Almost every headline number on an ultrasonic quote can be inflated legitimately. Here is how, and what to ask for instead.
We sell these machines, so treat this page with appropriate suspicion. Everything on it is checkable, and it will help you interrogate our quotes as effectively as anyone else’s.
The most abused figure in the industry. Ultrasonic generators drive in cycles, and instantaneous peak output can be several times the average. Quoting the peak is not fraud — it is a real measurement — but it tells you almost nothing about cleaning, because cleaning depends on sustained energy delivered over the cycle.
Ask for: average or RMS ultrasonic power, and separately the electrical input power. If a supplier will only give you a peak figure, that is your answer.
Useful for confirming basic ultrasonic activity, but insufficient on its own for comparing system performance. It says nothing about whether the energy is distributed evenly, what frequency it is delivered at, or whether the transducers are bonded well enough to still be delivering it in three years. A tank with excellent watts-per-litre and four transducers clustered at one end has hot spots and dead zones.
Ask for: transducer count and layout, and how the field is evened out — sweep, multiple generators, or transducer placement.
More is generally better, but a count alone hides the two things that matter: the type and how they are attached. Bonded transducers fail at the bond. Ask what the bonding method is and what the field failure rate looks like, because a tank with dead transducers is a tank with a dead zone, and you will not know until parts start failing inspection.
Quoted volume is often the brim-full figure. The number you need is the working volume with the basket in and the parts loaded, below the fill line. It is routinely 20–30% less. Specify your largest part and ask for the internal basket dimensions, not the tank dimensions.
That last one decides more owner satisfaction than any specification on the sheet. A machine that is down for six weeks waiting on a generator from overseas is worse than a slightly less powerful one that is running.
Every argument above collapses if you simply send the same parts to two suppliers and compare what comes back, with the cycle documented. Soil, substrate and the standard you are audited against decide which machine is right, and no specification sheet models that.
Ask for a documented trial. Ask for the cycle — chemistry, concentration, temperature, time, frequency — not just the clean part. The condition of the finished part demonstrates the outcome. Documented cycle data provides the evidence that the cleaning process was controlled and repeatable.
An ultrasonic tank is only one part of the cleaning process. The result depends on the equipment, chemistry and operating parameters being matched to the application. We engineer these together around your parts, soils and required cleaning standard — rather than supplying a generic tank and leaving the process to the customer.
We assess each application. Where required, we validate the process through a controlled cleaning trial on the machine and chemistry we would specify, with the cycle and the result reported against your standard — ask us to scope it.