help mixing liquid soap without a hydrominder
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Greg Pack
Wash Weenie
Old post, but I laughed when I saw this. Just a couple weeks ago I was at a resturant supply store and bought a five gaillon pail of dishwashing soap for 20.00. It worked great at 90:1
Sorry to re-hash this, but I just want to see if my numbers here make sense.
Got the hydrominder setup, so no need to mix manually. That's nice to have out of the way..
Now, we put in a yellow tip to start as per the KR site recommendations. But forgot to dilute with 10 gallons of water. but I don't think we need to if we can dilute with the hydrominder and the soap meter on our pumps.
It's setup as follows: yellow tip 90:1, soap solution meter on hp pump 48:1. The product seems to come out pretty nice, similar to how the powder was. Smells good and produces a nice layer of soap, very similar to how the powder has always been. But isn't this ratio 4320:1? about 5x higher than recommended by KR (they say 600-900:1). below are my calcs if anyone can see an error.
soap solution meter=5 gallon/hour
cat 610 pump=4gpm*60=240 gallon/hour
240/5=48:1
yellow tip hydrominder 506=90:1
90*48=4320:1 (roughly without verifying flow rates yet , etc..)
So if we start with a yellow tip at 90:1, we really need to increase our soap solution flow meter to about 10:1 or about 24 gallon/hour!! Per KR recommendations we are supposed to start with a soap solution flow rate of 24 gallons/hour? (if we use a yellow tip like they say) Now I realize we could adjust in other ways, use a larger tip, etc. So my next question is if we are supposed to to flow 24 GPH (.4 gpm) of solution, it seems like we are using the wrong flow meters. Maybe the higher solution rate is needed for a reason, to produce more foam or bubbles in the soap for show??
here is the flow meters we use.
https://www.kleen-ritecorp.com/p-3403-dwyer-vfa-42ssv-flow-meter-adjustable.aspx
I also realize that the 900:1 is a starting point and results may vary. I just want to learn the logic behind the recommendations and specifically whether or not the 5 gph from our soap solution flow meters is enough or if we should increase that for better show..
You may want to go back and re-read post #6. I think you are in the ballpark considering you are using an ultra concentrate compared to what I'm using. Try going up a tip size and down a tip size and note the difference. It doesn't take long to find the sweet spot. Or even easier, you have a flow meter on each pump, right?...It's not hard to increase/decrease flow to the pump without changing tip size on the hydrominder. Once you find what works, set flow meters the same for each pump.
Yeah, I did read before I posted. But still my ratio is almost 2x yours. Just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something.
I did measure the hydrominder ratio and its very close to 90:1 like it should be with the undiluted soap.
So why do they tell us to add 10 gallons of water if th hydrominder will dilute just fine at this thickness? maybe using more of a weaker solution is preferable for some reason??
I did measure the hydrominder ratio and its very close to 90:1 like it should be with the undiluted soap.
So why do they tell us to add 10 gallons of water if th hydrominder will dilute just fine at this thickness? maybe using more of a weaker solution is preferable for some reason??
Earl Weiss
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While Hydrominders and injectors can work at low dilution settings, the lower the dilution, the smaller the orifice that concentrate has to go thru. The smaller the orifice, the more finicky it becomes and can be affected by things like changes in water pressure which affect the power of the suction on the venturi, or temperature which affects then thickness of the concentrate. Thisn of it this way. A yellow dilutesm 90 / 1. A 33% Variation due to temp and or pressure can make that 120 / 1 and if it dilutes 10 X again thru an injector you are at 1200 / 1 instead of 900 / 1. On the other hand if you dilute 2/1 ahead of time with 10 Gallons of water and use a 30/1 tip, the larger opening is less susceptinble to the large variations or problems cause by temp and pressure. Plus, you can then fine tune more with different tips.
I have locations where Ultra Lean tips work great, and otherswhereI have to pre dilute. Mostly a water pressure issue.
Have one place set up with Dema's. Years ago a rep told me the most hassle free way to operate them after I had headaches trying to use them to meter down Chemical was to run them wide open and use Hydrominders to get the dilution to where I wanted it. Solved the hassles.
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kentadel
Active member
Looked this thread up and saw the post about dish washing liquid.....I was asked to look at another operator's wash last week for suggestions on updating self service equipment, and what did I see? You guessed it, dish washing liquid with fragrance added to it. Here's the thing, his wash was cleaning great in both his touchless automatic and self service bays. So my questions are... is dish washing liquid high ph? What is in it and why is it working? 26 years in this business and have yet to try or see this. He says he has used it for 10 years and will not switch back.
We’ve seen Dish washing soap used numerous times. Do you know what brand of dish washing soap he’s using? I don’t know the PH of it some people swear by it. I’d never use it, I just looked at Walmart web site they’ve got a 90 oz. bottle of Palmolive Original Liquid Dish Detergent or Ajax Super Degreaser Lemon Dish washing Liquid for $4.97. Dollar tree has dishing soap for $1.00 for the 50 oz. bottle. I think this guy is on to something that will change the way car washing is done, LOL
There are many different types of detergents formulated for specific types of cleaning. Dish washing soap is designed to remove organic soils found on dishes, glasses and dinnerware. It should never be used in a car wash for additional foaming or cleaning. Most car waxes and polishes contain organic compounds which dish washing detergents will remove thus either dulling the finish or removing some or all of the protection provided by these products. You may get vehicles clean but you may be also doing some damage as well. Many body shops will use a dish washing soap to prep a vehicle before painting. Is this what you want to do to vehicles going through your wash -strip the surface? Do your customers a favor. If you want more show or foam use a car wash additive or product designed to do so in your wash - not dish washing liquid.
kentadel
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MEP001
Well-known member
I used to see some guys washing cars with Ajax and a Scotch Brite pad - when I asked if they were prepping to paint, they said no, they start out that way before buffing. They were from a body shop and I'm pretty sure they were lying and that's just how they prep before paint.
Earl Weiss
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Many dishwashing detergents contain ammonia. This is great for removing dirt but as noted can be bad for the finish. As a teenager I once took a bucket of water with dishwashing soap and threw it on my hot black car. It "Flashed" the paint. White streaks everywhere that had to be polished out.
FWIW I think the extreme dilution factors available with industry products make them much less expensive to use than consumer products.
FWIW I think the extreme dilution factors available with industry products make them much less expensive to use than consumer products.
I actually learned my lesson the hard way about using dish washing liquid to wash a car long ago when I was a teenager. I spent several hours waxing my dad's car with an old fashion paste wax. It was quite a job back then but it really looked nice. A week or so later the car was dirty so I made a bucket of suds from dish washing liquid and washed the car. Took all that hard earned wax off the finish and ended up having to wax it all over. Didn't understand the chemistry of it back then but I never washed any car with dish washing liquid again.
Greg Pack
Wash Weenie
I know a guy who runs a rather large chain of tunnels ( over 10). He told me the best wheel cleaner they ever had was a mixture of dawn and potassium hydroxide. He claimed if they could have gotten the Dawn in larger containers they would start using it as their primary wheel cleaner.
I usually stick with the car wash brands. Every now and then I get bored and mix a concoction. Kinda like a kid playing with a science kit. I usually will car wash chemicals together and see which ones play well with each other. Or sometimes, I want to create different colors of polish, such as purple or neon green. I'll mix some primary colors together and see what I can make. Sometimes it doesn't turn out so hot.
I usually stick with the car wash brands. Every now and then I get bored and mix a concoction. Kinda like a kid playing with a science kit. I usually will car wash chemicals together and see which ones play well with each other. Or sometimes, I want to create different colors of polish, such as purple or neon green. I'll mix some primary colors together and see what I can make. Sometimes it doesn't turn out so hot.
Mbalboni
Member
Mixing dawn 4:1 will clean a euro car front rims?
Potassium Hydroxide is caustic soda. Dawn might provide foam but has little or no part in the cleaning. As I said before, dish washing liquids are formulated to clean organic soils, not the mostly carbon film cause by brake dust found on rims. Many, many years ago when I worked at my uncle's car wash he used caustic soda beads in water as a wheel cleaner. They came our great as did whitewalls which were prevalent back then. However that was back when wheels and wheel covers were real chrome. If you did that today you might end up paying for some pretty expensive rims.
