Hanience Ultrasonic Cleaner, 500ml Jewellery Cleaner

 

I have used many ultra sonic cleaners before, and this is replacing one a small rotring one I have had for 15 years, that itself as a handme down from my dad. I am aware of how they work (cavitation) and do understand the benefits, caveats and other considerations that are at play. Many Ultrasonic Cleaners are described incorrectly by both manufacturers and Social media influencers as a “wonder device” that “cleans anything, without damage, using just water”. This is completely unrealistic and a pure fantasy. They do work under specific use cases, and are the best method of cleaning in those cases, and are definately useful. They can however damage stuff that is either poorly made, or not suitable, and water on its own is not very effective. At minimum you need a very small amount of surfactant, a drop of washing liquid is enough as a minimum, and some cleaning tasks for certain items may require different liquids. Read independant advice.

As a TDLR, this is a good device, that works well in the expected use cases, and is cetainly better than my previous rotring device, which was good whilst it worked.

The main negatives with this device is it’s lid is a bit flimsy, and its very plasticy, and I do not assume that it will remain in one peice as long as the rotring device which was fully metal. The display I think was lifted from another model, and some of its indicators may be confusing, as they represented different functions on that other model. The manual does explain, but I do not like that I had to read the manual – which in itself is very sparse – to have to understand it. This is not a complex device, and I shoudl not have had to read the manual, but I did.

Detailed uses, dos and donts.

I have cleaned some of my wifes jewellry, some vape coils, my watch strap (not watch itself), and some coins. the only specific negative

All the jewelry that are made from a solid alloy of metal and used “hard” stones (real hard gems, or glass, or similar) fixed securely are cleaned to a good shine in between 3 and 6 minuites, with grime effectively losened. Sometimes we needed to lightly rise of some loosened grime (expected) or just run over it with a brush, but its effective, and actually better perfroming than my rotring one.

Metals with a poor and thin coating, especially where its already starting to flake, will find the coating can get further stripped. These items shoudl nto be cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner anyway, as the cavitation further damage already damaged or flaking coatings. this happened to some of my wifes cheaper jewlry and to my old spectacles.

Corroded metals, whilst the ultrasonic waves may dislodge some corrosion (a brush may need to be used afterwards) this can actually make things worse, as you may be left with pitting where the corrosion was. Also in coated items, the corrosion may expose more of the base metal and expetite further corrosion. This is especially true where the “corrosion” is part of the protection (such as glavanised metals). Heavily corroded stuff may even break apart.

Vape coils thmselves may actually get cleaned out giving a bit more life, but Ultrasound does not do much to cleaning the cotton wick.

Jewelry that used soft, or plastic stones were very much mixed, some did appear cleaner, wilst others appeared “dull” due to the cavitation process. This is expected, and the manual warns about use of soft materials. sometimes it is possible to polish out the dullness with a microfibre cloth, but sometimes its not possible. The more scratched and damaged the surface before cleaning, the more duller the final result. Again this is expected, as its not designed to clean this sort of “pseudo” gem on some cheaper costume jewelry.

Things NOT to do
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Never use flamable liquids (solvents etc) or clean flamable items (containing easily flamable solvents/gases). The cavitation process can cause it to ignite in some cases.

Never imerse a watch’s body (especially smart watches), even if it is waterproof. Only immerse the strap. The watch holder provided with the device does if used correctly keep the watch body out of the water, use it as designed. Ultra sound can damage Accellerometers, Electronic Gyroscopes, and other seonsors used in smart watches. Even batteries, speakers, and mics can be damaged too. Even if you have a purely mechanical watch, some delicate parts may get damaged.