Cleaning rads and blocks?

Soldato
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Hello, getting ready for a new install and blocks and rads are heavily stained from using myhems blue dye and blue aurora fluid. Basic a few weeks ago rebuilt my system and flush all rads etc out with normal water and then used di for a final flush. It didn't work! The aurora fluid just turned blue (same colour as blue dye).
Is there any fluid that can be used to clean the w/c parts ?
Going to use red fulid as im moving onto a RIVE m/b and don't want the blue dye to affect the red colour
 
isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol) - you can buy this quite cheaply in a 70% alcohol 30% water mix, you could probably dilute this down a bit further too


you might need to use something like a pipe cleaner to get it all out of the tubing
 
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I thought alcohol and acrylic didn't like each other? (might be wrong)

I use white vinegar myself mixed with distilled water, (10 part water, 1 part vinegar) then fill the loop, run for a few hours, drain, fill with plain distilled, run for another half hour, done.
 
you are wrong... if anything I'd say vinegar is more aggressive than IPA on the components in a WC loop

(we spray IPA everywhere every morning / all through the day in the cleanroom at work and have loads of acrylic surfaces)

edit; if you left it soaking for hours on end you might have a problem but using IPA to clean takes a few minutes at most and then you drain it down and flush with water

edit edit; having done a bit more googling, some alcohols cause issues with acrylic but IPA does only if 100% IPA... water mixes are fine, particularly as I'd say to mix it down to 50/50
 
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Lol, just done the same searches and found the same thing.

Did find this from mlwood:

09-26-2010, 08:53 PM
People will probably scream at me but i have been working on this cleaning residue and dye out of a system.

1 to 2 drops of Bleach (strong bleach not thin rubbish) in a system with d-water , fill run for 20min to 1/2 hour. Do not run any longer than this tough.
(kills every thing and removes dye staining)

Rinse out

add 5 mls of Benzalkonium Chloride,1227 to d-water and flush for 1 hour again this will not only neutralize the bleach but all so kill of any thing left over.

Flush one more time and your sorted.

Youll have a clean loop, all dye stains removed and should run like a dream. Tested 8 times now on stained systems and works perfectly every time.

Benzalkonium Chloride,1227 = 50ml for £3.99
Bleech - 1/2 Ltr for £1.00

Amount of loops it will clean = bloody loads

People will argue bleach will destroy rubber ect ect but the amount you use and and length of time its in the system it will have no effect on any components at all. It wont destroy seals or glue on the reservoirs neither.

Dont use acid such as vinegar as this will not only eat away at the rubber but its to slow to do any quick cleaning and is useless in a water cooling loop Not only that is can mess up copper.
 
Thanks for the help guys. Im getting new tubing, always fit new tubing when i reinstall the rig hardware. Its just the internals of blocks have shade of blue to them and the rads even after flushing still have a hint of blue. I just don't want the new fluid to mix in anyway with the old blue.
So drain loop add isopropyl mix into loop. Let it run for around 5mins and then flush out. Fill loop with new fluid.
 
depending on how easy your loop is to fill / drain and how much fluid it takes, you could probably make 1 x 1 litre bottle of IPA last for 2 uses by mixing it with DI water, the first time you use it it will come out blue, the 2nd one should come out much less blue and then the final flush should come out pretty much clear
 
I used a few drops of bleach in my to flush through when I had my algae problem, then set about the cpu block with a tooth brush as it was the only thing I could fine to get in the grooves of the ek hf block. I had the loop setup in the sink so I could change the water flowing through almost at will. Although please don't put your psu in the sink ;)
 
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