Watering down Watercoolant

Hewi001

Hewi001

Hewi001

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19 Sep 2009
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Hi All,
Sorry if someone has posted this on the topics previous but ive not been able to find an answer, i have a watercooled cpu at the moment and due to a few moves here and there the resevoir is starting to get low, i am gonna get some new fluid by wont be able to for a week or 2, can i top the current level up with normal water?!

Nice one.
 
Yes but running on tap water risks corrroding your blocks and leaving potental deposits. If you cant get more coolant, try distilled water, a few pence at Tesco's.
 
In theory yes - BUT mixing anything with a pre-mixed coolant (feser, PrimoChill etc) can have very unexpeced results.

Just use colour tube and the purest water you can get your hands on.
A friend that works in a hospital, Uni or lab can be very handy at times like these

The rest of use use double distilled>distilled>FeserAqua>deionized (in order of quality/pH balance)
 
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[OFF TOPIC]
DI or de ionisded is NOT the same as distilled.
DI is filtered - it still have lot's of non-charged particals an organic matter.
But I accept if you change your coolant yearly and add some nuke/kill coil is good enough.

@ DavyBoy - one of the ladies at work is a homeopath and has her own mini distiller.
But got a tip for a mate of mine that's into live steam engine models/astronomy
(they use distilled water too due to microbore copper tubes/mirror cleaning) and checked some of their forum for more info.
And before anyone ones says how sad - I'm sure they would consider our community as equally socially elite ;)

Most of them use the water from condensing tumble triers or dehumidifers (cleaning res first).
You just need to boil it to kill any bugs - not an issue in steam engines.
And it's very easy to set up a home still to get ddH20 if you NEED the near best for pennies
Steel pressure cooker with the valve removed works a treat :D
[/OT]

If you have a friendly old school dentist near you it's a great place to get distilled water.
the new one's all use reverse osmosis / DI which is almost as good in a clean loop - but not so good as a 'mixer'
 
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I've designed DI/RO+polisher systems and flocculant effluent to EA standards - 0.1µS water cleaning plants from electro plating factories to glass magnetrons, and know more about biocontaminants, TDS, Turbidity, PH & conductivity etal than any sane person would ever want to. Believe me when I say all this fuss for a pc water loop is complete and utter bs. A standard bottle of DI from Halfrauds is about 10x more than adequate. Just add a drop or two Pt_nuke per litre and possibly some Pentosin-G12 if the loop is bimetallic. Then find something more important to worry about.
 
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I agree - DI is adequate, but is distilled is slightly better.
Less contaminants better performance (even if it only 0.5C for a quad at load)
The intel stock cooler is adequate, a TRUE is overkill and water loop is even more so.

But the OP is intrested in what to add to a pre-mixed solution.
I've never used one - so for the sake of 1-2 quid it's worth getting the purest mixer that all I'm saying
 
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LoL, Halfrauds!! :D

I had intended on just using DI water with a couple drops of PT Nuke for my loop as WJA96 told me that this would be my best bet.

Sorry for the thread hijack op, I won't do it again! :P
 
shadowscotland said:
I agree - DI is adequate, but is distilled is slightly better.
Less contaminants better performance (even if it only 0.5C for a quad at load)
The intel stock cooler is adequate, a TRUE is overkill and water loop is even more so.

But the OP is intrested in what to add to a pre-mixed solution.
I've never used one - so for the sake of 1-2 quid it's worth getting the purest mixer that all I'm saying
Click to expand...

You're kinda making my point.

dQ = m c dT.

Specific heat capacity of pure water at 0.01 °C = 4210 J/kgK ~ 0.5 µS/cm
Specific heat capacity of sea water at 0 °C salinity 35 g/kg = 3985 J/kgK ~ 56000 µS/cm

For 1kg of water heated by a cpu at 200 J/s.

200/4210 = 0.047C increase with pure water.
200/3985 = 0.050C increase with sea water.

The difference in specific heat capacity from distilled to deionised water over a few microsiemens (µS) is minuscule. Even with sea water, its capacity to remove energy is reduced by only 5%. Of course it depends on system parameters, but an increase of 0.5C equilibrium temperature delta would probably be with a totally different or mixed coolant medium. In fact something to watch out for are mixtures often based on ethylene glycol (high % by volume) which WILL have substantially lower SHC.
 
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Thanks for the figures fornowagain - didn't realise is was that close *hangs head*
With nuke taking care of the mineral differances as you said de-ionised is more that good enought for a new loop.

Only question now is has anyone actually topped up a pre-mix?
And which brand is Hewi001 using?
 
Is it reasonable to assume that if water level has dropped over time in a premixed coolant system, that the reduction in volume is pure water evaporating through the tubing, such that the concentration of dye/additives in the remaining coolant has increased, or is it more likely that some of the dye will also have evapourated? If it is just water which has gone then topping up with distailled or de-ionised will actually return you to the original water-dye concentration. However, I personally don't see it as a problem either way, just topping up with DI/Distilled over the period between major maintenance would be fine as far as I'm concerned. When you buy a stand alone dye to add to distilled it doesn't say "you must add exactly 0.01ml", it will just say add a couple of drops, its not as if there is going to be a sudden chemical reaction if you stray 0.0001% above or below some magic concentration limit.
 
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