The IPA is heated to 60C before the ultrasound is able to remove the oxide remnants, FWIW.
While we can often get the entire smooth surface of the head clean with swabs and IPA, it is very difficult to clean all the material that forms in the cruciform trench recessed into the head (where the read/write and erase coil poles are visible). Heads can seem clean to the naked eye, but a good stereo microscope will insure that you have a clean and smooth surface. Regards, Carl Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2018 12:15:34 -0800 > From: Fritz Mueller <fri...@fritzm.org> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > Subject: ultrasonic cleaning for disk heads > Message-ID: <9f2c2ac7-1b35-46f5-bd92-cc3dfd29f...@fritzm.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > I watched with great interest one of curiousmarc?s recent Alto videos, > wherein they clean a Diablo drive head ultrasonically. I?ve been > struggling a bit with my restored RK05 drives to completely clean the heads > after minor head crashes. Not being able to get them really sparkling > clean makes me always worried about running the drives for more than a few > minutes at a time, and a little nervous every time I spin them up?. > Scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing with IPA and kimwipes just doesn?t > seem to get all the crud off. > > I do have an alignment pack that I could use to re-align the heads after > removing them for a proper cleaning this way. Decent ultrasonic cleaners > aren?t terribly expensive and might be nice to have around the shop anyway > (I could also do all my eyeglasses :-) > > In the video, the heads are submerged in IPA in a glass cylinder, which is > then placed in the ultrasonic bath. > > Has anybody on the list here done this and have tips/advice beyond what > can be seen in the video? It looked very effective! I?m also having a > little trouble sourcing the squat form glass graduated cylinder online. > > cheers, > ?FritzM. > >
