Finishing - July-August 2023

20 CONNECTORS
It’s a Cinch
C
inch Connectivity Solutions is a supplier
of high quality, high performance
connectors. Their products are used to
satisfy the most demanding and complex
requirements in various applications such as:
military, aerospace, telecommunications,
medical, oil and gas etc.
In early 2022, D&S Ultra-Clean Ltd
supplied a ‘Cleanseal’ ultrasonic, solvent
cleaning machine to Cinch to clean
components during the manufacturing
process. The machine was commissioned on
NovecTM 73DE and has worked successfully
since that time. Kevin Davis, sales and
technical manager at Cinch, comments:
“Providing a high-quality product to our
customers is of paramount importance and
effective cleaning of components is critical to
this process. The machine and solvent worked
well together from the start, so we were really
happy.”
Towards the end of 2022, 3M made the
announcement that they would be
discontinuing manufacture of Novec products,
and this obviously caused some concern at
Cinch. Kevin Davis again: “The cleaning
process was really working well and had
integrated well with our production process,
so the announcement came as something of a
shock. Clearly, we would need to begin the
process of identifying and evaluating
alternatives and it was essential that we could
maintain the high standard of cleanliness we
had become accustomed to.”
Fortunately, as the newly appointed UK
distributor for Microcare critical cleaning
products, D&S Ultra-Clean was able to
simplify the process for Cinch. Steve Jones,
managing director at D&S Ultra-Clean, takes
up the story. “We’d been in discussions with
Microcare for some time, and our in-house
testing indicated that the ‘Tergo’ cleaning
fluids performed well in our ‘Cleanseal’
machine. We knew Microcare was a wellestablished
company with many years’
experience in the development and supply of
cleaning fluids and this gave us great
confidence moving into what was a new
product area for us.”
D&S contacted Cinch to discuss ‘Tergo’ as a
viable alternative to Novec and to offer
evaluation trials. Cinch provided sample
components, and these were cleaned in
‘Tergo’ MCF at D&S Ultra-Clean’s
demonstration facility in Runcorn. “The trials
were carried out within a few days and the
samples returned to us. We found them all to
be 100% clean with a very bright finish and
no staining” commented Kevin Davis “The
positive trial results and the supporting
product information provided by D&S meant
we could move forward quickly and plan
replacement of the fluid.” Coincidentally,
Cinch were preparing to move to a new
facility and so it was decided to commission
the ‘Cleanseal’ machine on ‘Tergo’ MCF to
coincide with the move to the new premises.
“D&S Ultra-Clean carried out the conversion
for us and all the work was planned to fit in
with the move, so it was trouble free.”
Cinch has now been using ‘Tergo’ MCF for
several months and Kevin Davis is delighted
with how things are going. “We have been
able to maintain a very high standard of
cleanliness on all our parts, which was always
our primary objective but, as an added bonus,
we’re also benefitting from a dramatic
reduction in the running costs of the process
since switching to ‘Tergo’ MCF. Maintaining
cleaning performance and reducing costs has
been a real positive outcome.”
Finishing - July/August 2023