Coolant :S

ubersonic

ubersonic

ubersonic

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Hi all, I have recently come back to water cooling after being "out of the loop" (heh) for some time, the fittings/blocks/etc now are night and day superior to what I remember using just a few years ago but one thing that has surprised me is the coolant. I have currently just got water in the new loop I built as once I was sure it was leak free I planned on vac'ing it out and replacing with a proper coolant, however I have seen people on the forum recommending different fluids to each other and it confused me because I was just planning on running engine coolant.

Some of the fluids I see are like £10 and up for a litre and only last a year or so whereas Toyota long life lasts 5 years, works out at <£1 a litre once diluted, helps prevent corrosion, is a cool red colour and generally speaking did the job fine in my old loop for like 3 years.

Am I missing something?
 
I wouldn't use something designed for car engines in a watercooling loop. Pre mixed coolants for PC use are specially designed to work with watercooling components. To prevent corrosion of metal parts, degradation of tubing and ensure that algae and other nasties don't start growing. None of that can be guaranteed with other fluids.

An alternative to pre mixed is to use distilled/deionised water, with a silver kill coil and biocide.
 
glycol based coolants have a marginally lower heat capacity than regular distilled water

PC specific coolants are distilled water usually with an anti-bacterial agent and some sort of corrosion inhibitor (just like car coolant) but no anti-freeze - it's the antifreeze that lowers the heat transfer capabilities of the fluid... the antifreeze itself also kills things so it doesn't have a seperate biocide

but then again you can just dilute the **** out of car coolant and it's within a small % of the same

there is also a chance that some car coolants will have stuff in them that don't play nicely with PC components - but from what I've read on other forums the Toyota red comes highly recommended

basically people are paying a high price for some comfort factor and a fancy dye

edit: and a lot of PC watercooling fluids also have glycol in them anyway but in lower concentrations than would be recommended for car use
 
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andybird123 said:
basically people are paying a high price for some comfort factor and a fancy dye
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I agree. If you want to get an old loop up and running cheaply as possible, then might be worth a punt. But for a few quid, you can get the proper stuff (and in a fancy colour) if that floats your boat :P
 
Toothy1911 said:
I wouldn't use something designed for car engines in a watercooling loop. Pre mixed coolants for PC use are specially designed to work with watercooling components. To prevent corrosion of metal parts, degradation of tubing and ensure that algae and other nasties don't start growing. None of that can be guaranteed with other fluids.

An alternative to pre mixed is to use distilled/deionised water, with a silver kill coil and biocide.
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The thing that puzzles me though, is that engine coolant is "specially designed to work with watercooling components. To prevent corrosion of metal parts, degradation of tubing and ensure that algae and other nasties don't start growing." hence why people used to use it in loops with mixed metals.

The way some information goes on about it you would think liquid cooling is a brand new invention whereas its been used in general for centuries and in I.T for 30+ years. Is the something odd about the newer gen of water cooling components that means they can't be used with glycol based coolant or something? :S


andybird123 said:
/snip
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Thanks dude, pretty much what I expected.
 
ubersonic said:
Is the something odd about the newer gen of water cooling components that means they can't be used with glycol based coolant or something? :S
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quite a few of the PC watercooling parts companies will only hold a warranty if you use THEIR coolant, and start saying that if you didn't that it's the other stuff that ruined the parts

also a couple of reviews of particular coolants will show that brand X runs 1-2 degrees cooler than brand Y so obviously must be worth spending 10 times as much on

a lot of people just run distilled water with a biocide and don't have any problems

equally, a lot of PC specific coolants DO contain glycol so that can't be it either

that other thing to be careful of is that the coolant isn't acidic as this is generally bad news for PC components too - toyota red has a PH of 7.6 so this is also fine, but keep it topped up with DI and don't let it evaporate or crystals of the salts they use for corrosion inhibition might start to form somewhere like on the walls of the reservoir which I've seen pics of before

car coolants also tend to be toxic and a lot of PC coolants aren't (so much) which might be a concern if you have kids or pets
 
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Could someone arbitrarily claim one coolant "lasts" longer than another in the basis it has a higher percentage of glycol in it compared to another brand?
 
both ethylene and propylene glycol are biodegradable, though the exact rate under given circumstances I don't think you could just assume, you would need to test a fluid with the same concentration over an extended period to see what sort of rate of break down occured

propylene glycol breaks down in the environment in a matter of hours and ethylene takes a few weeks... I think propylene glycol also needs to be in higher concentrations to be an effective antibacterial agent too, like definitely more than 20%
 
Well ek use propylene glycol and it 8 to 10% of propylene glycol the rest water, ethylene glycol is a poison which is used in feser (they have 15% in there mix) and then we use vegetable extract (15 to 35% depending on which fluid you are using). Then there is all so Potassium Formate which you get away with just using 5% mix and there are a few more on top of that ...
 
mlwood37 said:
Well ek use propylene glycol and it 8 to 10% of propylene glycol the rest water, ethylene glycol is a poison which is used in feser (they have 15% in there mix) and then we use vegetable extract (15 to 35% depending on which fluid you are using). Then there is all so Potassium Formate which you get away with just using 5% mix and there are a few more on top of that ...
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my coolant uses ethylene glycol but its not feser, it seems more common than propylene glycol. just don't drink it and you should be fine :D
 
8-10% propylene glycol is doing nothing to stop growth, in fact I was always told that in solutions below 20% it starts acting as food (and is infact used IN FOOD for people)... the only test data I can find on it being effective as an antibacterial or microbial agent is in mixes above 30%

personally, I like my disinfectants to be poisonous, as people are easy to kill, bacteria et al are generally more difficult

as spixel mentions, I personally don't plan on drinking from my PC so it's not much of an issue.
 
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