Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaners for your smoking gear

[AnimalHouse]

In all my years I think this might be the best and easiest way to clean my gear.
They're small so there's limits to size but everything I put in this thing comes out looking like it's brand new.

The one I have is a $35, 600ml capacity and also heats so after a few cycles, each lasting almost 500 seconds, the iso is warm and all the resin is out of the pieces and down in the bottom.
From there just pull the piece, rinse with hot water, and let it dry. No swabs or anything.
There's larger and more expensive models out there but something in the 600ml-800ml capacity range will fit most pipes, stems, and ashcatchers.
It truly works like a dishwasher for your pieces

Amazon.com: Magnasonic Professional Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner with Digital Timer for Eyeglasses, Rings, Coins (MGUC500) : Industrial & Scientific

Amazon.com: Magnasonic Professional Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner with Digital Timer for Eyeglasses, Rings, Coins (MGUC500) : Industrial & Scientific

www.amazon.com

 

[stoneyluv]

you can put alcohol in those cleaners?

 

[AnimalHouse]

you can put alcohol in those cleaners?

Definitely!! Some jewelry cleaner solvents already use iso for drying faster so this is pretty much using iso only and not having stuff like chems, salts, and baking soda in there.

The tub inside is stainless steel and with the cover you can keep the iso from evaporating so it can be reused.

Here's a before and after on my daily driver pipe made of titanium. I let it get xtra grimy for this demo and used four 480 second washes before rinsing...

Down in the tar pit this pipe gets quite a nasty build up

For this video I used fresh iso so Y'all can see how the tar seeps from the pieces by the utrasonic action

After rinse and letting sit to dry...

 

[Egzoset]

It would be reclaimable if not combusted first...

 

[Ponky]

Warning. If you put your glass dab rig in there weird parts of the glass can blow out.

 

[stoneyluv]

Definitely!! Some jewelry cleaner solvents already use iso for drying faster so this is pretty much using iso only and not having stuff like chems, salts, and baking soda in there.

The tub inside is stainless steel and with the cover you can keep the iso from evaporating so it can be reused.

Here's a before and after on my daily driver pipe made of titanium. I let it get xtra grimy for this demo and used four 480 second washes before rinsing...

View attachment 1335924

Down in the tar pit this pipe gets quite a nasty build up

View attachment 1335925


For this video I used fresh iso so Y'all can see how the tar seeps from the pieces by the utrasonic action

View attachment 1335928


After rinse and letting sit to dry...

View attachment 1335926

View attachment 1335927

thats really impressive, especially for only a few minutes!!

i'm interested in it mainly for the puffco atomizers. i soak them in 99 ipa on a tea cup warmer for hours and i still see spots of resin on the inside. the problem is i get no agitation. i tried putting the jar on the corner of my 3d printer to agitate it and that worked better but not practical or smart.

maybe soundwaves is what i need!! i worry about it saying no cracked glass i have two atomizers with cracks in the side... but they're not getting any cleaner the way i'm doing it so maybe it's at least worth the try.

have you put any of your glass in it?

 

[AnimalHouse]

thats really impressive, especially for only a few minutes!!

i'm interested in it mainly for the puffco atomizers. i soak them in 99 ipa on a tea cup warmer for hours and i still see spots of resin on the inside. the problem is i get no agitation. i tried putting the jar on the corner of my 3d printer to agitate it and that worked better but not practical or smart.

maybe soundwaves is what i need!! i worry about it saying no cracked glass i have two atomizers with cracks in the side... but they're not getting any cleaner the way i'm doing it so maybe it's at least worth the try.

have you put any of your glass in it?

Here's a glass run on two grimy pipes with crusted on old grime and a couple fine glass bowls

Also added a downstem but yeah I have no issues putting glass in there. Maybe the little plastic basket helps, IDK, but it's working well for everything I stick in there. I also want to drop some terp pen tips in there.
BTW it's awesome for my terp pen outer sleeves parts that get oil up in there. They have lips at the edges so I cant ramrod an iso soaked wad down in there to clean them. The wad has to come out the way it came in rather than push all the way thru so the cleaner really helps solve that issue
Today I'm sticking a worked sherlock with horns and my old alien bong that's a real PITA to clean. The alien wont fit but I'll try to at least get his bowl section down in the trough.
The only bad thing is after a handful of intense cleaning on really gunked up parts the iso gets a little sludgy and I like to change it out at that point. So it is a bit of a gas burner on the iso but it is nice not dealing with tarred up swabs and wipes and that whole stinky mess.

 

[AnimalHouse]

Before and after with my alien glass. I really don't like using the alien because it's such a PITA to clean but after the bath the little guy is gonna see a lot more action.

Before... it's an old caked on grime since I forgot to clean it the last time I used it which was probably around 2019

During the bath he doesn't fit in the tub but I can get his bowl and head down in there. I ran him on four 480 second baths turning him over in between each cycle

He hasn't looked this good since I brought him home from the head shop! And the little horned up sherlock is looking good too!

 

[stoneyluv]

Dammmmnnnnn!!!! i got some shopping to do this weekend!!!

I've been doing a two step soak in 2oz jars, i soak for a couple hours in the dirty jar then about an hour in the cleaner one....

It works ok but doesn't really clean totally and you can't take these fancy new atomizers apart to clean them. the peak pro atomizers are sealed so soaking it the only option. but even after hours of soaking i can still see resin caked on the inside when i shine a light through it. and the key to keeping these things working for a long time is keeping them clean...

so i'm gonna check em out online this weekend and order one.

Thanks for the tip!!

 

[Harpua88]

I used to devote an old small saucepan for cleaning, and would boil them (glass pipes), then soak in iso, then boil again. They came out pretty clean.

 

[SchwiftyGrower]

Damn thanks for the ideas! Going to invest in one!

 

[stoneyluv]

I picked one up on amazon last week, i got a cheapo with a coupon, i think it was $37 with taxes and delivery.

ya know this afternoon i stopped at my local true value to get a short roll of chicken wire and the 25' roll cost more than the ultrasonic cleaner that was brought right to my front door... shits expensive these days!!!

I cleaned a couple puffco atomizers in it, i used 99.9% iso. and at first i put an atomizer in a 2oz jar and then put the whole jar in the ultrasonic and ran that a few cycles till the iso was as warm as i normally get it on my tea cup warmer...

I have experience with megasonic tech from building wet process machines made to clean wafers for semiconductor manufactures.. and i know for a fact that sonic waves do not travel through glass or quartz very well at all. so when i put the atomizer in the jar then in the cleaner i knew it was not going to be very effective. i kinda just wanted to get the heavy build up cleaned off and get the iso up to temp without ruining the large amount of iso in the ultrasonic cleaner.

i ended up cleaning two of them. i have three 3D chambers from 3grams inc. they have elements on the side walls as well as the bottom so they can't be taken apart to be cleaned. soaking is the only option. both of them had a small crack on the side wall... good news is both of them still function after the ultrasonic bath.

it is very hard to tell if it cleaned better or not. I normally clean them once a week and if i wait any longer they get gooey going into the glass. if it gets gooey it's too long too late and should have been cleaned better. so i cleaned them on friday night and i will clean it again on friday or saturday.. if it makes it till saturday night and there is no goo then i'm sold and feel the utrasonic did a better job but if i get goo all bets are off and not much better for puffco gear...

i will post here again this weekend and let y'all know what i find.

 

[AnimalHouse]

Did a run on a collection of terp pen tips and kind of what I expected, oil and scoring are a lot harder to get off than just tar grime from smoke. But it did clean the tips well. They still work though I did identify two that are no longer serviceable but I think they were slightly defective upon arrival since they were ones I though either clogged on the first hit or they were defective.
Main thing I learned here is when to clean tips and not let them go too far between deep cleaning. A wipe and poker keeps them working but only an iso soak can really get into that coil and air shaft.
So for these it was an overnight soak along with periodic sonic cleanings, totaling maybe ten 480 second rounds.
For these I also removed the basket and was surprised to see the current toss the tips around.
In the end I was really surprised at how much grime came out and mucked up the bath.
Afterwards I rinsed well with hot water, blew air thru the tip to the back to clear the water out then let them sit to dry for most of today

Before

After

 

[steamroller]

And that is what I want the cleaner for.
I suspected that the ceramic may not come completely clean as it is porous.
Still looks damn good.

 

[AnimalHouse]

And that is what I want the cleaner for.
I suspected that the ceramic may not come completely clean as it is porous.
Still looks damn good.

It may go better with 99% iso. I'm just using 70 something % bought in bulk at Costco so I might get some 99% just for the tips.
Cleanability, if that's a word, will definitely guide my choice in which tips I choose next.
The small pen ceramic tips wore the worst while the single coil quartz cleaned up to like new condition.
And the lone Dip Device tip is kind of messy to use and grimes up nasty but it too cleaned up to almost like new condition

 

[steamroller]

I get 91% ISO cheap from CVS or where ever.
$2.79 for 16oz.
I wouldn't use 99% for cleaning myself.

 

[taliadillydalia]

I bet you could find one used from a medical facility getting rid of their surgical instrument units. They'd have a decent capacity. You'd just have to clean it really well...