exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

I finally caved and treated myself to an ultrasonic cleaner. No more manual scrubbing off flux residues, I hope :)

And while waiting for the thing to turn up, what kind of liquid do you guys use in such things when cleaning PCB's?

You buy specific ultrasonic flux cleaning detergent (I usually get it off Amazon) and mix with warm/hot water (not boiling) You're technically supposed to use distilled, but I don't know how many people go to that kind of trouble. It'd be hard to warm distilled water up anyway, much easier to use the hot tap. You can use cold of course, but it's much more effective warm. (some ultrasonics heat too, negating the issue, mine doesn't)

I use this:
https://www.allendale-ultrasonics.co.uk ... s/ultropcb

agranlund wrote: 18 Jun 2025 15:00 I finally caved and treated myself to an ultrasonic cleaner. No more manual scrubbing off flux residues, I hope :)

And while waiting for the thing to turn up, what kind of liquid do you guys use in such things when cleaning PCB's?

I use Simple Green Crystal with Distilled water, has worked very well for me, my ultrasonic cleaner is heated. I paid $80 US for 5 gallons of Simple Green Crystal. Some of the recommended chemicals used in ultrasonic cleaners seemed pretty bad for your health, I had to be around enough of those when I worked in Aerospace.

Thanks for the tips! Will try to hunt something now that the machine has arrived.
Not even fully unboxed yet but I had to check.. yep, perfect size for micro ATX! :)

Just a small one then :P

PhilC wrote: 26 Jun 2025 12:37 Just a small one then :P

Yeah it'll have to live in the garage for sure.
I tried to justify it by being able to use it for car stuff too :lol:

agranlund wrote: 26 Jun 2025 12:57

PhilC wrote: 26 Jun 2025 12:37 Just a small one then :P

Yeah it'll have to live in the garage for sure.
I tried to justify it by being able to use it for car stuff too :lol:

Makes sense to me, mine is slightly too small to fit my 4 pot Edelbrock in it.