looking to by an ultrasonic cleaner

sorry, in topic, I meant BUY not by.

Branson is a well known name. Randy

I am very happy with my Branson cleaner. I cleaned some very dirty dies with it, among other things, it works well.

The Branson units are pretty top of the line, and have prices to match. The Harbor Freight #95563 is a rather nice 2.5l tank unit with heat and when it's on sale / with coupon for about $60 it's hard to beat. It passes the "blow holes in aluminum foil" test well so it has a reasonable amount of power.

Pete C.

What's the "blow holes in aluminum foil" test? I've got two old L&R ultrasonics that don't seem to clean well anymore; it would be nice to have a quick generic test to put to them.

Thanks! Dave

Fill cleaner with water, hold a piece of aluminum foil in the water and turn the cleaner on for a second. Take the foil out and hold up to light looking for holes in it. If there aren't any holes, try exposing the foil a few seconds longer. If still no holes, you have a problem. The cheap HF unit put plenty of holes in the foil in just 1 second, and just about shredded it in 5 or 6 seconds.

Or, just dunk you hand in. You'll know if it's working.

Thanks for the tip on Branson... will look into that.

How about my expectations... if the unit is of adequate power and the chemical is right, is this a miracle cleaner?

A normal US cleaner isn't real good for bulk cleaning of crud, a brush is better at that. A US cleaner is rather miraculous in it's ability to clean completely inaccessible areas of a part, like tiny internal passages. They basically provide a very fine scrubbing agitation from the vibration and the cavitation of tiny bubbles. I'm sure the Branson site has a better technical description.

The (chemical) cleaner (surfactant) is still the cleaner. The ultrasonic energy is just a form of agitation, not miraculous, or even particularly impressive for that matter.

Pete C.,

Many thanks! One of the LR units is good, and the other bad. I'm much obliged!

Dave