[Amps] Washing equipment

[Ian White GM3SEK]

Jim Tonne wrote:
>
>I clearly remember that when I lived in Santa Barbara CA in
>the 60s and 70s  the local Tektronix rep told me how their
>scopes were cleaned.  The method was precisely as described
>by N7KA.
>- Jim Tonne WB6BLD
>
>> [ snip ] Years ago, the 1960s. I washed MANY Tektronix
>> scopes as a normal routine [ snip }

Some way back in the AMPS archives, G4DCV wrote:

>> The answer to this is possibly an industrial ultrasonic cleaner, the 
>>kind of thing that manufacturers use to put their PCBs in.
>>
>> I'm lucky to have a friend who owns a largish one and I've 
>>sucessfully put whole rigs into it (including my own FT-221) and then 
>>oven dried them.
>>
>> I do remove any mains transformers because it takes so long to oven 
>>bake the moisture out of them, but other than the that the whole 
>>radio goes in the bath!
>>
>> The only snag I have found so far is that the oven drying process 
>>melts the wax in any cores and so this has to be replaced.
>>

Paul later confirmed that the ultrasonic bath contained water plus a 
small amount of detergent or wetting agent. The water ended up a dirty 
brown but the rig came out sparkling.

His friend's firm routinely uses the process to clean handheld radios 
that have been out on hire, so they go through the bath again and again.



-- 
73 from Ian GM3SEK         'In Practice' columnist for RadCom (RSGB)
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek