corrosion ?

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21 Apr 2012
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I changed a fitting on my res earlier and noticed corrosion on the fitting i was replacing as well as loads of junk in the tubing and and water i drained.

Theres no aluminum parts in my loop ,all copper/brass/nickel plated brass , im using deionised water (halfords stuff) and 2-3 drops of biocide.

Im thinking its most likely the nickel plating on the fittings (EK compression fittings) from googling the problem since the cheapo 45° fittings i have seem to be fine ?

Will it affect the other components , i.e cpu and gpu blocks ?
Gonna be a couple of weeks before i can get new fittings :(
 
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No sorry, didnt think to take any !

It looked like a blueish colour limescale , and when i drained the loop there was loads of blueish crud in the water .
 
Interesting - assuming you didn't use any dye and that it's all new did you flush the rad out before putting it into your loop?
 
Theres no aluminum parts in my loop ,all copper/brass/nickel plated brass , im using deionised water (halfords stuff) and 2-3 drops of biocide.

In that case you will be getting corrosion, it just isn't going to occur as fast as if the was aluminium in there. Water likes to have minerals in it, if it doesn't it will simply leech particles from what's available, your loop will have copper/brass/nickel/tin particles mixed in with the water (plus potentially steel from the pump) and over time these will cause galvanic corrosion as the coolant has no inhibitor.

On this plus side at least the isn't any silver in there.
 
In that case you will be getting corrosion, it just isn't going to occur as fast as if the was aluminium in there. Water likes to have minerals in it, if it doesn't it will simply leech particles from what's available, your loop will have copper/brass/nickel/tin particles mixed in with the water (plus potentially steel from the pump) and over time these will cause galvanic corrosion as the coolant has no inhibitor.

On this plus side at least the isn't any silver in there.

+1

There is a research in Martinslab showing no matter how pure your water is, the plating will still be dissolved into the loop and make your loop fluid conductive.

If you do not have corrosion-suppressant in your loop, chances are that corrosion will happen.
 
Thanks for the info guys :)

Gonna replace the fittings and redo my loop next week hopefully when i get another rad to put in and i think im gonna splash out some mayhems premix this time .
 
The voltage needed to get considerable galvanic corrosion between brass/nickel or copper would be abnormally high even if the coolant has long become conductive for decent watercooling gear. So if the corrosion seems particularly bad on specific parts of the loop (like on some fittings but not on others) i would check to see if there are any wires or conductive points in contact with anything like the block or fittings or radiators.
 
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