Another Usc Bites The Dust...is There A Good One?

November 10, 2017

My four-month old Ovation USC just stopped working...it's the third one I've had, and I'm not going to buy another one of these $30 units, just to have them fail. Is there a good one out there? It's important that the new unit have a removable tank, so I don't have to unplug and move the whole unit to empty and fill it. I'm not sure variable or multiple speeds is that important, as long as its one speed is strong enough for pens. And, it needs to be relatively small, preferably not more than 1'x1x1'.

Many thanks.

Tim

November 10, 2017

Haier makes good ones. I've been buying the blue ones made by Staedtler Mars when I can find them at a reasonable price. For pen work you want something in the neighborhood of 50W, and less than 100W. Branson seems to be another good name. OTOH, the Harbor Freight US gets good reviews.

November 10, 2017

thanks, Ron. Has to be a better solution.

Tim

November 21, 2017

As it happens I too have been looking for a new USC, and this is the most recent thread on it so I will bump it along rather than starting anew.

In this case my old one still worked. For the knowledge of Oz people, I bought that at Jaycar over 15 years ago. It looks the same as one I saw linked from another thread here, at MicroMark (?). It had worked well enough at the time but not terribly well, so I have been reading threads here for quite a while to work out what was a good instrument. My need covers other small items as well as pens or jewellery.

Again of interest mainly to local people, because it is made here, I bought a Unisonics FXP4, consistent with Ron's general advice about 50-100W as the sweet spot (provided it is delivered). Unisonics makes mainly medical and industrial cleaners. This model has an on-off switch, and out. I can deal with the rest. It is designed for jewellers through to small medical and dental practices. A quick comparison showed it can do much more in a couple of minutes than the cheap unit can do in fifteen. Of interest for me here are a few of the bits of advice that came with it. Some of these have been mentioned once or twice on a thread here, others not at all that I have seen. Given their professional source (i.e. not me ) I thought they may be of interest.

Each time you fill the unit, de-gas the water. Run it about five minutes with water only, then it is ready for use. I use rain water because it is available and I know it to be soft water.
After cleaning (and beforehand if the item is gritty) flush-clean it. As mentioned occasionally here, the USC does not flush out stuff; it loosens it or breaks it up. If you fail to wash or flush it after cleaning then loosened stuff may simply re-deposit or remain in the general area.
Contrary to mentions I have seen in ads for cheapies or sometimes accepted by people, no item should ever touch the floor or walls of the cleaner; or at least, of a half-decent one.
Pliable plastic baskets dissipate sonic energy. My unit has a glass tray, other models metal baskets. If you use a small plastic container to save on cleaner fluid (perfectly reasonable) then choose a harder type of plastic rather than softer, and not a soft plastic bag.
Suggestions a USC will not clean flat surfaces such as DVDs are unfounded. If it were true, they would not be useful for dental/medical implements. That said, I have no need to clean any CD/DVDs because wiping (perhaps with a cleaner) serves perfectly well, and I daresay I do not much dirty vinyl or glass discs anyway.

If any other Australians consider the Unisonics (I advocate you do) then I am very happy to add that their customer service is superb. When their courier did not deliver, nor leave notice of the attempt, then rather than trying any "I'll call them" or "You go there", the manager at Unisonics immediately shipped me a new unit by an alternative courier, express, and took over chasing up return of the non-delivered product (that courier's local arm has a terrible reputation). That is called seeing the customer's view and need.

Did I mention you could buy at least four lesser units on ebay/Amazon for the price of this? No matter.

edit: reduced 3213 characters to 3212 by removing a comma, then added all of this.

Edit again: fixed ambiguous expression

Edited November 21, 2017 by praxim

November 21, 2017

You suggest that you degas the water then empty it out.

I always degas the water that I'm actually going to use to add the chemical to. So that the water you are vibrating is always degassed before you start.