Ultrasonic Cleaners

As long as the chemicals you use aren't harmful, I don't see why not.

Butch, when you say expensive, do you mean the initial cost of the U/C and water based solvents or what? I'm interested in a 2 1/2 gal size to do parts I would normally do at the solvent table. Everything else gets pressure washed. Thanks

Professional/business concerns and EPA compliance are tough- cost of compliance is one of the reasons so many small businesses close doors.

Fortunately, they can't walk into my shop... I'm not a business...

So here's how I do it:

I've got a 55-gallon drum, laid on it's side... I plasma-zortched off the top 1/3 of it, put hinges in the back, and welded a nice rim around top and bottom.  Flips up like a bbq grill.  I got a long straight coil-spring holding the cover up- one end to a bolt in the top, other to bolt in the bottom.  When up, the spring is straight, and will hold the cover.  Bump the center of that spring, and the cover shuts pronto.  Seals tight enough to snuff out a fire.  Whole thing is on angle-iron legs, with wheels and a nice big shelf on the bottom.

Bung-hole facing down, with barrel tilted slightly it's way, and a piece of steel screen, underneath is some cast-iron fittings and a ball-valve, leading to a 5-gallon steel fuel can full of mineral spirits.

Small hole punched in the top of the fuel can, threaded in a tapered pipe adapter with compression fitting, slid a piece of copper tubing down to about 2" off the bottom of the can.  On the top of that tube is a barb fitting, going to an electric fuel pump on the side of the barrel.

There's a switch on the side, that shuts off the pump if the cover is down.  Another switch on front allows me to turn the pump on, but only if the door is open.  I use a battery charger as the power supply... it's mounted about 10' away, and easily disconnected if there's a problem.

Pump outlet goes through copper INTO the barrel, where it's connected to a hose with brush on the end.

I can put a WC block in this thing, and clean it just fine... and I'm pretty sure I can close the cover with it in there.  Everything else is pretty easy.  I have a piece of gridwork made from 1/2" angle iron that I can set inside to elevate the workpiece just below the halfway point of the barrel.

If I decide that I need a big vat of mineral spirits, I close the valve on the drain and let'r fill.  The barrel holds well more than the can, so it can't overflow.  Building is concrete and steel, with no combustables anywhere near.  All lighting is overhead, on track, and LED, so plenty of illumination and no high-temperature surfaces nearby.

Nice thing, is that I've been using the same 5 gallons of mineral spirits for at least 12 years... the sludge down at the bottom has required me to lift the pickup tube to about halfway point now, but still doing just fine.  Eventually, it will get so high that I'll need to deal with the sludge and recharge it with more solvent, so what I'll do, is pump out as much of the liquid that I can, and then pour the sludge onto a steel tray covered with softwood, and light it up... and it will burn down to the point where the only thing left in the sludge is a half-coffee can of dirt.  Then I stick a magnet in it, and extract all the iron dust, and send the rest to the landfill in a sealed plastic jar.

Then pour in another 3 gallons (12 year supply) of mineral spirits.

As much as people tout the biodegradeable cleaners (and I love my Orange Goop and other citrus-based stuff), the problem is, the materials they REMOVE, are not biodegradable.  IF the materials removed are not contained, they wind up contaminating the environment.  If they are, they must be taken for hazmat disposal INCLUDING the biodegradable solvents and water that extracted them... there's MORE left than what was started WITH. 

Now realize- I'm wholly against people dumping oil products into streams, draining coolant onto the ground, and basically assuming that whatever they rinse off, will just 'go away'.  It doesn't.  I'm sure there's many who'll object to my old-school parts washing setup, but in 12 years, I've never had to purchase additional solvents, never had to recapture quantities of water-soluable biosolvents mixed with crud-goo, and never put anything into the floor, or ground, or water supply anywhere.  Everything flammable was burned, and while that may constitute a release of something somewhat bad, it's no worse than two seconds or so of someone's car catching fire.

Dave: I like the description of your cleaning set - up and approach to disposal.  You have a very good system that is reasonably sustainable given our hobby.  Appreciate you not dumping as we only have one environment and the resources we depend upon like fresh clean water and clean air are only as good as our actions to keep them that way. 

Thanks for the replies but they didn't really answer the initial question.