No.040 - Trying out a new Ultrasonic Cleaner for PCB's
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 พ.ย. 2018
- I needed a new, bigger Ultrasonic Cleaner for my PCB's so settled on an Allendale-Ultrasonics cleaner, and at the same time tried out a couple of different cleaning solutions.
UPDATE 15/11/2018:
I contacted Allendale regarding where their cleaner is made, and their thoughts on the cleaning solution. I have posted their reply on my website, which includes an offer of 15% discount on purchases from them. Check it out:
www.ianjohnston.com/index.php...
9 Litre Dial Ultrasonic Cleaner Tank with Heated Bath:
www.allendale-ultrasonics.co.uk/
Electrolube Safewash SWAS:
uk.farnell.com/electrolube/sw...
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Hmmm, I've considered getting a cleaner before so glad to know that the type of cleaning solution is so important! Thanks Ian!
Thank you very much for your review on our Ultrasonic Cleaner
Very helpful review.
Audio is a bit all over the place, I was testing a new microphone and also had to filter out the air-con which was quite noisy.
Not to mention, I am now using the free version of Davinci Resolve to edit the video's.....so it's taking a wee bit of time to get used to it.
Looks like a great unit.
Your lab looks very good👍
I keep think of one to clean PCBs and carburettors. Be interesting to see how you get on with it long term. Great video thanks.
Big thumbs up for my Scots man 🤗🤗
Yay - one of Dave's meters!
You may have said in the video but are you using a solder with a flux designed for being water washable. I remember when I worked in production electronics more than 20 years ago, we just had large domestic dish washer and a drying room. But I remember some flux type were much easier to clean than other. Perhaps you could experiment with some different solder and fluxes in the future. Regards Chris
Have you tried to scope that piezo speaker in the US Cleaner? You could possibly check the frequency/waveform.
Great idea......but no I never did that. Next time I use the cleaner I'll try it.
I use either straight IPA or the Orange coloured "Simple Green" with perfect results.......however depending on how bad the boards are I can go from 2 mins to 20 mins while heated to 60c
Have you ever tried just using ordinary dish soap on a pcb? Or laundry detergent? Or ammonia? I'm really curious, whether they would do just as well. I suspect that these PCB board cleaners are a bit of a gimmick. They work, but are they better than ordinary products?
Any recommendations for cleaning solutions designed for blasting the oxidation off magnesium alloys?
How often do you have to change out the fluid?
The piezo test doesn't mean much, it depends on the resonant frequency of the transducer and the frequency of the transducers attached to the bath.
Transducers in both units are 40kHz......a reasonable back of the envelope test I thought given even that the resonant freq may be well off.......and results seemed to make sense.
This cleaning solution feels slimy when I've cleaned flux from boards after use. Did you notice this?
Could you add a link on your previous video to this one?
try a dishwasher block (blue,yellow,white blocks) desollve it in 2 liters (boil) filter it and use that.Been using this for years great result .
How do you dry the boards after the cleaning proces if I may ask? :)
Do you have any thoughts on cleaners with sweep frequency function and if they are really necessary for getting under fine bga devices and around the smallest components?
I've only ever used fixed 40kHz type cleaners. The theory is there for sweep type, but I don't know how much better in practice. Maybe somebody else can weigh in.....
I've used cellulose thinner in my ultrasonic for years, It's cheap (10 quid for 5LTR) and removes all traces of flux without the need for a water-based solution.
Also removes all trace of brain cells if you use it outside a fume cabinet :D
Since this is UK, based ... some stuff may not be available outside the UK .... any alternatives ??
Have you ever tried Branson EC cleaner?
Hi
Very helpful video! Do you ever use alcohol after you take your boards out of the ultrasonic? How do you dry your boards?
Thank you
I never use alcohol unless it is to remove a stubborn bit of flux. I dry the boards with a hot air gun (carefully!).
IanScottJohnston I find when I use alcohol it sometimes can leave a light white deposit
@@computerworksuk Exactly!.....my boards are precision instruments and need to be absolutely clean with zero residue.
I dip my boards in isopropanol for a couple a minutes and then rinse in hot water. It cleans all types of flux perfectly with no ultrasonic whatsoever.
And ultrasonic can destroy crystals and MEMS oscillators.
Is there an energy density function here, twice the power in the new unit but a much bigger volume?
With a bigger tank and more heads, proportionately more energy results in more cavitation. However, cavitation will top out/saturate thus the addition of more sound energy will not result in additional cavitation.......so it really depends on the design itself, a good large unit could clean better than a smaller unit, or vice versa.
I know this because the head & pcb I showed in the video was my attempt to turbocharge the cheap chinese unit.......but it didn't clean much better!
Have you tried the cleaning liquid by F. A. IRY? - Available in most supermarkets.
Good point, I could chuck in the dishes at the same time. Wife will be very happy.
Thanks Ian. You don't need to use alcohol or something to remove the water?
I use a hot air gun immediately after rinsing the PCB's.......you don't need to blow it completely dry, just enough to get rid of most of the water and that you put heat inside the FR4 and it will dry itself. Ahhhh, the good old Freon days the PCB's dried themselves in seconds!
I meant mainly boards with components on them. You don't worry about water hiding in the transformers and stuff. I never thought about cleaning a board with my ultrasonic unit. Freon was great! I used a lot of Freon in the military. I'll bet that the military still uses Freon!
Yes, with components on them for sure.......just make sure things like transformers, switches etc you add to the pcb AFTER it's all cleaned & dried. An ultrasonic cleaner changes a wee bit how you get from bare board to nice clean final product.
Distilled water okay?
Nice, I thought I was the one that was supposed to be buying one?
I figured if I buy one then you wouldn't......and your postman might get a much earned rest from delivering packages to your place....:-)
Why don't you use isopropyl alcohol that will take off resin at room temperature?
Some components do not react kindly to alcohol. This maybe ok for taking a chance or two at home, but not on items I sell to the public. Brushing the odd part of a pcb with alcohol is ok, but not dipping it in the tank heated or not.
Thanks for giving the Chinese one a fair go, a lot of channels just write Chinese stuff off. Seems like a cheap Chinese import is the way to go. I wonder how many uses you can get from the fluid before it needs changing. I suppose you waste less of it in a smaller cleaner too, if you have a small PCB.
It really depends on the amount of flux/contaminants you pull from the PCB's....however, back in the day we used to strain the old Freon through a sieve to get another run of it......I wonder if it can be done on the old cleaning fluid also.
I use cheap Chinese… pre scrub with toothbrush and IPA, rinse with ipa, then 5 mins at 65c in Simple Green “Crystal,” rinse distilled H2O and blow dry. seems to work well.
Freon what a classis almost as good haylon (old green fire extinguishers) cleaned the crap out o plastic chairs a treat ( punishment at engineering colleage for being a turd wast to clean the canteen chairs untill they found out how bad it was )
great review. I am in 2 minds to get a cleaner or just get pcbs populated in china.
What are the warm up times like in comparison?
I never compared them since the capacities are hugely different, and as I noted the chinese one readout couldn't be trusted.
@@IanScottJohnston I have a similar one to the Chinese one and it takes about 30 minutes to get upto 60deg. Is yours about the same?
That sounds about right.
@@IanScottJohnston Thanks Ian. I just ordered some of the Electrolube. I have been using the Allendale blue concentrate from your previous video on ultrasonic cleaning. Will be interesting to see how it performs.
300v 220v
Why not just use 99% isopropyl alcohol mixed with your deionised water or even just 99% IPA on its own. I use an old tooth brush and/or cotton buds with 99% IPA to clean flux off boards. It works well - the alcohol dissolves/dilutes the flux. I think isopropyl alcohol would work very well in your ultrasonic cleaner.
No need to buy expensive branded cleaning fluid.
IPA in an ultrasonic cleaner can be dangerous. Low flash point, fumes and IPA can damage some components. Most of the boards I clean are for sale in the products I manufacture and sell, so it's best to just not take any chances.
@@IanScottJohnston In my experience, straight IPA doesn't always do the trick either. There are some surfactants in the PCB cleaning fluid which seem to really help lift the flux off the board.
You keep saying cheap chinese, but don't realize both of them are made in china... LOL This is what I find so perplexing about some Europeans is their constant need to pat themselves on the back and act superior or something, but I guess that's just your guys history. I think what you meant was chinese branded ultrasonic cleaners. Allendale has a distribution center in Hertfordshire and factory in China. Same internals, open it up. I have both myself and I have the Crest CP500 and the SharperTek 240 as well. I find Crest vastly superior, then the SharperTek as the king of them all, but really not much difference between the SharperTek and Crest except the price, ShaperTek also does do one runners while Crest I have to run through twice sometimes. Overall best value and best units goto SharperTek for cleaning. But I don't know what it is with europeans, I swear some Brits always have to accompany something about nationality or race. They're all literally made of the same components from china...
Also opening up the internals, Allendales appear to be a copy of the GT Sonic... hows that for irony.
It's actually not a copy of GT Sonic, but a rebranded one. Also, GT Sonic is a brand too - there are many manufacturers and brands at this level, for example DK Sonic.
What is meant is probably - cheap chinesium engineering and materials. And this "chinesium" is a term coined by AvE, not someone from Europe.
And over all Crest and SharperTek are not represented well here in Europe, because there are many European manufacturers. To name a few: Bandelin Sonorex, ELMA Schmidbauer Elmasonic, PMI labortechnik WiseClean, EMAG EMMI, Nickel Electro Clifton, Ultrawave, COLTENE, Guyson...
Why do you Chinese produce so much questionable quality goods, much potentially dangerous, lowering the quality as much as possible until people complain, then when they do you get upset, stop making dangerous electronic goods and people might stop using terms like cheap Chinese.
Want to sell me the old one?
"cheap chinese ... " that describes pretty much everything you buy on Amazon or Ebay
Hi, i think you just bought a bit overpriced rebranded cleaner from China .
I found on allixpress cleaners that look suspiciously the same just with a different brand name sticker , look for Skymen ultrasonic cleaners . They even have a depo in Germany ,free shipping ,no customs if you live in the EU.
That's what I was thinking.
I contacted Allendale and asked them this specific question. Their reply I have posted on my website:
www.ianjohnston.com/index.php/videos/80-video-blog-040-cleaningpcbs
Hello can you put complete pcb,s with components into the water?... And what components may absolute not in the water?... I wanted to clean a Vintage Radio Pcb. Something like this image: www.petervis.com/Radios/philips-d1720/philips-d1720-tuning-capacitor-and-ferrite-coil/philips-d1720-tuning-capacitor-and-ferrite-coil.gif
It must of course go back to work... :) Or can you make a good video to demonstrate?... Thanx...