Ultrasonic Cleaners - The machine is not the most important - GSM-Forum

Beto · 10-19-2005, 19:44

This post is not for selling any idea. I made some research and a lot of experiences with a low cost Ultrasonic Cleaner (UC) and want to put here the results in order to receive more experienced users feedback. What i found out is that is important to choose the machine well (quality, power and functionality), but that is not the machine that determines success, but the liquid, temperatures, and post-washing process.
In my opinian 50W is a good power level for a GSM UC, even if you have to make more than one cleaning, because as less you have to submit the phone to this process as better. The idea is to clean only the essencial in order to prevent PCB and other sensible components damage. There are some very cheap chinese UCs for 35W or double 35/50 ou 35/65W some of them without any cover for the liquid.. well i had a lot of feedback that these units explode often, specially in intensive use. This units (as others) are not made to operate more than 3min continuosly and should have intervals of 5mins between operations. I´m sure there are a lot of GSM repair people that use them successfully but they know this limits im sure. If you have a 3 wash process to apply to a phone, well it can be boring.. but it is worth it.
My UC is a cheap CARRERA from SINUS Plus (50W), it costs about 40 euros, it can be found in EBAY from France or elsewhere. It works fine in spite of the fact there are a lot of bad revews in the net. I think the problem is that people dont understand the ultrasonic cavitation process and buy these machines to clean rings or ******* and put some cold water in it expecting it to clean. Cold water will never work, at least at 50W power.
To have it working you must join 3 or 4 conditions: Ultrasonic activity (Thats the machine part), adequate temperature (from 60 to 70ºC) not 25 or 80, an adequate solvent/detergent (this is the most time consuming research, but it is easy to find one that is good enougth) and if you want to continue making good cleanings and improve your process please dont forget to plan all the process steps and write it as a guideline list. Think about things as: Where the vapour goes to? How and where do i change the liquid.. and how often. Prevent accidents and use safety equipment like gloves.
I havent bougth a specific cleaning product yet, because in Portugal is not very easy to find. My successful cleanings used a mix of 75% destiled water and 25% of a non-ionic cleaning product from the supermarket (it costs 1 euro about 1L), thats why i know temperature is very important, because it doesnt work below 35ªC. Dont use company water. So you see i still have a way to improve this process choosing a good cleaning product. Im sure some of you have tested specific UC products, please tell me something about it.
Post-UC process, the wash:
After UC process i simply put the phone board under current water jet (high pressure) to remove the most particles as possible and then dry for about 3 min at 120ºC air flow.
Never damaged a phone (I tried all this first with several Nokia 5110 working phones) and already cleaned several no-network damaged phones that fall on water or had a milk bath, puting them working again. But i know there are several things that could be improved. Thats why i need other users experience feedback, so i leave here some questions to start:
What parts of phone boards (soldered ones) should we remove before UC?
If i put a soldering iron (metal part without tip) inside the UC for heating up the liquid until 60ºC is it going to stand still after several Ultrasonic sessions?
Is it true that the best the liquid is the less it warms up (because there are no power dissipation in the liquid itself?)?
Thank you for your time reading this long post.

Zaihtam · 10-28-2005, 07:34

i used UC often,

the part i remove, LED, LCD. Crystals, Camera.

and detergent i used is house detergent is enough. Liquid's temperature is at room temperature. and works ok. not need to heat them up.

Good Luck....

Beto · 10-29-2005, 17:34

@Zaihtam,

Please tell me what is your UC power.
And why do you remove LED? About cristals i suppose mechanical vibs may change cristals mechanic properties, but LEDs too? About camera, i know that inside nokia cameras there is a plastic lens that cannot be in contacts with alcool and some detergents (i damaged one once). If you remove this lens is there any problem with CCD? Removing all this components before an UC increases dramaticaly the cleaning price..

Nokall · 10-30-2005, 00:10

Ultrasonic Cleaners it´s not for mobiles , it´s for clean gold and silver chineses put this in gsm market

i use only hot water and house detergent :P work in 90% the cases.
in new phones if upp have bad quality need always to put new one.

Beto · 10-30-2005, 00:38

@Nokall,

Your experience sure makes that a valid opinian but i dont agree when you say UC is not for mobile phones, i agree that a little water and soap can make miracles in phones where some milk or other liquid was droped over the VISIBLE PCB but not under uBGAs where distance between solder balls is so small. What about phones that falled into water (with or without salt) and have corrosion in unreachable places?

The ultrasonic cleaning method started also in electronic PCB industry (not mobile phones but general hardware PCBs) and is the prefered method for many hardware industries. Before i start using UC, i cleaned all phones with KONTACT PCC (that brings a brush) and it still is the best thing to clean in some cases, it cleans everithing where the brush can touch.. but i tested cleaning phones with UC that PCC never did well and they become repaired. I know other technician that uses a water vapour machine to clean inaccessible parts in gsm and he says that the 100ºC vapour doesnt do any harm to any component..

I believe UC is not better than a tooth brush with a good cleaning product in areas we can reach.. but it is the only solution for areas you can not reach.
But.. it was very good for me to know that you have good results with water and soap. Maybe i will insert that method in my gsm tool list for those cases where it should be enough..

10-19-2005, 19:44	#1 (permalink)
Beto Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Lisbon - Portugal Posts: 35 Member: 20890 Status: Offline Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Ultrasonic Cleaners - The machine is not the most important This post is not for selling any idea. I made some research and a lot of experiences with a low cost Ultrasonic Cleaner (UC) and want to put here the results in order to receive more experienced users feedback. What i found out is that is important to choose the machine well (quality, power and functionality), but that is not the machine that determines success, but the liquid, temperatures, and post-washing process. In my opinian 50W is a good power level for a GSM UC, even if you have to make more than one cleaning, because as less you have to submit the phone to this process as better. The idea is to clean only the essencial in order to prevent PCB and other sensible components damage. There are some very cheap chinese UCs for 35W or double 35/50 ou 35/65W some of them without any cover for the liquid.. well i had a lot of feedback that these units explode often, specially in intensive use. This units (as others) are not made to operate more than 3min continuosly and should have intervals of 5mins between operations. I´m sure there are a lot of GSM repair people that use them successfully but they know this limits im sure. If you have a 3 wash process to apply to a phone, well it can be boring.. but it is worth it. My UC is a cheap CARRERA from SINUS Plus (50W), it costs about 40 euros, it can be found in EBAY from France or elsewhere. It works fine in spite of the fact there are a lot of bad revews in the net. I think the problem is that people dont understand the ultrasonic cavitation process and buy these machines to clean rings or ******* and put some cold water in it expecting it to clean. Cold water will never work, at least at 50W power. To have it working you must join 3 or 4 conditions: Ultrasonic activity (Thats the machine part), adequate temperature (from 60 to 70ºC) not 25 or 80, an adequate solvent/detergent (this is the most time consuming research, but it is easy to find one that is good enougth) and if you want to continue making good cleanings and improve your process please dont forget to plan all the process steps and write it as a guideline list. Think about things as: Where the vapour goes to? How and where do i change the liquid.. and how often. Prevent accidents and use safety equipment like gloves. I havent bougth a specific cleaning product yet, because in Portugal is not very easy to find. My successful cleanings used a mix of 75% destiled water and 25% of a non-ionic cleaning product from the supermarket (it costs 1 euro about 1L), thats why i know temperature is very important, because it doesnt work below 35ªC. Dont use company water. So you see i still have a way to improve this process choosing a good cleaning product. Im sure some of you have tested specific UC products, please tell me something about it. Post-UC process, the wash: After UC process i simply put the phone board under current water jet (high pressure) to remove the most particles as possible and then dry for about 3 min at 120ºC air flow. Never damaged a phone (I tried all this first with several Nokia 5110 working phones) and already cleaned several no-network damaged phones that fall on water or had a milk bath, puting them working again. But i know there are several things that could be improved. Thats why i need other users experience feedback, so i leave here some questions to start: What parts of phone boards (soldered ones) should we remove before UC? If i put a soldering iron (metal part without tip) inside the UC for heating up the liquid until 60ºC is it going to stand still after several Ultrasonic sessions? Is it true that the best the liquid is the less it warms up (because there are no power dissipation in the liquid itself?)? Thank you for your time reading this long post.

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10-28-2005, 07:34	#2 (permalink)
Zaihtam No Life Poster Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: 0x001FD00 Age: 32 Posts: 1,274 Member: 98572 Status: Offline Thanks: 135 Thanked 24 Times in 16 Posts	i used UC often, the part i remove, LED, LCD. Crystals, Camera. and detergent i used is house detergent is enough. Liquid's temperature is at room temperature. and works ok. not need to heat them up. Good Luck....

10-29-2005, 17:34	#3 (permalink)
Beto Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Lisbon - Portugal Posts: 35 Member: 20890 Status: Offline Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	@Zaihtam, Please tell me what is your UC power. And why do you remove LED? About cristals i suppose mechanical vibs may change cristals mechanic properties, but LEDs too? About camera, i know that inside nokia cameras there is a plastic lens that cannot be in contacts with alcool and some detergents (i damaged one once). If you remove this lens is there any problem with CCD? Removing all this components before an UC increases dramaticaly the cleaning price..

10-30-2005, 00:10	#4 (permalink)
Nokall No Life Poster Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Portugal Lisbon* Age: 31 Posts: 816 Member: 13223 Status: Offline Thanks: 11 Thanked 31 Times in 19 Posts	Ultrasonic Cleaners it´s not for mobiles , it´s for clean gold and silver chineses put this in gsm market i use only hot water and house detergent :P work in 90% the cases. in new phones if upp have bad quality need always to put new one.

10-30-2005, 00:38	#5 (permalink)
Beto Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Lisbon - Portugal Posts: 35 Member: 20890 Status: Offline Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	@Nokall, Your experience sure makes that a valid opinian but i dont agree when you say UC is not for mobile phones, i agree that a little water and soap can make miracles in phones where some milk or other liquid was droped over the VISIBLE PCB but not under uBGAs where distance between solder balls is so small. What about phones that falled into water (with or without salt) and have corrosion in unreachable places? The ultrasonic cleaning method started also in electronic PCB industry (not mobile phones but general hardware PCBs) and is the prefered method for many hardware industries. Before i start using UC, i cleaned all phones with KONTACT PCC (that brings a brush) and it still is the best thing to clean in some cases, it cleans everithing where the brush can touch.. but i tested cleaning phones with UC that PCC never did well and they become repaired. I know other technician that uses a water vapour machine to clean inaccessible parts in gsm and he says that the 100ºC vapour doesnt do any harm to any component.. I believe UC is not better than a tooth brush with a good cleaning product in areas we can reach.. but it is the only solution for areas you can not reach. But.. it was very good for me to know that you have good results with water and soap. Maybe i will insert that method in my gsm tool list for those cases where it should be enough..