Any experience with ultrasonics for cleaning??

[Cubfan64]

I work in a laboratory, and we use ultrasonic baths to clean quite a wide variety of items. These are basically laboratory scale versions of the little ones they use at jewelry stores to spruce up your rings for free.

Ours have variable power on them and I've often wondered how well they would work to clean coins dug from the ground. The only thing I know NOT to do is to put a man's wedding ring set with 3 diamonds in and put it on full power for a couple minutes - I know this from experience when I pulled it out only to find all the diamonds knocked from their settings!!!

I'll give this a try on coins (I wouldn't do it with any kind of relic that I think looked fragile enough to crack or break) and post here in the future, but I wondered if anyone else had ever tried it or heard of it being used.

Thanks