Ultrasonics International Cleaner

1200 watt ultrasonic generator
20-25 gallon stainless steel double-wall tank
24 transducers (12 Vibra-Bars)
38 KHz operating frequency
Frequency Sweep mode
300W ceramic immersion heater

 

Small, low-res (5MB .avi) video of sync hubs being cleaned
Note - The audio track is destroyed as soon as the unit is turned on.
If you ever feel the need to defeat an audio recording, speak near an ultrasonic machine. Nothing can be recorded.

 

Here is a pic of the generator unit, the electronics for the system. I have it tilted against a fan unit to keep the electronics cool, as they do run hot...

The tank is 18"W x 19.5"L x 17.5"D which is big enough to allow the trans casing to fit...

The parts can also be put into a separate container which you can float in the main bath solution, and the ultrasonic action will pass through the container to the parts inside and clean them. This allows me to clean smaller parts in less than a gallon of solution without causing the rest of the bath to get dirty...

A shot of some gears prior to turning the machine on...

The cleaning starts as soon as the transducers kick on. Instantly there is dirty solution swirling away from the parts as they are cleaned. The dirt is so fine, it looks like smoke coming from the parts. The machine had been on less than 3 seconds when this pic was taken. As soon as the cleaning and vibration starts, the parts want to slide to one side of my container and it'll float tilted like that...

After about 10-15 seconds... after about 30 seconds or so, the water is too dark to really see anything...

Within just a minute or two, the solution looks like dirty mop water. The black wire is the 300W ceramic heater, I run the bath between 140F-160F...

Here is another shot of the "smoke" that comes off the parts during cleaning...

The parts can also be hung and suspended in the solution...

This is a pic of the bellhousing being cleaned, you can see the smoke trails coming out of the 4 holes in the silver rectangle area. The ultrasonic cleaner is great at getting into places you can't normally wipe out and clean...

This is what it looked like when I started...

This is the same bellhousing after being cleaned...

While the ultrasonic cleaning did quite a bit, there are some limitations. For heavy grime, it works on the outside layer first, and since it cleans on a microscopic level, it takes forever to clean built-up grime, so it basically won't clean it. It did leave some stain present inside the bellhousing... it removed the majority of the stain, but there were a few spots I needed to touch up.

I think with the correct solution (I'm using tap water and Dawn detergent currently) and a little more experience with it, I can get better results.

Once I get the solutions taken care of, I'll be able to offer cleaning services to people for various things like carbs, injector pumps, fuel injectors, cylinder heads, valves, cam shafts, etc.; as well as other items like firearms, R/C engines, coins, jewelry and so on. They even offer a dielectric solution that allows you to drop in hard drives, PC fans, motherboards and other electronics to be cleaned.

From what I've read on Wiki, they have measured pressures equal to the center of the Earth and temps as hot as the surface of the sun in these cleaners when the bubbles burst. It works like a high-frequency tweeter speaker, sending noise into the tank bottom and into the water. The frequency of around 38KHz result in cavitations in the solution. The water molecules are actually torn apart from each other, leaving a small void or vacuum in a bubble shape in the solution. Nearly instantly the next energy wave comes along and hits it, which causes the bubble to implode. The sudden rush of water into the void creates the cleaning force.

Taken from the Wiki page:
These bubbles collapse with enormous energy; temperatures of 10,000 K and pressures of 50,000 lbs per square inch have been reported; however, they are so small that they do no more than clean and remove surface dirt and contaminants.