Snedie's Loop / Mayhem's Aurora Time Trial

snedie · 26 Feb 2012 at 15:43

Abz Hussain said:
Yeh i will be doing a full build log once i got all the bits in, case needs to be modified for a XSPC monster RX360 rad and a RX240. Gonna try and do a different colour too. Everyone uses red, blue, white and some yellow..... will have to get creative lol.
How do you find the aurora with light reflection?

Definitely looks good with white lights in the case, but I'd test this out first before building your rig on this principle

I've just taken a load of photo's using a tri-pod and a high aperture setting, so I can really show this stuff off now...well I hope so, I haven't given the shots a good look yet

Abz Hussain · 26 Feb 2012 at 16:13

Look forward to it mate.

snedie · 26 Feb 2012 at 18:50

Will be doing the benchmarks in 1 hour. Just been taking some photo's and video's for the past two, you guys have no idea how difficult it is to photograph under 1 LED bulb, with a relatively cheap camera (£200~, 14MP) and only a halogen desk lamp as a dedicated light source which is over powered for the purpose.

Doing the benchmarks in 1 hour as right now I'm uploading 2GB worth of video's to YT, which ever of the three comes out the best after processing will be (possibly) chosen to go into the OP on this thread.

If anyone has some tips on taking decent photographs (Yes, I heard the photographers out their sigh deeply) on such a limited setup please email me at:

Code:

[email protected]

For now, take a peak at these and let me know what you think. You'll see in the first pic one of the methods I was trying to get a "softer" light from that halogen bulb. As it turns out tissue paper does actually begin to burn quite easily

Code:

[URL="http://photobucket.com/OcUK_Snedie_Aurora-Project_26-2-12"]OcUK_Snedie_Aurora-Project_26-2-12[/URL]

{edit} Running benchmarks now: As of 21:30

snedie · 26 Feb 2012 at 22:35

Slightly pooped myself a little

So, just had what could probably be described as a "geyser" of a leak

. When I was running the benchmarks, I got a tad bored and decided that I could "probably move the pump/res to a better location" without draining, or even shutting down the system.....well, I was wrong

I had a pipe come off slightly on the pump outlet, which subsequently began spurting water out onto my desk. Now, in my sloppiness and not tidying up, I just happened to have a jug to hand, so collecting the coolant wasn't to much of an issue, and I only lost around 60ml at the very most, more like 40ml if anything.

Got the benchmarks done anyway, luckily I was on the third pass on step 22/24 (or something), and the leak was slow enough that I could continue just long enough to finish. I'll compile the results now whilst the video of the slight drunken sobbing and re-filling of my system gets uploaded to youtube.

So there we have to folks, doesn't matter weather your drunk or not, don't mess with your loop with it turned on...or for that matter, even if it works, JUST LEAVE IT ALONE!

snedie · 26 Feb 2012 at 23:34

Week 8 results posted up guys. Please note that the "Average" temp is slightly biased on this test as the 5 minute cool off period was not observed. During the final pass of Heaven, my loop sprung a leak due my tinkering around with the res and pump. The "min" and "max" scales are both perfectly okay however.

snedie · 28 Feb 2012 at 12:09

A quick video I took of refilling the loop after the leak, and hoping that the rig still works

. Forgive my getting in the way for the first half of the video, not much option over camera placement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qW8Eb9S1pc

snedie · 4 Mar 2012 at 19:05

I'll be running the FINAL set of benchmarks tonight. For some reason, over the past several days the pearls in the aurora have settled on the inside of the tubing and res (no doubt in pump/rads too). I can't explain it, nothing has changed in the loop and the only major indecent was the leak last week in which 60% of the coolant was released and then put back in. The only additions to the loop was an extra rad and an EK cpu block with the restriction plates removed, and I don't see why either of these would cause the pearls to adhere to the tubing and res.

The "Aurora" effect hasn't completely gone, and there are still pearls suspended in the fluid, but the original "in your face" look has now been lost. I will try to grab some pictures, but as any of you who have followed this thread and seen the previous pictures will know, the camera I have available to me is very limiting, so any pictures that are taken may be very grainy, or dark, and certainly not a true representation of the EXACT appearance.

So there we have it guys, 9 weeks in and the coolant has finally given up. Considering that the official instructions for this coolant say 2 days, in my opinion 2 months+ is fantastic. I know Mayhem's are always working on better fluid's, so no doubt the next gen Aurora will be even better, I for one will be grabbing some on the release day.

Up next I will be trying another Aurora coolant, which one I have yet to decide. I'm thinking towards Galaxy Purple or Extinction green. I'll be flushing this coolant at some point this week, and depending on how the system flushes I may have to buy some more tubing and a new res if I can't clean them. From experience on how easy it was to clean the coolant from the tools used to fill the loop, I'm fairly confident that simply running a piece of tissue through each tube will easily clean the pearls out.

Thanks for watching the thread guys. I'll do some videos of the draining and cleaning, probably next weekend, or earlier if I only have a half week at work. A special thanks to Mike from Mayhem's for his support with this project, he has been a keen source of information when it comes to any upgrade options I had in mind, as well as some unique idea's of his own. I'll be creating a new Aurora Log thread once I rebuild the loop and select the next coolant

cobbly123 · 4 Mar 2012 at 20:25

Omg shame, you dont think it was anything to do with the leak was it? maybe a bit of contamination
look forward to next trial and Thankyou

snedie · 4 Mar 2012 at 20:36

cobbly123 said:
Omg shame, you dont think it was anything to do with the leak was it? maybe a bit of contamination
look forward to next trial and Thankyou

I really don't see how it could have got contaminated. The bowl and jug I drained into where clean, and the coolant itself has a biocide inhibitor anyway :confused:

. Flow rates are still just as fast with the extra rad and cpu block too, so that isn't an issue. I've been looking around the web and I can't find another instance of this coolant just loosing it's pearls by means of adhesion to the tubing. Nearly all other cases are due to people having some spot in their loop where coolant does not move. Another thought just occured to me, heat. On a few occasions I have been watching films and had all but 1 fan turned off (easily enough to keep temps under 40c), and I've forgotten to put them back on for gaming and temps on the GPU's have hit 60c, for no longer than a few minutes.

Only thing that springs to mind is exposure to air, which this coolant has done on numerous occasions over the past 2 months as I have adjusted the loop. Right now I'm looking for a new res and pump so that I can use the last of the Tharsis Red on a dedicated CPU loop as I think it just looks fantastic. I'm thinking Galaxy purple for the GPU loop, I just wish I could mount the system on its side so i can see the GPU blocks.

Mayhems · 4 Mar 2012 at 20:47

2 months isnt to bad in your system, The reason why it strips down is ware and tear the pearl as it has a coating on it that eventually wares off. if we make the coating to thick the pearl is to heavy , if its to thin that effect will happen sooner.

We are working on improving it more how ever this takes time

.

The largest killers of aurora are micro fins how ever were looking into this as well

.

snedie · 4 Mar 2012 at 21:02

mlwood37 said:
2 months isnt to bad in your system, The reason why it strips down is ware and tear the pearl as it has a coating on it that eventually wares off. if we make the coating to thick the pearl is to heavy , if its to thin that effect will happen sooner.

We are working on improving it more how ever this takes time .

The largest killers of aurora are micro fins how ever were looking into this as well .

I'm quite amazed that a coolant as complex as this can even last more than a week, let alone two months. As mentioned I'll be moving onto another Aurora coolant for the GPU's, and sticking with the left over Tharsis Red for the CPU as soon as I can get a second res and pump.

As and when the new Aurora style coolants get released, I'll be moving onto them as soon as I can.

Mayhems · 4 Mar 2012 at 23:41

lol it gonna take a long time as we looking at 4 different chemicals atm to help this work and they all need testing to find out which one works the best.

Bubo · 5 Mar 2012 at 10:03

snedie said:
I've been looking around the web and I can't find another instance of this coolant just loosing it's pearls by means of adhesion to the tubing. Nearly all other cases are due to people having some spot in their loop where coolant does not move.

My view is that in your tubes you are most likely to have laminar flow. With laminar flow the layer of water in direct contact with the tube does not actually move at all, it is a stationary boundary layer. Therefore it presents a surface for any fine mulch/sludge to adhere to, which is what the pearl looks like it breaks down into due to mechanical wear. If you were to pinch your tubes with your finger you would probably find the sludge which has stuck to them comes away, this is because you are reducing the laminar flow effect, i.e. creating turbulence, so that is it temporalily dislodged. I would also say that it probably isn't all stuck to your tubes, that will probably be only some of it. I suspect the vast majority will be collecting in a dead spot in your rad or somewhere like that, as you have said. Either that or it is such a fine sludge that you can't actually distinguish it as recognisable pieces any more, and it just flows around the loop as an even "mist".

snedie · 7 Mar 2012 at 20:21

Bubo said:
My view is that in your tubes you are most likely to have laminar flow. With laminar flow the layer of water in direct contact with the tube does not actually move at all, it is a stationary boundary layer. Therefore it presents a surface for any fine mulch/sludge to adhere to, which is what the pearl looks like it breaks down into due to mechanical wear. If you were to pinch your tubes with your finger you would probably find the sludge which has stuck to them comes away, this is because you are reducing the laminar flow effect, i.e. creating turbulence, so that is it temporalily dislodged. I would also say that it probably isn't all stuck to your tubes, that will probably be only some of it. I suspect the vast majority will be collecting in a dead spot in your rad or somewhere like that, as you have said. Either that or it is such a fine sludge that you can't actually distinguish it as recognisable pieces any more, and it just flows around the loop as an even "mist".

I'll be able to confirm if it's deposited on the tubing on Monday when I build in a dedicated CPU loop, I'm just waiting on parts right now. I did try to "pinch" all of the tubes individually, but as far as I can tell by eye it has had no effect. I think MlWood has it spot on really in that the coating on the pearls eventually wears off. Depending on the nature of the "raw pearl" it could become adhesive to a minor effect.

Also, my apologies for not getting these benchmark results posted yet. I've had quite a busy week at work. I have tomorrow off so I'll be getting everything done then

snedie · 10 Mar 2012 at 16:17

Okay guys, whilst tinkering with my OS yesterday I accidentally destroyed my RAID array. This had the data for the final Aurora run on it, and I've now rebuilt the loop, as such I can't post up the official results.

From what I saw on the OSD, it's no different to the previous results.

Thanks for watching guys. I'll be starting a second thread for another Aurora Coolant next week, I just need to decide which one to choose between Extinction Green and Galaxy Purple

Also just a side note about this coolant, it doesn't taste very nice...I had to blow air through my loop to get the coolant out to an extent I could begin detaching hoses, in the process I went to take a breath and as I released the pressure the coolant washed back

. Suffice to say, don't get this stuff in your mouth....

snedie · 10 Mar 2012 at 16:39

Just been reviewing the video's I made of the tear down and I forgot to mention one important thing.....a small growth of mould in the res.

I finally managed to get the res opened, with some considerable force I might add, and where there has been an air pocket for the past couple weeks a small patch of green mould had started to grow. Now I'm fairly confident this was mould, but due to my skin conditions I can't take any chances with the stuff and I immediately put the res into a bowl of bleach.

So, an important thing to note then, not just with this coolant but with any, do not leave an air pocket in the res if you can help it. If you do, keep an eye on it.