video explaining the matter further.

Love this series, but what I really love is that you made an effort to reverse engineer the board to see if it's something we can make ourselves. Really appreciate that kinda effort.

The DIY solution will get interesting if you mount the transducers onto your steel kitchen sink. Big volume and you can clean your dishes by ultrasonic and release the waste water directly ;)

You might want to take a closer look at your solder paste and soldering process, so many solder balls are definitely not normal, we have like at most 1-2 per board and those usually fall off easily. It might even be bad flux.

I couldn't live without my ultrasonic cleaner, whether it's cleaning electronics, water-damaged electronics, or even for cleaning fossils - it's simply brilliant. I only have an inexpensive one from Aldi, but it does the job perfectly in my opinion, although you might need to wait a bit longer.

I've been cleaning batches of PCBs a lot and let me tell you, PCB cleaning solution works wonders (EMAG Platinenreiniger in my case). It is specifically made for getting rid of flux and solder balls and will clean an entire tank full of boards to almost perfection.👌 Heating it to something like 60 C will also make a huge difference.

Heated water and nearly any detergent works well. I use a product here in Australia called "simple green". But I think any basic dishwashing liquid works well. The main benefit with these is when you're cleaning "fiddly" things, with small internal ports or cavities, like a carburetor or brake parts.. The Ultrasonic/heat/cleaner will get into the smaller areas that are just too fiddly otherwise and importantly do no damage. Plus you can get on with other tasks as the cleaner works.

I own Two ultrasonics. One for cleaning Tarnished jewelery (I'm the maker) and one for cleaning 3d resin parts. I find them both invaluable for my proceesses. There are a great tool when you are doing low run production work because they reduce labor time.

I've always wanted an ultrasonic cleaner as I do LOTS of microscopic hand soldering on PCBs, and cleaning flux residue is an absolute nightmare that takes up at least half the time I spend diagnosing, fault-finding, and even repairing the damaged circuits. One of the most important things I've noticed in regards to ultrasonic cleaners (and whether or not they're recommended for use on electronics) is if they feature a sweeping frequency. My understanding of this feature is it prevents the creation of standing waves within the solution. In normal operation, you will have various regions of high turbulence and cavitation, and regions with absolutely none. This is due to interference patterns emerging in the solution. Sweeping is meant to solve this problem, by causing the transducers to operate at a variable frequency. This creates a far more uniform distribution of turbulence, and therefore, the cavitation which causes microscopic water bubbles to cling to debris and gunk and pull it away. I think the reason you were having so many issues, even prior to using a specialized cleaning solution, is because this particular ultrasonic cleaner doesn't feature sweeping. It kind of makes sense that sweeping would be desired for electronic circuits, because you often have MANY small parts (the SMD components), all with various quantities of goo and debris between them. A non-sweeping cleaner would likely have lots of problems with getting cavitation bubbles to occur in all of these nooks and crannies. I also expect the full-wave/semi-wave setting on that cleaner you got is meant to create a different interference pattern in the solution. Semi-wave probably results in smaller interference patterns, which interestingly could provide better cleaning results? Maybe? The only problem with the sweeping cleaners is they are ASTRONOMICALLY more expensive. Once you get into sweeping cleaners, you're easily looking at price tags upwards of $1,000 or more! I'd be really interested in seeing a DIY attempt at creating a sweeping cleaner. I have no idea why they're so expensive, as I can't imagine it takes much more to just alter the frequency the transducers are running at. But they must be so expensive for a reason, right?

I've found I get better results with heated water, which is why the modern cleaners have a temperature controlled heater built in Also if you have those special coatings on you're glasses (like auto darkening) it might not be a good idea to put them in there

Be sure to read through the components' datasheet before doing so. Many components cannot withstand this. Relays, crystals, buttons, pots etc etc.

Generally, with appropriate cleaning agents in the ultrasonic, such as Branson or EMAG products, cleaning should be capped out at 1-3 minutes, to avoid unecessary damage to certain components on the PCB, of course heating should always be used, at around 60-70c

I was told by a lab technician friend that you should put the water/cleaning solution in slowly, with the cleaner turned on, and stop filling when you get the strong ripples on the surface of the water as at this point the system is at resonance and the cleaning is more effective.

One important thing to note: transducers should not be powered on unless mounted and the container filled to the proper volume. Testing them on the bench like that can actually damage them, with an end result that they run hotter, work less efficiently (or not at all), and also require more power from to driving circuit (which creates more heat). Even if they work perfectly fine though, i haven't seen any that didn't create enough heat to need active cooling for the circuitry. (Another note on safety: having touched an active transducer bare-handed before I can say it's definitely not recommended)

Save on the cleaning solution by placing the object inside a ziplock bag (with the cleaning solution like alcohol) and then place that into the water bath heated up to at least 40ºC

I wanted to do this for so many days and seeing u do it makes me satisfied and feel good that atleast you did it!

Ultrasonic cleaning is an invaluable asset at my job, we even put an "Employee of the month" sticker on one of them haha

I'm very happy for your success over the last few years. I remember when you weren't sure if this channel was going anywhere, but I'm very happy to see that you didn't give up.

I have to say that the soldering on the PCBs looks horrible, you should try some fresh / different paste, and a higher temperature as well. The one that you are using doesn't melt properly, so it forms balls and doesn't pull components into their spots. As a tip, try mixing the paste with a bit of wet flux before applying, I found that this often helps to get better soldering results

These are great. I’ve used industrial ones to clean both small and large metal parts and the results are flawless

I used one for a few reactions in the lab and general glassware cleaning. Sonication and the right solvent takes care of most problems

Very interesting. The timing is perfect as I am currently in need of an ultrasonic cleaner. Thanks for making this video!

Also from the safety point of view - Keep your fingers, or any other body parts, well away from the water/solution in the tank. At those frequencies, human tissue will emulsify quite readily, even though you may not feel it. It's not worth risking your fingers just save a few seconds while turning things over, or putting things into and out of the tank. My own ultrasonic cleaner recommends placing parts horizontally, and points out that the cleaning is more effective on the underside of the items being cleaned (i.e. facing the transducers).

You stay creative, I just want to sit back and enjoy watching you ❤

The point in automation is to let the machine do the job. Being faster is not always the point: your dishwasher, your wash machine or your roomba is slower than you but they let you do other things while they work.

The driver circuit looks like a self-excited half-bridge resonant circuit with transformer feedback, similar to the circuit in a fluorescent ballast. And it uses two transformers to transform the impedance of the transducer.

Thanks, you make your videos so clear and good explained.

At work we put our parts in beakers with the solution we want to use and float them in the water of the machine. We have machine covers with holes the size of the beakers we use in them to keep them from tipping.

"Semi wave" is a very interesting use of words

When working with ultrasonic transducer for fluid level sensing, TI recommended a 2 part super glue which worked really well against other glues including epoxys.

I used to assemble these for a family owned company, the trick we found to producing a high efficiency product was to use an old fashioned VALVE AMPLIFIER TUBE, it produced a rougher frequency wave than transistors and ic's. Therefore a superior cleaning experience even on commercial cleaning units the size of a large sink (many, many, many, many, transducers). The rougher frequency curve also works better on ultrasonic therapy units, but not for Ultrasonic Imaging Units.

I bought a Vevor a couple years ago and it's fantastic.

Excellent. I always enjoy this channel.

I love my ultrasonic cleaner. I use it for glasses, jewellery, laser engraved items, some PCB parts and also rocks that have been placed in a rock tumbler. Only 3 liters, but big enough for what I need

My wife's a jeweler, ultrasonic cleaner is a must. They work great for cleaning on LP albums too. Thanks from Colorado.

I just ran into this problem this week with a project for the first time. I needed a heavy amount of flux and brushing with alcohol was taking forever to get a proper clean. Thank you algorithm.

Cool gadget! Very useful. I might pick up the DIY kit!

I've had great fun with my ultra sonic cleaner. I mostly use it for rebuilding carbs.

You can also use dish soap / water in a 1:10 ratio with a dash of ammonia (yes). Way cheaper than ultrasonic cleaning solutions and does the job just fine!

I wish I could peek inside the ultrasonic watch cleaner my father had in the early 60's. It had a unique sound that modern ultrasonic cleaners lack and cleaned faster too. The bubbles were more abundant too. It had 4 round compartments with different solutions in each and round mesh baskets to fit each compartment. Considering how new transistors were in that era I'm curious if it maybe used some other type of electrical components to generate the pulses? That may partly explain it's strange sound. It would clean any dirt under your finger nails in a minute!

Saw a guy make an extra large ultrasonic cleaner for antique computer motherboards. Because it was a rare enough size as to not be widely sold it was a great solution for him. So if you have something very large DIY makes sense.

Just for Great Scott and other's edification: I use a fine paint brush to remove the solder and then microfiber cloth to soak up the used alcohol. I go through microfiber cloths but they are pretty inexpensive.

I think I remember seeing someone else who did a DIY ultrasonic cleaner but had major issues with the transducers detaching over time if not using a specific glue. So it's something worth being aware of despite a DIY ultrasonic cleaner that seems to work initially.

awesome project. i always wondered about how these were made and functioned.

Great video! Thanks for the info!

I used to do pcb/microsoldering in a previous job. We cleaned finished PCBs in what was basically a high tech dishwasher. As long as none of the components on the board are moisture sensitive, you can just use warm soapy water. Dry the board in the oven at about 60 degrees c.

Everything you offer in the field of electronics makes me impressed. Greetings to you ✅✅✅

Tried different cleaning solutions. The best one by far has been regular grease removing dishwasher soap. Does wonders.

Alconox 8 detergent is what I use to clean my boards. Works great and boards come out absolutely spotless. Be careful with crystals and electrolytic capacitors.

We used to clean jet engine electronics in an industrial ultrasonic with 3M Novec. Really got the boards clean and ready for installation into their respective components

I have a tool for holding slotted screws, as you slide one part down the blade get fatter and grip the screw slot. Its so handy for getting difficult to reach screws started. But the ultrasonic cleaners have come a long way price and cleaning power Great video 2x👍

Very interesting indeed on the diy kit. I have an old laboratory warm water bath that I brought back to life with a PID controller. I could glue this kit inside of it and turn it into a cleaner!

It is worth checking that there is thermal paste between the power transistors and the heat sinks. Adding a cooling fan is recommended.

Your videos are really inspiring!

You can put small parts in a glass jar that you fill with cleaning fluid. This way you can run different cleaning cycles at the same moment using different cleaning fluids.

Awesome was using this in Panasonic Avionics Dubai for cleaning pcbs in 2009...

We have an ultrasonic bath in the workshop and I also place items in a zip lock bag with alcohol or some cleaning agents.

Thank you for this video and useful information , good luck✌❤❤❤

Really nice job, man!

2:05 omg! how the hell did you get knipex to sponsor you that's one of the most awesome things i've seen in YT sponsor history since not only is it a perfect fit for your channel but IMO is the creme of the creme of electrical work brands.

i use ipa to clean my circuit boards.I pre heat the pcbs, do some scrubbing to losen up those solder balls, and then just clean them for like 2 minutes, I then store the used ipa in a different container to be reused, you can see the dirt/flux settling down after a while after stroring the ipa. ipa is somewhat flammable depending on the purity so do monitor the temperature and do it in a well ventilated area.

I have to say this is the first time I've ever seen knipex sponsor a RU-vid video....as an American that does not have a huge budget for tools I've only owned one pair myself and used tools my employer provided...you have no idea how much you struggle with inferior hand tools until you use good quality tools....ive always just had channel locks and oh my goodness they are just not designed to be used on bolts and nuts...the jaws closing in a linear way was not something I knew existed...i wish i could afford a whole set of knipex hand tools i would use them every day and enjoy them for years lol.

An ultrasonic cleaner is such a handy tool to have. I've unfortunately moved and no longer have access to the one I used to use, which is a shame. Going back to manual cleaning is tedious and boards dont come out as clean.

I've cleaned circuit boards with regular dishwashing soap, tap water and a tooth brush, a rinse with tap water, and a final rinse with distilled water and jet-dry. They very often finnish looking brand new.

Best solution for the UltraSonic for cleaning PCB's is Electrolube SafeWash Super. I have been using it for about 20 years and it is absolutely awesome.

I still use the Kester 2331 water soluble flux and 2331-cored solder for soldering PCB's. Residues easily wash off with warm water under the tap and a soft toothbrush.

A friend made a DIY using 4 horns, a 4 output controller/power board, a heating element out of an old bread machine and he set it up under a kitchen metal tray which was about 4 inches deep but very wide and long and enough to put in a E-ATX motherboard and its never let him down either.

Great video! I've been thinking about buying one for a while to remove flux. I think now I'll have reasonable expectations.

Great work dude. 😄😄

Love all your videos thank you

Nice video. English is not my language, i am a producer of transducer and a little more complex generator, gonna try to give some advise: keep in mind that ultrasonic cleaner "add" meccanical force to a solution capable of clean the dirt that you wanna remove; ofc for some kind of dirt, plain water alone will work (like dirt based on emulsifiable oil, sugar) but dont take it as a rule, in many cases you will need specific product. In bigger tank when u first pour in the cleaning solution, make it run for a while to let solution free up entraped air boubles. Do not use distilled water for the cleaning solution instead use it for the final rinse: you will have better result and avoid limestone marks. many cleaning product will give best work between 45 and 60° Celsius; dont fill too much the basket or use the cleaner w/out basket, because you will limit the cleaning capacity. The alluminium test is a cheap but repetible and meaningfull test, one trained person can spot an "end of life" tank by cheking it. Generally the alluminium foil test take about 10 seconds, and good cleaner in that time will make several tiny holes. Avoid to run the transucer w/out liquid inside the tank, or in free air like in this video, you are going to make the transducer overheat.

I normally skip past ads in videos, but I stayed to watch the Knipex ad. I love their tools, and I'm so glad they have started sponsoring youtubers. I'm not a content creator, but I too hope to one day be sponsored by Knipex.

@GreatScott! - When you were manually cleaning your boards, you were not using enough alcohol. The trick is to get an oversized tub filled with enough IPA to fully submerge your circuit card assembly (CCA) and then take your brush and scrub the board in the IPA. This way the residual flux dissolves into the alcohol and gets washed away rather than simply spreading around the rest of the board like the method you showed in your video does. When I used to work at a MIL/Aero engineering company, we would use a 3-tray IPA cleaning process on space flight boards if the customer was picky and wouldn't allow our batch cleaning process. The idea was you had three tubs with 99% IPA in them, the first was the "dirty" one and is where you started the board cleaning process. Once you scrubbed as much flux off in the "dirty" tray as you could, you would move your board to the second tray which was by nature cleaner IPA than the first and you'd scrub again. Once you were satisfied you got it all off in the second tray, you'd move to the third tray which should be nearly pristine IPA still. This will get any residual flux off the board. When done, we would blow dry the board using dry nitrogen. As the second and third trays would eventually get dirty they would be rotated into the first and second positions respectively and the first tray would be dumped and replaced with fresh IPA to become the new third tray. On a separate note, we would NOT use ultrasonic cleaners on flight hardware due to the very real chance that the process would cause damage to the CCAs. For home use it's probably not a big deal, but as an industrial process for high-rel hardware it's a 'no-no'.

I cleaned an old PC with tap water and soap once. I left it drying and reassemble things though it turned off immediately after booting. Disassembled again and it had a mini pool of water inside the CPU socket. :) After drying properly everything worked greatly. That PC died of obsolescence.

I gotta say this is a great video.... Thanks !

I'm using one for my MTB parts, very nice for chain cleaning.

alternative tip for cleaning a board: use hot water, dish liquid soap and a tooth brush. I *always* wash my boards that way, I'm doing that since the '90s. It takes 5 minutes, plus some hours under the sun (or some minutes under the hairdryer). It can also fix some issues like leaking caps (of course then you must to recap and of course it doesn't fix corroded traces). When I have more than one board, I throw them into the dishwasher with a fast washing program (in this case you need to remove the painted parts, like metal bezels etc. - I mean: like the Commodore 64 metal bezel for the joystick and switch -- trust me, I won't do the same mistake again...). In case of small boards, like RAM or ROM adaptor with sockets and smd components, etc. I put the board into boiling water for few minutes (no, it doesn't affect the electronic components). This method works fine and I've never lost a board until now.

I heard of some people using a metal bucket with a palm sander taped to the side and a hotplate to heat the solutio. Cheap and VERY STRONG! I'd love to hear/see your opinion

funny thing about the temperature controls - sonication works much better at low temperatures, so at our lab we often fill it with ice.

Try cleaning in pure ethanol, acetone, gasoline. But use a tightly closed jar for flamable liquid and part, then put the jar into supersonized water tank. I also very satisfied with cleaning bicycle chain in distilled water, then in kerosene. Also kerosene is easy to filter for another cleaning cycle. Great to clean out oxide layers from metals with light solution of acid. DIYed a 150w 2.3l cleaner and very satisfied with it.

for removing flux residue temperature is very important! I use my ultrasonic for cleaning logic boards after microsoldering repairs, and flux residue is infinitely easier to remove at 70C that it is at 20C

Another informative video bro 👍

wow, never thought i would see a bvn carb outside of the simson bubble

I have seen good results if you put a masked PCB with the etchant in a self-lock plastic bag and put in the ultrasonic bath. The etching will be done real fast.

those solder balls are crazy. I'm glad i held onto my leaded solder.

I bought a small size ultrasonic. It offered 30-60w power. My field is advanced computer motherboard repair. We tried BGA chip with MR Muscul for testing purposes. The crystal of the chip exploded) so I tried it with 30w. But it is the liquid that is important for cleaning flux. For example, you can try Mr Muscul with distilled water. or try isopropyl alcohol.

I use since 30 years Kontakt WL for cleaning PCB. It works great. It contains mostly Isopropylic Alc. plus some other stuff like ethylether.

Great one! Who all needs a Great Scott-Electroboom Collab? 😁❤️

At 7 mins in did R7 & R1 start with dry joints. Hint hold SMD in place with wooden toothpick to tack one end with solder.

Possible third option: Buy or trade second-hand, there are plenty. Found mine (smaller, about 1 liter) at a thrift store.

it may take a bit longer to clean, but it also frees up your time to do other things in the meantime

Some ICs are sensitive to certain ultrasonic frequencies. Specifically, some MEMS sensors. Check the ICs datasheets first to make sure you don't need to use an alternate frequency setting on your cleaner.

I got one but the liquid capacity is 2 US gallons of whatever. It can clean parts and is big enough to ultrasonic clean vinyl records, too. The issue is that you are not supposed to operate the cleaner with a partially full tank, you are supposed to fill to capacity. Thus alot of whatever you clean with gets used up. Maybe own a small one and a large one.

Tip for using ultrasonic cleaners with heating elements: keep the lid closed. Even the quality brands (e.g. German brand Elma) appear to struggle without a lid - I assume it is just is too much surface area that dissipates the heat. E.g. a S 120 H has 800 W of heating power and still does not reach 60 or 70 °C without a lid. Furthermore, lids help reducing the ear-unfriendly noise a bit. By the way - cleaning detergents are usually reusable - you can e.g. judge their remaining cleaing performance by their pH-value (compared to their initial value). Or you just use them until you are not happy with the cleaning results anymore.

cool that was awesome! guess there would be channel who use to only show cleaning of products in water