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Blew $85 on a cheap ultrasonic cleaner and it shook a screw loose in a customer's Nikkor
Picked up one of those no-name ultrasonic cleaners off Amazon for $85 two months back, thinking I'd finally stop scrubbing focus rings by hand like some kind of chump. First real job through it was a Nikkor 50mm with a gritty helicoid, and twenty minutes later a tiny retaining screw had worked itself out and vanished into the tank. Spent an hour fishing through the solution with a magnet while the customer waited in my lobby, and of course the screw was never found. Bought a used Branson off a retiring tech in Sacramento for $300 after that, and the difference in how it handles small parts is night and day. Anybody got a go-to method for keeping tiny screws corralled in an ultrasonic, or do you just avoid dunking anything with loose hardware?
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seth_nguyen8d ago
Man, that magnet fishing story hit me right in the gut, I've done that same frantic search while someone taps their foot up front. Losing a screw in the tank is the worst because you know it's gone the second it slips, and that customer is standing there watching the whole show. These days I just pull anything with loose hardware before it goes in, not worth the risk no matter how good the cleaner is.
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