The pickup

I was accumulating a very large amount old motherboards and computers with really bad corrosion that a toothbrush and iso wouldn’t remove. Keeping an eye out I saw a 30L ultrasonic cleaner online for a silly cheap price and I just couldn’t resist the challenge to get it going.

What the heck is wrong with this thing?

Turning it on, there was no life at all. Starting to pull it apart showed that all the fuses were destroyed and blown and there was a dead short on the driver PCB. Desoldering the power transitors and recifier and testing them showed that half of them were blown out, assuming from overheating over time. A quick order from AliExpress of the out of production parts later and the shorts were all cleared and it was time to try turn it on.

Its alive!

Fuses replaced, transistors replaced and all the wiring tidied up, it was time to try turn it on. It actually works! First time it fired up it actually stayed on and heated up water to 60C no worries and the transducers also worked for 10-15mins straight.

Putting it through its paces and finding problems

Finally ordered some proper cleaning fluid and purified water for it and loaded up the cleaner to 20L. It took like 40mins to heat up to 60C and then the transducers didn’t work! Turns out I never tested both functions at the same time. I let it cool down to 45C and everything started working so I think there is still a power draw fault or temperature fault somewhere which will need to be addressed when I next drain it. But for now, I just keep the temp a little lower and it functions perfectly fine.