Ultrasonic Cleaners - How Do They Work (Cleaning Fountain Pens)
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- If you've ever wondering about how an ultrasonic cleaner works here you go! Decided to take it apart & give it a quick look as well as clean some fountain pens.
A affordable & great way to get your pens, and other things, clean & looking like new.
I bought a super cheap ultrasonic cleaner for glasses and stuff. Then I found an old Montblanc from the 70's at the bottom of a pen drawer at my father's place. It was so crusted up and it looked extremely sad. So I tried to clean it with water, with hot water, with alcohol, let it sit in warm water until I had the idea to just dump it into my ultrasonic machine and voila, that did the trick. Had to change the water several times because there was an incredible amount of ink built up in the feed and everywhere, I couldn't even disassemble the feed and nib because it was just one solid rock of dried ink ^^ After an hour of work it was back in great shape and my dad let me keep it.
The alcohol made me gasp, but then kept reading & heard the good outcome... PHEEEEW!!! 😅. Ultrasonic cleaners are really useful when they are needed. And oh yeah.... Alcohol is for drinking not for your pens 🍻😉
Thanks for the machine breakdown! It's cool to get an informed view into the manufacturing quality of products. The more info consumers have the more manufactures have to pay attention, and we get better products in the end. Nice.
I didn't think you would open the ultrasonic cleaner. Also i wasn't expecting it to clean the pens this well. I guess i need to get one for my pens too. Thanks for this video.
Ditto what Nitin said. Gotta get one of these.
I found one of these super small ultrasonic cleaners at a thrift shop for a few dollars. Wasn't sure what I'd use it for but I grabbed it anyway and realized a bit later that I could possibly use it to help clean my pens and here I am. I've been using my daily pen for about 6 months and got some dried ink accumulating inside the pen cap.
Great find!
I use a DK Sonic 2L ultrasonic cleaner to help clean my fountain pens. However, you dismantling your unit, and the explanation how an ultrasonic cleaner works is great and interesting. Just make sure you don’t put your finger in while it is in use, gives a weird piercing feeling, lol.
You can stick you finger in there, it's ok just sound waves. Might want to avoid sticking other things in there though 🤔😉
Great video! It's super that you explain step by step how you clean and hope you show restorations,etc plus be funny🥸🥰👍
Wow, this is an incredibly informative video. Thanks for sharing.
Great info D. B....Thanks! Loved the whistling. 💜 🖋⭐
Hiya, Thanks very much for the link, a really interesting video, beautifully explained.
Good to see it didn't damage any pens, I have a vevor 15 liter and I have been leary putting my vintage pens in with gold plating exc. It dulls shiny anodizing and would prob take it all of if left in longer. Worried it would take any fragile plating off some old pens that have slight pitting exc
This won't take off anodizing. Its a chemical bond and very tough coating
Got to convince the wife she needs one for the jewelry :). I won't dismantle mine, just in case I have spare parts at the end.
Well, that was fun - especially the teardown (shades of EEVBlog "don't turn it on...") - an unexpected pleasure. Also, I suspect that there's some sort of legal requirement that all cheap electronic devices must contain at least one eyeball-searingly bright blue LED.
Even better when its a muli-colored LED and they pulse it through all the colors in an annoying display of "behold it can change colors!"
Hahaha, I love it, you just could not resist, you HAD to dismantle it! I would have done the same!
Omg..I won an auction of vintage fountain pens thinking I was going to start restoring pens..well it didn't work out so well. I loaded them all into my ultrasonic cleaner ( not realizing the heat was turned on ) and was completely bummed to say the least as I fished out the melted & mangled remains of what used to be some very cool vintage writing utensils!
Yeah heat isn't good for vintage materials
I finally bought one (same model as yours, from Amazon) and my husband used it to clean his keys lol. Not sure what to clean first, in terms of pens, but I appreciate the tutorial!
Good for glasses & jewellery too. They work great on ebonite feeds as those really absorb the ink
@@Doodlebud Thanks for the heads-up about the ebonite feeds, and thanks again for inspiring this purchase lol.
Really helpful! Thanks for the detail.
Oh yeah, in case anyone's thinking of it, don't put your curidas feed in the ultrasonic cleaner for three cycles. There's a little metal cylinder that seats the converter jacket, and it came loose. Yeah 1mm piece of metal in a metal ultrasonic cleaner gets dumped into a metal sink... Don't ask how I could see and grab it before it went down the drain but I'm glad I did. Reinsert and it's all good but no more ultrasonic cleaning for that feed unit.
I like to use mine when I rotate a pen out of circulation. I use it mostly for cleaning airbrushes.
Great video.
Woah I would have assumed that Visconti's volcano material would be too porous to safely chuck in an ultrasonic cleaner! 🤯
The resin is very strong & durable. Any water it does absorb will evaporate. The cleaner does a great job at removing oils etc from the pores bringing it back to like new condition
Very very good. RS
Thanks! 🤓
These blow up around 12 months. I have gone through 2 of them in the past 2 years to clean stuff and it works great with dawn dish soap and zero water.
I wouldnt recommend using soap only. They arent designed for that as the sound waves are meant to travel though water or liquids with a similar density.
I always thought you are the same as AvE. Now i am convinced.
Not AvE but guess we're cut from similar clothe
Apart from old dip mapping pens, I can't find anything that will reliably write fine enough with indelible ink and not be blocked up solid the second time I want to use it.
I had Rapidograph and Marsmatic needle pens for decades, but always had the tremendous hassle of dismantling them and teasing the needle cleaner wireout under water and through a magnifying glass to get it back together. Always, the ink would go anywhere but down inside the needle once you stopped and put the pen awayfor a while. Makes no difference how expensive they are, anything .2mm or less is a pain in the neck, and you are going to break the fine wire after you've cleaned it a few times, and soaked yourself and the kitchen in the process. Yet most paper we have to write on, is so unsuitable for ink, that even a nominal .2mm is more likely to be .35 on the page. There are a few specialist fibre tip pens that start out nearly good enough, but they wear flat after a few thousand words. So, for anything much less than a paragraph, the 50p dip pen I had at school a lifetime ago is still king.
I recently lost track of my old pens after a move, and found replacements were now super expensive. A couple of cheaper Chinese versions were found, that seemed ok at first, soon developed the same old ink everywhere but down the stylus habit, so, I reluctantly got myself a new Marsmatic .18. It looked and felt really well made, and let me write a whole page, all fine and impressively, on filling with the expensive branded ink just to be safe... And so, tonight, wanting to annotate some accounts, I unscrewed the 'hermetically sealed wonder mechanism cap', and after 45 minutes of shaking, and vibrating with a toothbrush, and refilling and warming the reservoir to up the pressure... Not a drop comes down the needle, and I reached for my trusty pencil. (Diary conservators actually say they prefer pencil, because it actually stays legible longer than many inks!)
So: Have you tried cleaning proper fine pens with the ultrasonic. I think I need a test tube sized one on the desk at all times, so I can just wet and vibrate the needle assembly before every writing session.
Good to see what was inside your one, but I was amazed at the size of the components and circuit boards. Reminds me of pulling trannies apart as a kid! :)
I don't have any super fine tipped fountain pens so not u're if that will fix your issue
I bit the bullet and ordered a general purpose US cleaner. I can likely make a perforated cover to take pens in test tubes to suspend in the cleaner tank. Rotring did actually make a bean tin sized cleaner at one time, but it's a rare collectable now. A desktop with a 'buzzing cleaner/inkwell' would be great for both dip pen and needle pen enthusiasts...
I have been thinking of getting one. I use pigment inks for watercolour Sketching and I think I have clogged my Sailor Fude de Mannen and I can’t disassemble it.
I’m also considering reducing my pen collection as well, so I’m hesitant to get one.
It sure is super easy to accumulate a lot of pens! Maybe you can justify the ultrasonic cleaner if you can use it to clean other things too.
@@pietertalens1256 yeah, maybe when I have a place of my own I could try getting one.
I wonder if these cheap 40$ units are anywhere near as good as those 120$ proper ones? I wonder if the vibration frequency or strength is really proper as I heard it's very important!
Ultrasonic mini-BOLTR!
Figured I might as well take it apart & see what's inisde since I use it all the time
@@Doodlebud Have one on order. Had no clue they were so cheap.
thank you for this video! Is it possible to use an ultrasonic cleaner for goldplated or rosegold plated nibs or other parts of the pen that are plated? Will the plating come off or will it be just fine? I have a TWSBI diamond 580 rose gold and some gold plated steel nibs on other pens (and some 14k and 18k nibs but I think they will be safe in the ultrasonic cleaner). And is it possible to put a Noodler’s Ahab in it? I really hope that the ugly smell will dissapear😂
I've put in pens with nibs that have coating and haven't had any issues. That being said, if there is a flaw or defect in a coating, there is a chance it could start to come off from the cleaner. I guess I'm lucky I have sinus issues and don't smell the odor people talk about with the Noodlers pens LOL
@@Doodlebud Thank you for your quick response! It was very helpful. The smell of the Ahab is really bad so I guess you are lucky😂
Every single time I go to clean a LAMY converter I reach for my phone to buy one of these things... Instead of getting one I've just been avoiding my LAMY pens 😩
I fucking knew it! You just had to use that phrase you added to my comment didn’t you?😂😂
It was good material, can't let it go to waste. My brain power is limited 🤤
@@Doodlebud I was actually looking for an ultrasonic cleaner about 2 weeks ago but I didn’t really find one I wanted.
After watching this video, I ordered one 😁
How many Watts can I push before plastic parts start to look like the dark side of the moon?
I wouldn't try to find out. Just run a few cycles of you need, or use some pen flush with it of you have a really gummed up pen.
i feel like taking the nib off is unnecessary :O but this is cool
Absolutely dont need to do it for every cleaning. But helps when you really need to clear out a pen.
Is it safe for celluloid pens?
Give this a read. If you google "are ultrasonic Cleaners safe for celluloid pens" there's a bunch of stuff that comes up
www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/234182-ultrasonic-cleaner-and-celluloid/
@@Doodlebud yay thank you so much🙏🏻