Should you wash your circuit boards in an ultrasonic cleaning tank? If so, what do you put in it? What should you be wary of? Mark gives a little bit of his experience with PCB cleaning.
You should always fill an ultrasonic cleaner to the fill line. It needs liquid to dampen it so that it doesn't vibrate itself apart. You might find that it breaks prematurly if you don't. I fill mine with water up to the fill line. Then I find a container or freezer bag that my components will fit in and put my cleaner in that. It saves cleaner that way as well.
I've been thinking of an ultrasonic cleaner for a looong time. It's just it takes so much space and I'd need a large one for motherboards and similar. I wash my PCBs in Electrolube SWAS, I have a feeling it's the same you showed on video, just RS branded. I love it. It's effective but water based. I then rinse in water, final rinse in distilled water and then compressed air to remove water as much as possible. Finally 48 hours drying time in dry place. I love how "brand new" the PCBs turn out. The SWAS removes that layer of oxidation really well. Thanks for the video!
Good to see you've changed the fluid in your degreaser at last, it was looking like the gravy boat you'd find down your local boozer on a Sunday afternoon carvery.
My method for drying vintage boards is a gentle heat combined with moving air. I built a drying oven using a small ceramic space heater that had a fan. Component temperatures remain around 38C and the forced air tends to get into harder to reach areas and speeds evaporation. Yes, I realize I’m blow drying my boards. Don’t judge me.
Just found your channel. Really fun and informative videos ! Love how you go all the way to even open up components for repairs. Never thought of doing that myself. Always wanted to buy an ultrasonic cleaning for a project I have laying around but never came around to it so this is really helpful. What I am missing thought is: actually how long do you dry the boards in the oven ? And how large is your ("chinese ?") ultrasonic cleaner. Looks like 15L but could even be larger. Like others also mentioned in the comments, I would also love a tour-through-the-lab video. Where you mention all the equipment you have. Your lab is really to be jealous of ! A dream for most of us.
He did make a video showing a tour of his lab and workshop. Fascinating! Mark is an electronics, mechanics and woodworking genius. After using the ultrasonic cleaner, I usually dry the boards at 140 degrees F. for about 8 hours.
if your not in a rush i find a few days in the airing cupboard works ok for drying,also washing machine gel pods work in my homebrew ultrasonic cleaner,73 m3vuv.
Hi Mark thanks for your interesting electronic videos I have only just seen a few of them but I intend to view them all I noticed when you are testing the main power on items you plug it in to the home made volts and amp meter plug on the wall can you please do a video on how that is made also the power resistor thing you have next to it Thanks great job
Hi Mark, Love your stuff man😊 I just started with some Vintage audio repairs and had to clean some pots and switches. Had good results with contact cleaner, followed by compressed air blow out and than some protective contact spray. But i might go for this sollution too, Seems better in the long run. However, What stuff do you use to get them going again and protect it from going bad again? Just plain old sewing machine oil or something?
dry the boards in vacuum chamber to boil off the water at low temperature. I use an old redundant vac packer from a butchers shop and heat the board inside with an IR lamp my granny had for warming her bad leg, pointed through the clear lid.
Hi Mark 👋, I have a circuit board from a digital dash from a Honda xr motorcycle. Most of the solder joints have suffered from water ingress and have become slightly corroded 😢. And now the lcd display only partly functions now and again and some times does not work at all. My question is this...firstly would it be safe to ultrasonic clean the circuit board with the lcd display still attached to the board, and secondly do you think the ultrasonic cleaner would be enough to remove the corrosion and could the corrosion be the thing from preventing the dash to display properly. Cheers in advance and kind regards
I wonder why Potter and Brumfield like to jacket their relays in a see-through casing?!? Is it for quality assurance? Or maybe as functional example to educate? However it is, whenever I spot a see-through relay, it’s a difficult thing to avoid the desire to wire the thing up and demonstrate it’s functionality.
So.. if I have a board that is too big to fit in a cleaner, is it OK to put it in edgewise with half (or hopefully just less than half!) of the board sticking out, then rotate it to clean the other half of the board? In otherwords.. No reason (other than fumes perhaps?) to require using the top, right?
Can't you just rinse the circuit board with 99% Isopropyl Alcohol after the water bath? Just thought that would displace any water without the need to heat the board.
Certainly. I’d use compressed air first to blow out the water (which should be distilled/deionized water) and then isopropyl to displace any residual water, then blow that out with compressed air, too.
Awesome don't really think about this,whats your view on ESD cleaning inside with a vacuum cleaner...I've been cleaning inside tvs,tower PC for years no problem...others say be very careful with static build up...
I don't think ESD is such a problem for complete PCB assemblies, where sensitive parts will usually be loaded by pull-up / pull-down resistors and other EMC 'what-not' that would provide a safer leakage path. I'd be more worried loose components vanishing up the tube.
Hi Mark, I love your channel, among the best. What's the capacity of your ultrasonic cleaner ? (or tank dimensions). Thanks for your brilliant videos !
Cleaning pcb's with an ultrasonic bath is ok, but how do you follow traces of leakage to solve the problem to find the culprit? I know guys who do this procedure directly after they know what is the culprit and not before.
I have been using a ultrasonic cleaner for water damaged boards but never thought about using it to clean pots. Do you think it would help with joycon stick drift, and if so, what would you use?
i just use a small amount of washing up liquid. if something is greasy i'll spray it with ipa first to get the worst of the grease off. to wash it off after i spray with deionised water from a sprayer bottle. I just let it try at room temp.
Safeways isn’t degreaser, it’s flux remover. It will remove grease, too, but flux is what it’s designed for, and many degreasers won’t remove flux well. And you need it to be electronics-safe, which all-purpose degreasers aren’t guaranteed to be.
Mark, LOVE your channel. If you're paying through the nose on detergent for your ultrasonic cleaner, glass cleaner is cheap and effective. Brand names like Windex cost more, so use an off brand from an industrial supply--and dilute it 50% with water. Far less costly and it works just as well as the purpose-made stuff.
Circuit boards are sensitive to certain types of contamination, so using something not made for electronics is risky. This is flux remover, mind you, not degreaser.
No it’s not. Safewash is a flux remover, so it contains added ingredients (saponifiers; lye, basically) and corrosion inhibitors not present in cleaners for non-electronics use.
If you can find one, I suspect it would be up for sale around £2000. I've heard that the amplifier alone sells for £1000, and not necessarily in working condition! Unfortunatly, it has the attention of the Audiophile market - so sensible pricing goes out of the window...
I wish I could afford one of these. Even the cheap Chinese ones are a little outside my price range. For now I’m stuck with the poor man’s version, which for me involves hosing everything down with carbon tetrachloride and drying with compressed air.
