oneclick 

I do almost everything in ziplock bags, with the tank full of water. The bags are held above the tank bottom by spring-clamps to a bit of wood that spans the top of the tank. If the part has a lot of dirt I use an inner bag made from window screening (the glass-fibre kind) to keep the part(s) above the crud that falls to the bottom of the bag. You don't need a lot of whatever-goes-in-the-bag.

It works just great, you can pour out and save and re-use the solvent depending on how dirty it gets and how it settles, if they're smelly they are are not so much, you can use different agents in different bags at the same time, and you don't have to clean the tank (much) after.

J.Higgins 

I have THIS u/s cleaner. Its a 3L, and its barely adequate for cleaning a chain much less anything else. If I ever bought another one, I'd sure get one at least twice as large. I've tried at least a dozen different methods of cleaning my chains with this unit, but in the end nothing works better than time. YMMV with this or any other u/s unit. I used to use a big industrial unit at my workplace. It was fabulous, and I'm sure that the parts that actually make it ultrasonic were way more powerful than the guts of this little unit. I'm sure there are techies here that could explain the differences between machines, or what to look for when actually buying one. Just like different coffee makers perform the duty of making coffee in different ways, some better - some worse, u/s cleaners are different between brands and models as well. Don't just buy some Chinese crap like I did. The performance is meh. Better off washing chains in gasoline like that Oz Cycle guy. Just my opinion.

John_E

Ah great to hear this. I was hoping to use a similar method so it works. It should keep things clean.

That was one of the models I was thinking about. It seems to be stronger than the HF one. I was planning to go for the 6l one, is it that bad ? I am ok with running it 10 minutes several times for example as long as it does a good job of cleaning.

J.Higgins 

The 10L isnt that much more, and would definitely do the job.

panzerwagon 

Love to use my ultrasonic cleaner on both bike and vintage car parts, and it works fairly well.

• I use a very diluted solution of either regular simple green (for tougher stuff) or simple green “aircraft and precision cleaner” (better for aluminum parts).
• Another vote for the ziplock method, as it requires as little solution as necessary.
• Be careful with parts that have any printed lettering on them. I destroyed the lettering ink on my Shimano 6209 brake levers when I first started out.
• The heating option is invaluable. It was essential when cleaning a couple 50-yr old fuel pumps recently.