Flushing a Radiator - Why?

VortX

VortX

VortX

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As above. I have purchased a new XSPC RX360 rad, brand new, why do people flush radiators even though they are brand new? Why should I do the same?

Thanks.
 
They tend to have flux inside from the soldering process. Either you flush it to get rid of this, or it comes loose when you put it into your watercooling loop and the little bits of flux proceed to damage your pump.
 
JonJ678 said:
They tend to have flux inside from the soldering process. Either you flush it to get rid of this, or it comes loose when you put it into your watercooling loop and the little bits of flux proceed to damage your pump.
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Thanks for the quick reply, what do you recommend I flush the rad with then?
 
I flushed mine with warm tap water,then finished flushing it with deionized water.

Radiators as far as i know now use a water soluble flux?

So warm water should be good enough.
 
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Spirit vinegar would be better no? I saw someone on here use that and got great results, keep flushing until the vinegar comes out clear again.
 
LeJosh said:
Spirit vinegar would be better no? I saw someone on here use that and got great results, keep flushing until the vinegar comes out clear again.
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I'm pretty sure that there is no need to use vinegar anymore as the flux is water soluble.
 
Copper doesn't rust mate, as it isn't made of iron.

The flux used was water insoluble a while ago, so vinegar was required. The fluxes have been water soluble for some time now (couple of years maybe?), so hot water/dilute vinegar will now do fine. Boiling water from the kettle followed by deionised is probably fine if you're in a soft water area. Hard water would tend to coat the inside of the radiator with limescale, which would suck.

I'm in a very hard water area, so get bottles of deionised water, microwave them and use that. Fill with hot water, give it a shake, leave it for a while, shake again, and empty. Or some variant of this. Don't be too surprised if it comes out clear the first time though, I've read in a few places that xspc appear to flux their radiators before sale.
 
I'll try and get some deionized water, and just rise with boiling hot water + white vinegar, then flush through with deionized water. :)

Thanks for the help :).
 
My RX360 came out clean by using kettle boiled water and vinegar on the second rinse. So I wouldn't expect much to come out :)
 
I've attempted to flush my XSPC RX480 the other day using boiling water from the kettle.

I left the water in there for about 20 minutes, and I shook the rad quite aggressively to for some time, and when I emptied it out the water was as clear as it was when I put it in, so I repeated this process a further 3 times, and each time the results were identical.

This made me think that maybe they've started flushing rads out in the factory?

I'm pretty sure I read on here that Thermochill have started flushing their rads out, if it wasn't here it was on another forum.
 
Some rads are factory flushed such as the EK rads,my XSPC was the same nothing but clear water when flushing it.
 
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