Ok, so you bought yourself a PC (G100a) to keep your car looking its best, and after a little use, you realize that the once clean foam pads you had at $11 a pop are getting a little saturated with product and it's time to do something about it.
While there is no official way of cleaning the pads for reuse, there are a few suggestions.
1.)Use a rotary buffer and a toothbrush
2.)Use a Microfiber towel held over the PC to absorb product
3.)Throw it in the washer
We're going to cover an alternative to Option #3 here.
While
washing a few pads in the
washing machine sounds like an ideal solution, it does waste a lot of water for a few pads and not to mention the potential of grease and other chemicals in the pads transfering to the clothes you normally wash! That is sure to cause friction with your significant other!
Some people get around the last hurdle by utilizing an old
washing machine and dedicate it to pad cleaning, but that still consumes electricity and water, so how about utilizing a
small portable washer instead?
The
washing cycle on the "Wonder Washer" runs for 10 seconds in one direction. Pauses for 2 seconds, then reverses direction for 10 more seconds. Surprisingly it moves a significant amount of water. I find that I can comfortably wash 6 pads, while 10 pads is pushing the limits of capacity. It still works, but you may need to help it along by watching the load to ensure the pads as always fully submerged.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a fan of products hawked on infomercials. In fact every "As Seen On TV" product that I've ever tried has proven to be worthless and was something written off as a poor late night judgement! So I went in with a bit of hesitation with this product.
With just water in the washer, you can see that it moves it pretty well.
The unit begins like this. The lid is held on by turning it clockwise.
Once inside, the base is stored here.
Under the base, you can see the vanes that push the water around.
The whole unit reminds me of a large blender
The bottom of the bucket
Adjustable 15 minute timer on left, 2 speed settings on right. There isn't a noticeable difference between Standard and Gentle. More experimentation is needed.
There are two water levels here. 10L and 7L
There are capacity levels with each water level
Filling up is easy from the tap. Use warm/hot water for maximum cleaning capability
I chose 3 pads for my first test. Two heavily soiled W-8006 pads and one W-9006 pad. They were stored inside of a plastic container and got deformed over time, being saturated and pressed up against each other.
I decided to try some carpet cleaner first because I had good results with this in the past. It does cost more than normal detergent though. This bottle was around $8 from Target.
I measured out about 4OZ, then poured it into the water
Then I placed the pads inside. I had to push them down so they would soak up the water and sink to the bottom.
Make sure the right speed control is OFF. Then I set the timer to 15 minutes.
While the lid should normally be fastened to prevent splashing, I removed it for these pictures. Almost immediately the water turned cloudy from the chemicals
15 minutes later it looked like this
I poured the water out through the lid
You can see what it looked like after the dirty water was removed
I then poured in clean cool water to run a rinse cycle
Now you can see the pads here. Pretty dramatic difference from
So I decided to clean some more, here is my next batch.
15 Minutes Later
Ok so that worked pretty well. The W9006 pad didn't clean as well as the W-8006 pads. Maybe that's the M21 at work, which I use those pads for.
I decided it's time to try some of my Microfiber towels that I clean my wheels with.
I used this detergent in hot water
15 Minutes Later
All but the dirtiest one came clean
So I ran it once more
Much better but not perfect
I hung them to dry
By morning they were dry and ready for use.
To dry the pads, I remove as much excess water as possible. I do this by folding the pad in half--so the velcro side is now inside the taco. I wrap an Absorber towel around this taco, and wring it. Any excess water comes out of the foam pad, and when I release it, instead of being sucked back inside the pad, it goes into the Absorber and the pad is now very dry.
Then I can place them outside in the sun. It's a good idea to turn them over after a few hours and dry from the bottom since the velcro side likes to hold water.
Here's the final batch of pads to clean today. I decided to use the same laundry detergent as mentioned previously.
BEFORE
AFTER
While from the photos the W-9006 pads still look the same, I could tell they were noticably cleaner. Maybe a different detergent is needed to remove M21.
CONCLUSION
After the
washing cycle, because there is no SPIN cycle, so you will need to empty the dirty water, and run it again with clean water to rinse the pads.
Or, you can just rinse them under running water. This unit won't prevent you from getting wet, and for some, soaking overnight, or
washing by hand is simple enough, but I like this solution because it minimizes contact with the pads--since flowing water is used to clean them--no scrubbing or wringing needed during cleaning.
Although it's easiest enough to use this product for cleaning pads as a 'set it and forget it" deal, I would advise not letting it soak beyond the 15 minute cycle so it doesn't sit there soaking up the dirty water. An alternative method is to simply remove the pads near the end of the cycle and rinsing it off immediately.
I paid $39 for my Wonder Washer from Harbor Freight.
Linear Mode
