DK Sonic Ultrasonic cleaner
Tested by Gilbert Smith | £239.99 |www.bestultrasonic.co.uk
This is the DK Sonic Ultrasonic Cleaner – sixlitre. It’s also the digital model, so you’ve got touchscreen controls rather than old-fashioned style dials. I unboxed the thing and I have to say it looked really good, shiny and ‘professional-looking'! The instructions in the box were helpful – even if the writing on them was pretty tiny for my eyes. Either way, it was time to give it its first test! I had a scout around and found a pair of Yamaha RD350LC carbs, and removed all needles and jets to prepare them for the dip. As you can see, I didn’t clean them first as I wanted to give this machine a good test.
Reading the instructions on the bottle and it says (and I quote) ‘…best results between 40 and 60 degrees on temperature and a mixture of one part solution to 10 parts water or stronger if required…’ As these were pretty manky, I went three parts solution to 10 parts water. It took around 45 minutes to go from 15 degrees to 50 degrees. Delicately I lowered the cage in, and put it on for just half-an-hour to see how things went. Well, it’s quite a noisy machine!
After just 30 minutes I removed the carbs and was very happy with the results! The manky, rusty carb had been cleaned – most of the mank and rust had gone and been cleaned off. And – as you can see from the pictures – the solution was dirty so it was clearly working well and doing its job.
I put the carbs back into the old solution and put it on for another half-an-hour just to see if it would remove the rest of the dirt, mank, detritus and residue. After this next cleaning cycle I removed the carbs and had a good look.
Well, the pictures speak for themselves. To be honest, I was very impressed. After just an hour the carb itself – including the bowl – was 90 per cent clean and I’d not expended much in the way of energy and not had to handle any carb cleaner. The ultrasonic cleaner fluid itself is much easier on the hands, too! Brilliant stuff and a great cleaner. I’ll keep testing it with even more manky things and report back.