Ultrasonic vibration generator and use of same for cleaning objects in a volume of liquid
AssigneeHalcro Nominees Pty Ltd.
InventorBruce H. Candy
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus and method for ultrasonic cleaning is disclosed in which a transducer (35) in a liquid bath is driven by electronic circuitry causing rapid change of frequency to limit development of high concentration for any significant period of time. The electronic circuitry uses two field effect transistors (19 and 20) driving a square wave into an inductor (31) and capacitor (32) in series with a transformer inductor (33) which is coupled in parallel to the transducer (35) the inductor (31) and capacitor (32) and the transformer inductor (33) which is coupled in parallel to the transducer (35) being selected to be resonant at a mean driving frequency.
Claims10
An ultrasonic vibration generator comprising:
- a transducer for converting an electrical signal into an ultrasonic vibration;
- and driving means for driving the transducer and controlling the frequency of ultrasonic vibration of the transducer to change with a repeated cycle during which the frequency of ultrasonic vibration changes within a predetermined range of frequencies linearly with time and continually in time such that during each cycle the frequency of ultrasonic vibration changes at a rate of at least 4 times a mean frequency of ultrasonic vibration per second in order to improve the efficiency of the ultrasonic vibration.
A method of cleaning objects by ultrasonic vibration in a volume of liquid, comprising the steps of:
- placing an object to be cleaned in a volume of liquid, transmitting into the volume of liquid an ultrasonic vibration by providing an electrical signal to an ultrasonic transducer so as to cause the transducer to mechanically vibrate at an ultrasonic frequency;
- applying the output of the ultrasonic transducer to the liquid;
- and cyclically changing the frequency of the ultrasonic vibration within a predetermined range of frequencies linearly over time such that during each cycle the frequency of ultrasonic vibration changes at a rate of at least 4 times a mean frequency of the ultrasonic vibration per second so as to effect cleaning of the object situated within the volume of liquid.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.