Ultrasonic keycap cleaning

[webwit]

You can also use this on your mother-in-law. Removes all the greasy black residue and pencil marks like magic!

[matt3o]

careful with the switches, ultrasound damages thin metal!

You can also use this on your mother-in-law. Removes all the greasy black residue and pencil marks like magic!

problem being... fitting her inside...

[duynguyenle]

careful with the switches, ultrasound damages thin metal!

You can also use this on your mother-in-law. Removes all the greasy black residue and pencil marks like magic!

problem being... fitting her inside...

If you disassemble the switches and just wash the plastic parts, it should still work right (might take a lot of time to take apart 100+ individual switches though)

[terrycherry]

Good. Had the another brand ultrasonic cleaner half year, that's what my friend recommend before.

[elecplus]

So what would happen if you used an ultrasonic cleaner large enough to just drop in a complete nasty keyboard? Would scratchy switches and ugly yellow cases magically get fixed on AEK I and II boards? I am very open to suggestions...

[XMIT]

Recall that ultrasonic cleaning works by using sound to create millions of tiny bubbles in a liquid. These bubbles clean places that are difficult to reach, faster and better than you could do so manually. This is a phenomenon called cavitation.

So what would happen if you used an ultrasonic cleaner large enough to just drop in a complete nasty keyboard?

A number of bad things might happen. I don't recommend this.

You're submerging an entire board in a water based solution. Anything water soluble - like the internal date stamps on a Model M, or the fillings of electrolytic capacitors - would be washed away. That last one means that the controller may cease to work.

Once this is done, you still have a keyboard with cleaning solution stuck in all its crevices. Even if you manage to rinse it out, and even if you remember to use purified water (because Texas water is really quite hard and leaves lime scale when it dries), you still need to wait up to a week for everything to dry. A week is plenty of time for rust to form and make things worse.

Would scratchy switches and ugly yellow cases magically get fixed on AEK I and II boards?

Maybe, and no.

Assuming that none of the above issues destroy the AEK II, the switches may get less scratchy but only temporarily so. The dirt will fall off the switch internals but still stay inside the switch since it has nowhere to go.

If you're willing to desolder and disassemble all the switches, and dry all the pieces with a hair dryer, then ultrasonic cleaning might very effective. I think this should be safe for thin metal parts (switch plates, click leaves) so long as the solution is pH balanced. I'm going to experiment with this some.

Ultrasonic cleaning is not retr0bright. It will not make anything less yellow. (Don't do ultrasonic cleaning with a peroxide solution, more bad things happen. You might get a bunch of oxygen bubbles leading to a high oxygen environment and a very real fire hazard.)

[XMIT]

I've posted some experiences with my own ultrasonic cleaner and Alps key switches here: workshop-f7/alps-key-switches-ultrasoni ... 14549.html

[Shihatsu]

Wodan, if you remember I got this one:
other-external-f66/great-interesting-fi ... 13650.html
So, it was flawlessly delivered to me, but it is in terrbile shape. The switches feel wonderfull, the whole board is as you would expect, but it STINKS and is greesy as hell. It stinks like a mixture of penicilin, alcohol and nicotine, and it feels like that. Do you have experience with stink and greese based on cigarette smoke with your ultrasonic cleaners? Or someone else? I wonder how to clean this beast... I want to reuse the caps and the switches.

[Wodan]

I put tons of OG doubleshots in the dish washer at the 40°C setting. Worked great but takes more time and doesn't clean some nasty stains. Maybe do a test run with the numpad to make sure YOUR dish washer doesn't f' them up. Going above 40°C can leave permanent stains on your caps ... which can be removed by sandblasting

[Wodan]

Something new happened here, I tried "vintage" MX blues and was so disapointed that I desoldered the whole keyboard to replace the switches, then took all of my harvested MX Blues (three boards worth) and took them all apart to salvage the springs. Now I had a really big pile of Cherry MX switch cases and blue sliders. Dropped them all in the ultrasound cleaner ...

The sliders are pretty straightforwards, I do that quite frequently, works great. But this was also the first time I just dumped tons of Cherry MX switches into the Ultrasound cleaner. Had to make it three runs to fit them all in

After the treatment I rinsed bathed them in clear water until no more soap was in them. Then I put them in the salad spinner to remove the water, then put them into distilled water to flush out remaining tab water and then put them in the salad spinner once again. They've been drying for the whole day now and I plan to assemble enough switches for a 60% later tonight and then do a little 60% build guide for noobs I wanted to do for a long time. Will use that keyboard for a few days then and see if I get any chattering or other issues with switches.

[kbdfr]

Well, fine, but what about this ?

[Wodan]

Been typing on these switches for two days now and they feel absolutely great. I didn't hand pick them for the keyboard but just took some random ones off the stack and not a single switch has any kind of problems. Not chattering, no missed acutations and very smooth action. Sounds like you can really put Cherry MX switches into the ultrasound cleaner with no harm done. Some of the switches were really dirty and they came out squeaky clean. I really love this.

[Hypersphere]

On advice from XMIT, I bought an iSonic P4820-WPB through Amazon for $89.00.

iSonic_P4820_WPB.jpg (44.44 KiB) Viewed 7995 times

I've been using it for keycaps and Alps switch components, and it does a great job.

It occurred to me that an ultrasonic cleaner might be a way to clean keyboard cables -- especially coiled ones that are especially hard to clean. Has anyone tried this? I suppose if the cable has an unsealed end -- such as the header connector and its exposed wires -- that this part should not be submerged in liquid. Likewise, if the insulation were cracked, water could get inside the cable, and it would be difficult to dry it out. Otherwise, it should be okay. I will give this a try with an extra cable and post the result.

[XMIT]

Glad it works for you! I really wish mine had a basket like that, it would make life so much easier. They're only $15 on eBay. I'll just buy one.

[Wodan]

I made my own basket with a much finer grid since I started cleaning stabilizer parts. They fall right through the gaps...

Still had some fine mesh steel mat that I bent into a little basket, haven't had anything fall through since

[E3E]

I've got a bunch of stainless steel seeves I used for dyeing key caps that'd probably work well. I definitely want to get a larger cleaner though. 2L is too tiny for me. D:

[Hypersphere]

I've heard that for ultrasonic cleaning of small parts that you can put them into a fluid-filled plastic bag, which in turn is immersed in the fluid in the ultrasonic cleaning machine. Does this work, or do you need something porous like small-mesh metal, plastic, or cloth?

And what about my previous question of using an ultrasonic cleaner to clean keyboard cables, taking care not to immerse parts that are not fully encapsulated in insulation? Any thoughts on this? (I am still going to try this on a spare cable. I'll try to remember to get before and after pics).

[E3E]

I've heard that for ultrasonic cleaning of small parts that you can put them into a fluid-filled plastic bag, which in turn is immersed in the fluid in the ultrasonic cleaning machine. Does this work, or do you need something porous like small-mesh metal, plastic, or cloth?

And what about my previous question of using an ultrasonic cleaner to clean keyboard cables, taking care not to immerse parts that are not fully encapsulated in insulation? Any thoughts on this? (I am still going to try this on a spare cable. I'll try to remember to get before and after pics).

I've heard this too and I believe it. I read that it's good for when or if you need to use different solvents for each batch you're cleaning.

I suppose if you have a big enough cleaner, you could try. I use a magic eraser soaked in 99% isopropanol. It'd probably help for the grimiest of cables.

[andrewjoy]

I finally bit the bullet and went for a 40khz ebay special 3l model with digital control , i spend that whole extra 1 GBP for the digital controls over the analog controls .

what do you recomend to use in it , just some denture tabs and deionised water ? or should i get the ultrasonic solutions ?

[Wodan]

I got ultrasonic cleaning concentrate ... 1:20 is what they recommend. I mix it with destilled water and the results are brilliant.

Heard from some people who were having issues with certain stains using just water so I am guessing the cleaning concentrate does help!

[andrewjoy]

There are so many options for the solution , what one do you use ?

Main thing i will be using it for is cleaning alps switches

[Wodan]

Hm I got some German stuff from ebay.de ...

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Ultraschallreini ... SwEeFU~ZlW

[snuci]

My caps haven't been coming out that clean lately and I've had to wipe them down after a day of soaking so you guys finally convinced me to buy an Ultrasonic cleaner. Picked up this one this morning: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/222345021526

I think I can find some other uses for it too. Hopefully it's not too small.

[andrewjoy]

It arrived today.

First impressions are good.

I cleaned a set of dampened white alps from an SGI in it and oh my the filth that came off them ! There was a thick sludge of dust and human slime at the bottom of the tank and it stunk of cigarette smoke, strange as the caps are super clean and dont smell at all.

will report back how they feel when i have dried and reassembled them.

[Wodan]

I have recently put in a full set of Cream/Dampened "pine" Alps.

Split up the whole batch of switches into top/sliders (non-metal) and bottoms, tactile leaves and springs.


Filled the ultrasound cleaner with fresh distilled water, added just a little bit of cleaning concentrate and then put in the metal parts first.


Cleaned them for ~10 minutes, flushed them several times and put them on my rooms heater for a little bit. Put in the non-metal parts afterwards and also flushed them well then put them up for drying:



Re-assembly is a little tricky with tactile Alps ... Cherry MX feel a little easier to re-assemble.



The results are impressive. I also used this opportunity to give all the tactile leaves a little "bend" to bring some tactility back. The switches really feel pretty much brand new! I actually kept a handful before cleaning for comparison and it's night and day ...

Next step: Build a Hasu64 keyboard with them to see if they also perform well

[Laser]

Next step: Build a Hasu64 keyboard with them to see if they also perform well

Why the sad face? This is a motive for joy

[Wodan]

Why the sad face? This is a motive for joy

I've been planning to build a 60% Alps board for a long time now but never got started properly ...
Lazy me ...

[Laser]

I'm still waiting for a Teensy for my qHack ... and then I have to design & order the plate ... or come up with a solution that doesn't need a plate (e.g. something like a metal wire or bar that sticks to each switch row and keeps them aligned)

[Wodan]

Does the qHack not support PCB mount switches?

[Laser]

It's the Alps version