27 Jan
2018
27 Jan
'18
10:17 a.m.
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 <fritzm at fritzm.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: ultrasonic cleaning for disk heads
Message-ID: <9F2C2AC7-1B35-46F5-BD92-CC3DFD29FBFA at 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.