How often do you change to fluids in a cleaning machine ?

[mikepilk]

This must be posted somewhere, but I didn't find it.

I'm trying to figure out how often I should be changing the cleaning fluids in my ultrasonic.

Two questions for someone who uses one of the professional cleaning machines: 

1. How much fluid is there in the beakers ?

2. How many watches before the fluid is changed ?

[nickelsilver]

It varies a bit depending on what's been through, but I change every 12-15 watches. My machine holds 0.5L per bath; 1 cleaner, 3 rinses. At change I change the cleaner, and 1st rinse. 2nd rinse goes to first, 3rd to 2nd, 3rd is new. Jars get cleaned with detergent and trisodium phosphate.

 

Cleaner and rinse are around 70 something "dollars" for 5 liters, which is around a buck a wash at that interval. Probably could stretch it?- but I'd rather not see comebacks and change theoretically too often than take the risk. Other pros I've talked to are on a similar regimen.

 

I know 25+ years ago guys would run 3 jar machines and do dozens of cleanings (or more) between changes, but there was a different customer expectation then- cheap price ruled, it went tic tac and everyone was happy. They'd even press the case against a buffing wheel for a minute or two to shine things up all for the same low price!

[Waggy]

@mikepilk Great question, and I expect you will get lots of different opinions. Normally I go by the colour of the fluid, cloudiness and degree of any gunk settling out on the bottom of the jar. I try to remove anything from the bottom of the jar (once it's had time to settle) with one of those disposable plastic pipettes.  If I see the colour of the entire fluid starting to change or it becomes cloudy I'll run it through some coffee filters into a new jar which often cleans it up, but I only do this one time, next time it's a 100% replacement. My version of 111 (see below) starts out a very light yellow (hydrated), and once it gets to that dehydrated "drink more water" stage I know it's time to take action.

I do additional pre-cleaning of the movement, I peg the jewels as normal, but I then clean up the mainplate, mainspring barrel, bridges and any other larger items with IPA on a cotton bud (except the pallet fork and balance) which removes a lot of the gunk which would otherwise have found its way into my cleaning fluids.

I make my own cleaning fluids from scratch, due to the fact I cannot buy locally and cannot import, so they are even more expensive for me and I have to mix them myself (25% ammonia makes the eyes water!), so not as easy as just opening a container and pouring. Hence, it is worth the little extra work to prolong the life of the fluid.

For ultrasonic cleaning, I mainly reserve this for cases, bracelets and other "external" watch hardware, I use jars so its a new fluid every time and I use fairy liquid on these parts - I'll probably get crucified for saying this, but like I said it's only used on the case and bracelet etc and I get great results.

Hope this helps, will be interesting to see other responses on this.

 

[oldhippy]

This question is like asking how long is a piece of string. It depends how dirty movements or parts have been. Some people filter the fluids. 

Edited November 16, 2023 by oldhippy

[mikepilk]

9 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

It varies a bit depending on what's been through, but I change every 12-15 watches. My machine holds 0.5L per bath; 1 cleaner, 3 rinses. At change I change the cleaner, and 1st rinse. 2nd rinse goes to first, 3rd to 2nd, 3rd is new. Jars get cleaned with detergent and trisodium phosphate.

I use about 1/3 (150ml) of what you use in my jars, and change every 5 watches. (v small ladies movements I count as 1/2  ). So similar regime. But I only have 2 rinses, and IPA.

Though not doing it commercially, I have time to do a pre-clean on dirty movements : a small amount of naphtha, paintbrush and pegwood to remove old oil and gunk. 

4 hours ago, Waggy said:

For ultrasonic cleaning, I mainly reserve this for cases, bracelets and other "external" watch hardware, I use jars so its a new fluid every time and I use fairy liquid on these parts - I'll probably get crucified for saying this, but like I said it's only used on the case and bracelet etc and I get great results.

The best thing I've found for cleaning the gunk from between bracelet links in the ultrasonic is naphtha.  I tried SeaClean and washing up liquid, but they don't remove the gunk.

[Waggy]

31 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

The best thing I've found for cleaning the gunk from between bracelet links in the ultrasonic is naphtha.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try

 

[JohnR725]

There a whole bunch of variables that would affect things like all the variables that affect everything in watch repair.

Manufacturers recommendations can be quite interesting for instance in 2012 Omega's recommendation was every 10 cycles or three days. Of course they do not tell us how many watches they ran through the cleaning machine. Then they tossed the cleaning fluid and the first rinse they move the fourth rinse to the third position and replace the fourth rinse. Nice when you have lots of money on the other hand there probably cleaning a lot of watches

In 2019 they revised things kind of and it's convenient to snip this one out. So basically smaller machines same procedure fancy exotic machine 50 cycles unless you push the override switch and then it reminds you someday in the future. Where I work we have the fancy exotic cleaning machine and whatever it reminds us we always push the we don't want to be bothered right now button and usually do that a couple of times until the watches look like it needs to be changed.

Notice what their biggest concern is the transfer of dirty fluids from one jar to the other

 

[nickelsilver]

I like that Omega looks at the number of cycles, not number of watches. I can see the first bath changing color over the course of use; by 15 cycles it has noticeably gone from clear to cloudy. As I only ever clean one at a time, it works out cycles=watches in my case.

 

I see the Elmasolvex VA machine takes 2.5L of solution per bath, so I suppose it makes sense to change every 50 cycles.

Edited November 16, 2023 by nickelsilver

[mikepilk]

As I'm doing it by hand, I blow as much fluid off the baskets after each wash, with a puffer and hairdryer.

The cleaner I use is Elma WF Pro which is yellow/green, and the rinse Elma Suprol Pro is clear. It's surprising how quickly the first rinse discolours.