I know I harp on this a fair bit, but at the expense of belaboring the point, rusted chains (from ultrasonic cleaning, etc) can actually stiffen up the chain cos of the debris in the rollers…
None of the links was stiff prior to the ultrasonic hot water cycle so it’s unlikely debris or rust played any part in some links stiffening up after. The more likely scenario was the hot water melted the wax in the rollers and re-distributed them in some of the rollers.
But if it was the wax getting into the rollers, wouldn’t the rollers be articulating freely from the waxed lubrication, rather than go stiff?
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It was not wax getting inside the rollers. My theory is that the wax already inside the rollers being evenly redistributed inside the rollers. It’s similar to the stiff chain phenomenon after waxing a chain.
I’d imagine any wax inside the rollers wouldn’t be the source of friction/resistance, and the stiff chains, immediately post wax, tends to regain its “flexibility” through prolonged use, so it might not be the wax that’s the cause.
But that said, I’ve not come across such an issue before, so maybe some of the other EC’ers might chime in with more useable info. Keen to get to the bottom of this myself. 
I don’t see how wax could cause the issue you’re seeing. Any place in the chain where two surfaces meet, will have wax between them as they should. Wax anywhere else won’t make the chain stiff. The typical stiffness after a fresh waxing goes away as the chain breaks in , so that should have happened with your chain if the issue was with wax. Since it didn’t go away, so I think that means that there’s either an issue with contaminants or with the chain surfaces themselves, an issue like corrosion or summat.
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My contention is the wax inside some of the rollers was not removed by my initial hot water ultrasonic cleaning cycles. Instead, the wax inside the rollers melted and stayed inside the rollers. When the chain was taken out and cooled, the wax that remained inside some of the rollers solidified and thereby stiffening those links, just like what happens to a chain after an immersion wax treatment.
I think you are WAY over-thinking this….unless you somehow have some wax that is immune to the laws of physics and chemistry. There is no way a wax is going to withstand 10 minutes of boiling water and u.trsonic cleaning.
If you are still convinced the problem is residual wax, you just need to buy a new chain at this point .
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I can be convinced the root cause of stiffness in a few rollers is due to residual wax not removed by the ultrasonic cleaning with hot water (water was boiling when being added but cooled down to 70s immediately after) and yet still accept that might be the best my process and equipment could do. They are not mutually exclusive.
Perhaps this IS the laws of psychics and chemistry at play. Let’s see here. The previously-used and waxed chain had no stiff links prior to the ultrasonic hot water treatment. After pouring the waxy water out of the US cleaned and rinsing the chain, there were a few links stiffer than they were - just like a newly waxed chain - as the chain cooled. Why is it so hard to believe there were still residual wax in some of the rollers?
Perhaps trying to get every last bit of old wax out of the chain is overthinking it. But thinking that there was residual wax in the rollers is not.
Just in case you are wondering, I am happy with the results of four hot water ultrasonic cycles at 180 seconds each. That chain has since been Rex 5+1 immersed and put on the bike.
Presumably there was no water inside the chain when there was just the old wax there, just sayin’…
Yes—and that response proves it (UFO drivetrain cleaner is of course a degreaser). I’ve had really good results with one boiling water bath and then one UFO drivetrain bath. But honestly I just hot wax these days almost entirely. Wax gets contaminated every so often anyway so I don’t really see the need for more work!