I must say good job to your creativity despite the shortcomings. lohwenli has addressed most of them.

But dude... 75% coolant??? Thats overkill. pure water is still a better heat conductor. I'm perplexed how you managed any temperature drop with that high a concentration of coolant.

Some things to correct from lohwenli's post:



water doesn't corrode. it's a transfer of ions in what you call in layman's term "battery effect". when two incompatible metals are combined in the same loop, you get galvanic corrosion.
in the case of our TS's system, the heatpipes are copper, but what is the "radiator" made of?

I've never heard about that less electrical conductivity however. Pure distilled water is non-conductive. Once you get a tiny contamination of another substance, it becomes slightly conductive already. Same goes for all other non-conductive fluids particularly those that contain mainly distilled water.



coolant additives actually help lubricate the pump to some extent. When you add a minimal amount, it hardly affects flow rates to a noticeable level. But 75%... oh dear.

This post has been edited by MetalZone: Jun 19 2007, 06:51 PM

copper and aluminium... the feared combination. You will definitely get galvanic corrosion even if you add coolant. coolant additives slows down the corrosion process only. I don't suggest you run this combo for a long time.

the pump max head pressure is what matters most, not the flowrate though. the 1500lph is rated at zero restriction and zero increase in pumping height. If your pump doesn't have good head pressure, with a restrictive loop, the resultant flowrate will be much lower.

yup this is the max head pressure. 2 metres is just average but okay lah for now.

We're always learning.
Ah... that makes sense now that i remember. Propylene Glycol and Ethylene Glycol are organic chemicals.

Bro TS... this is the problem that some beginner WC'ers assume and then turn back to air cooling. Galvanic corrosion is not because of water cooling. it is because u mix incompatible metals, which in this case, is copper and aluminium. Over time, the aluminium in the loop will get corroded by copper until you burst a hole right thru in one of the aluminium components. You learn this in chemistry in your school.
This is why manufacturers always make sure they use compatible metals in the same loop; like for example, copper, brass, and nickel are fine together. copper and aluminium are not. However, you still see some companies mixing them, but they plate it stuff like gold(zalman), zink+cobalt(swiftech), and also anodizing. But, none of these are guaranteed to prevent corrosion coz once there is a tiny hole in the plating or anodizing, you have already opened room for corrosion. Plating is more reliable as claimed by some manufacturers.

Nevertheless, this has been a good learning experience for you.

I myself said is was certainly creative for the TS to do this, and I applauded him for that.

I think u mixed up phase change and TEC(peltier) cooling. I believe what you are referring to 'using electricity' is TEC(Peltier).

It is the aluminium parts that get corroded mind you, that is your radiator. And then they get deposited on the copper block. Maybe you don't notice the deposits on the copper block because you empty your loop frequently. You don't notice corrosion doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it's probably slower. I don't encourage tempting fate and the laws of science. The old swiftech waterblock that had an anodized aluminium top was known to have visible corrosion within 18 months despite running coolants.

In the case where you have an aluminium radiator along with other copper components, worst case scenario, what will happen is on the inside of the aluminium radiator is it will continue to corrode the aluminium tubing walls until one day you have a hole(or holes) in the radiator.

While I applaud the TS for this project, I still don't advice running copper and aluminium in the same loop for a long term. I'm just giving advice to be cautious, not to discourage anyone.

Cheers.

Eh correction, its copper+zinc. and yeah its compatible with copper.
Copper radiators are actually brass tubes and plenumb chambers + copper fins.