Hi I do cell phone refurbishing and when I take a bunch of phones apart to refurbish them, I start by disassembling the entire phone and cleaning all the parts. Most parts are easy to clean, but one of the more difficult parts is the hinge (on flip phones).
Typically I use an ultrasonic machine, and fill it with isopropyl alcohol and put the hinges in the basket and let it run for 30 minutes or so. I have been doing it like that for years and never had any issues but I recently took a few of the hinges apart and now that I see how they are made I was wondering if this is a good method or not. My main concern is it looks like the spring inside the hinge has some grease on it, I would assume cleaning with an ultrasonic machine filled with isopropyl would remove some of the grease.
See photos below for parts break down, but the hinge is composed of a metal housing with a spring inside, followed by one side of the hinge with a few grove in one end, and the hinge part with a few groves in that end which lines up with the other groves. All held in with a rod and a tiny snap ring. The most proper way to clean them I think would be to take them apart and reapply the grease on the spring, but even the smallest snap ring pliers is to big for the cellular phone snap rings so I think the machine that made them puts the ring on, so I don’t think they were designed to be taken apart at that level. Also some cellular phone hinges are designed very similar just with no snap ring, the metal is punched to hold it together. So definitely no option to take them apart.
So just wondering if anyone has any ideas to improve the cleaning method on the hinges? I thought of using something like naphtha but I think that would degrease it too much where the isopropyl may still allow some of the grease to remain on the hinge.
PS- I would stay away from cleaning them all together but some of them are so grimy cus sometimes the grease is exposed on the edges of the hinge, and when dust lands on the grease it causes it to stick so some of them are real nasty.
You can see a few tiny white globs on the spring- that is the grease I am talking about.
Typically I use an ultrasonic machine, and fill it with isopropyl alcohol and put the hinges in the basket and let it run for 30 minutes or so. I have been doing it like that for years and never had any issues but I recently took a few of the hinges apart and now that I see how they are made I was wondering if this is a good method or not. My main concern is it looks like the spring inside the hinge has some grease on it, I would assume cleaning with an ultrasonic machine filled with isopropyl would remove some of the grease.
See photos below for parts break down, but the hinge is composed of a metal housing with a spring inside, followed by one side of the hinge with a few grove in one end, and the hinge part with a few groves in that end which lines up with the other groves. All held in with a rod and a tiny snap ring. The most proper way to clean them I think would be to take them apart and reapply the grease on the spring, but even the smallest snap ring pliers is to big for the cellular phone snap rings so I think the machine that made them puts the ring on, so I don’t think they were designed to be taken apart at that level. Also some cellular phone hinges are designed very similar just with no snap ring, the metal is punched to hold it together. So definitely no option to take them apart.
So just wondering if anyone has any ideas to improve the cleaning method on the hinges? I thought of using something like naphtha but I think that would degrease it too much where the isopropyl may still allow some of the grease to remain on the hinge.
PS- I would stay away from cleaning them all together but some of them are so grimy cus sometimes the grease is exposed on the edges of the hinge, and when dust lands on the grease it causes it to stick so some of them are real nasty.
You can see a few tiny white globs on the spring- that is the grease I am talking about.