Ultrasonic Cleaner

[abunaitoo]

Anyone use one for cleaning brass????
One on craigs list now.
He's asking for an offer.
Said he paid about $200 with some other stuff a few years ago.
It's about 12"x 13" x 7".
Made in china.
Is it as good as wet tumbling????

[MrWolf]

I have the RCBS one and much prefer wet tumbling. Others may have different opinions but I guess it depends on your situation.
Ron

[farmerjim]

I have used a HF ultrasonic. It is not a commercial unit. BUT IT WORKS!
I bought a larger unit from Amazon it does about the same as the HF, but many more at a time.

[JimB..]

I prefer wet tumbling, by far!

Not that the ultrasonic cleaner doesn’t have a place, I like it for crusty gunked up machine parts.

[hades]

I tried a small ultrasonic cleaner years ago as an 'upgrade' to dry tumbling. It worked but was slow and batch size was small. Went a bought a bigger one with more powerful transducers. Batch sizes were bigger but it's still slow. Went back to dry tumbling and only use the ultrasonic for carb cleaning ect where the number of cycles isn't as big of issue for me for cleaning something like that.


Imo for the ultrasonic cleaners to be really effective they need WAY more powerful transducers. Say 500W minimum.. I hadn't heard or thought of wet tumbling when I tried the ultrasonic but I have a wet tumbler now and ultrasonic doesn't even come close to my wet tumbler. From my experience to get a powerful enough ultrasonic cleaner to actually clean brass like wet tumbling does it would be cost prohibitive.

[popper]

Not worth the $.

[MaryB]

Works great for cleaning gun parts. I drop my crusty carbon covered AR upper in it, run for 3 hours, comes out spotless. Do the lower too now and then then a good coat of oil on both! he upper the bolt gets a LOT of oil, I submerge it and let it soak. Pull it out and let it drain the reassemble. My AR prefers to run wet with oil... some are fine with only a little...

[Tall]

I have the Hornady ultrasonic cleaner. Not very effective. Save your money and buy a good vibratory unit or a Frankford Arms Rotary Tumbler (FART).

[hpbear101]

I have one of the 10L units. It works great for everything from carburetors to gun parts with hot water and Dawn. It also works well with empty brass Dawn and a bit of lemi shine dishwashing additive.

[jsizemore]

Real loud. You can't set stuff directly on the bottom or it will cause the transducers to quit working and no cleaning action. REALLY LOUD. When done properly they do a great job of cleaning brass. I used vinegar and water (cheap) and a couple rinse cycles. If you forget them in the vinegar solution you'll ruin the brass.Multiple steps and drying afterward. Did I mention, IT'S REALLY LOUD.

I'm much happier with the Lortone tumblers and they're really quiet. If you forget they're still running, all they do is get shinier. I made a media separator from a wire mesh trash can, closet rod and a plastic tote.

[XDROB]

I went the whole route. Inherited two vibratory tumblers. Used them for a couple of years. Wanted brighter brass. Bought a RCBS sonic cleaner. Worked ok but no shiny brass at all. Will use it to clean older guns and small parts. Then bought a FART. Stainless pins. Will never look back.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230527/23cc0bc1dcbe7de98897e06267dc06fe.jpg

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[1hole]

Anyone use one for cleaning brass????

About 7-8 years ago I got an inexpensive Harbor Freight/Lyman U.S. cleaner to clean small 2 stroke carboraters. I soon tried case cleaning too but it was a PITA so I quickly returned to my 30 year old Lyman 1200 vib. tumbler and have never looked back.

The U.S. cleaner was messy to use and the wet cases then needed to be well dried.

It's bath box is virtually irrelivant to it's functional cleaning load. The working capacity is limited to small batches and it requires near constant attention when running due to its short duty cycle.


One on craigs list now. He's asking for an offer.
Said he paid about $200 with some other stuff a few years ago.

Without knowing what "other stuff" he got for "about $200" he is carefully telling you nothing about how much his cleaner actually cost him.

It's your money but based on my own U.S. experience I'd suggest you ignore his offer.


It's about 12"x 13" x 7".
Made in china.

Most are.


Is it as good as wet tumbling????

If you mean compared to tumbling with a magic liquid and stainless steel pins, no, it's not even close. But, on the other hand, glittering and surgically clean cases add nothing to our reloads so .... ??

[PattonTime]

I think there is a place, at least for me for an ultrasonic cleaner, I think the RCBS wet tumbler I bought does the best job but I only use it for larger quantities & use my small sonic cleaner for smaller lots of brass.,
I started with a Lyman, & after about 5 years it crapped out & I bought the exact same unit on Amazon under some generic name for much less.
I do often still tumble after sonic cleaning but what I like is my media stays clean.

[jsizemore]

Make sure it works before you lay out any dough.

[porthos]

you need to spend $ on a ultrasonic cleaner not the harbor freight, rcbs, hornady type.

[georgerkahn]

Anyone use one for cleaning brass????
One on craigs list now.
He's asking for an offer.
Said he paid about $200 with some other stuff a few years ago.
It's about 12"x 13" x 7".
Made in china.
Is it as good as wet tumbling????

I bought the Lyman, and it works great on gun parts and similar. Re brass, to be 101% honest, for ME it was/is a disappointment! For a few dollars less I bought a Thumler's Tumbler hi-speed unit and a bag of stainless steel pins. Using a wee bit of Dawn and some citric acid I dump even gross-looking brass in -- and in a couple of hours most comes out looking like new! On the very rare case a pin will be lodged in the flash hole, but what is forever remarkeable to me is how CLEAN both the primer pocket and the case inside gets!
If it were ME -- based upon my experiences -- I'd pass on the ultrasonic cleaner and put my bucks towards a rotary wet tumbler.
My two pennies :)
geo

[abunaitoo]

Decided not to pick it up.
Seemed to small for anything I would use it for.