1 year loop maintenance

[VanGoghComplex]

Okay all, I've had my little watercooling loop running for about a year and I'm in love.

I'm running soft tubing with distilled water and biocide. I did a coolant flush earlier this month in order to add some QDC fittings and the old water came out clean and clear.

Later this week I'm upgrading to a Kaby Lake from an old 1150, so new mobo... I'll be tearing everything out.

Would it be a good idea at this point to do any preventative maintenance type cleaning? Like a 24 hour vinegar flush or something? Or would it be a waste of time?

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah I would do the cleaning since you'll be there anyways. Won't hurt and you'll be covering your bases. I vote go for it.

 

[pendragon1]

I don't know if id go as long as 24 hrs but yeah a flush while its apart isn't a bad idea.

 

[rgMekanic]

If I was tearing it all apart anyway I'd replace my tubing.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

If I was tearing it all apart anyway I'd replace my tubing.

Care to explain? Why do you think new tubing would be required after a year (or ever?)

It might get a little stiffer with age as it loses plasticiser, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[rgMekanic]

Care to explain? Why do you think new tubing would be required after a year (or ever?)

It might get a little stiffer with age as it loses plasticiser, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Usually at that point a lot of tubing is starting to get a bit cloudy or yellowing, it's not a necessity, just an asthetic thing for $15 or so

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Usually at that point a lot of tubing is starting to get a bit cloudy or yellowing, it's not a necessity, just an asthetic thing for $15 or so

Ahhh, I see. I use opaque black tubing in mine, so that is unlikely to be an issue.

My feeling is that the more plasticiser escapes the better. The tubing will be stiffer in the system and once flushed and replaced, the fluid is less likely to accumulate more gunk over time.

 

[Bandalo]

Care to explain? Why do you think new tubing would be required after a year (or ever?)

It might get a little stiffer with age as it loses plasticiser, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

It's also a good idea depending on your fittings. I'd never trust tubing that had been pulled off a compression fitting after being installed for a while. It'll never seal quite as well as new tubing. I might do it for just one fitting, but if I was going to pull the system apart, it'll always be new tubing.

 

[Chapeau]

I also vote for new tubing - There's no guarantee that plastisizer leaking decreases after a certain period. It may in fact speed up as it degrades. (I don't know whether this is the case - but I'm also not sure that you "use up" an amount of plastisizer as it leaches out!)

The major point of failure would be a fluid leak so new tubing is a must for me for basically all loop mods. It's cheap after all - I'd be kicking myself for saving a few cents when everything inside is so pricey.

Flush with distilled water: vinegar is a good household cleaner for sure - but it's a good cleaner because it is reactive. You wouldn't want to put an acid into your loop ( this will react even with nickel plating ) deliberately. For specific instances (radiators) an acid is recommended, but that is for a particular problem only (flux).

 

[VanGoghComplex]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Got new tubing on order. I'll go ahead and do a longer distilled water flush through all my components while they're out of the case.

I'd like to flush my rads with vinegar, but one of my rads has my pump in it; it's a Swifty combo unit. Will vinegar hurt it? I can't remove the pump for the flush; it won't be a sealed unit without it.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Got new tubing on order. I'll go ahead and do a longer distilled water flush through all my components while they're out of the case.

I'd like to flush my rads with vinegar, but one of my rads has my pump in it; it's a Swifty combo unit. Will vinegar hurt it? I can't remove the pump for the flush; it won't be a sealed unit without it.

That really isn't necessary.

The vinegar flush is done by many before first time use to remove flux to avoid it coming off and gunking up the loop over time.

My thoughts would be that at the one year mark, whatever flux was in there has probably mostly come off already anyway. I'd just do a distilled water flush and call it a day.

Only replace the tubing if you are breaking into the loop, or if you have clear tubing you want to get out of there before it turns cloudy. If you have opaque tubing, that you are not planning on disconnecting from your fittings, I'd just leave it in place.

 

[VanGoghComplex]

That really isn't necessary.

The vinegar flush is done by many before first time use to remove flux to avoid it coming off and gunking up the loop over time.

My thoughts would be that at the one year mark, whatever flux was in there has probably mostly come off already anyway. I'd just do a distilled water flush and call it a day.

Only replace the tubing if you are breaking into the loop, or if you have clear tubing you want to get out of there before it turns cloudy. If you have opaque tubing, that you are not planning on disconnecting from your fittings, I'd just leave it in place.

Yeah, I'm definitely breaking into the loop (already have done). There's no other way to get it all out of my case.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Yeah, I'm definitely breaking into the loop (already have done). There's no other way to get it all out of my case.

Ahh.

Last time I cleaned mine I just flushed it in place. Drained it through my drain port, filled it up with clean distilled water, flushed it for a few hours, drained it again, filled it up again, flushed it for a few hours, and then drained it and filled it a third time and flushed for a few hours before doing the final refill with new coolant.

 

[VanGoghComplex]

Ahh.

Last time I cleaned mine I just flushed it in place. Drained it through my drain port, filled it up with clean distilled water, flushed it for a few hours, drained it again, filled it up again, flushed it for a few hours, and then drained it and filled it a third time and flushed for a few hours before doing the final refill with new coolant.

I may go that route too. One of the upgrades that's going in on this round is a lowest-point drain port, which my loop did not have prior.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I may go that route too. One of the upgrades that's going in on this round is a lowest-point drain port, which my loop did not have prior.

Ahh yes I built one of those into my loop from the start.

I have a bleed port up top (which I don't use because I've occasionally had built up pressure in the loop shoot liquid out of it when opened, which was bad ) a drain port on the bottom and a fill port on top of my reservoir.

I can imagine it would be difficult without the drain port. How have you been draining it without that port?

 

[thesmokingman]

If I was tearing it all apart anyway I'd replace my tubing.

Maybe... if after inspection the tubing was lined white with plasticizer or there was some other problem. If neither exists, I won't be blowing 26 bucks for another set of Primo Advanced. Some of my tubing is years old, 4-5 now. I have not found my old tubing to be any harder, in fact the old non-plasticized Primo is much more pliable than the hard new stuff. Also, its a pain in the ass to swap out all new tubing. I'd have to have a damn good reason to do it.

 

[VanGoghComplex]

Ahh yes I built one of those into my loop from the start.

I have a bleed port up top (which I don't use because I've occasionally had built up pressure in the loop shoot liquid out of it when opened, which was bad ) a drain port on the bottom and a fill port on top of my reservoir.

I can imagine it would be difficult without the drain port. How have you been draining it without that port?

The hard way. XD

My Swifty combo unit has a port on top which I've affixed a ball valve to, so that was my fill and drain port for this year. When it was time to drain, I'd flip the system upside down, attach a length of tubing heading into a bucket, crack open that valve and then slowly unscrew one of the 90° rotaries on my GPU block, letting some air in.

It worked, but man was it a pain.

 

[VanGoghComplex]

Midway! Time for pictures!

This time around I'm using Primochill. It may just be that the old XSPC FLX tubing was old, but the Primochill looks... vibrant. Almost like it's glass, which is cool. We'll see how it holds up.

Here's the first run... the aforementioned drain valve can be seen. That 90 on the GPU is actually the lowest point in my loop.

Swifty 240 up top and the second tube run... Decided to use a 45° on the rad this time for a smaller and less stressful bend.

And a close-up of the aforementioned:

My (expensive!) Primochill tubing came with a couple little bottles of additive. One's called Sysprep, which is to be added to a gallon of water to make a cleaning flush solution. Anyone used it, and have any thoughts?

The other is some stuff called Utopia. It's an anti-corrosive/biocide/etc all in one. I was going to use a drop of PT Nuke and a drop of Dawn. Anyone ever used Utopia for good or ill?

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

My (expensive!) Primochill tubing came with a couple little bottles of additive. One's called Sysprep, which is to be added to a gallon of water to make a cleaning flush solution. Anyone used it, and have any thoughts?

My Primochill Advanced LRT tubing came with that as well.

I flushed with it before filling just because I had it (why not?) but I'm not convinced it actually did anything.

 

[thesmokingman]

Sysprep is a cleaner, it works pretty good especially for removing plasticizer on tubes. Remember not log ago the plasticizer issue with the LRT tubing? They brought out Sysprep then to deal with their poor tubing before it was reformulated. The other bottle is the anti corrosive and biological additive and that is the best thing they give you.

 

[Chapeau]

Not that it helps you much - but I found mayhems to be cheaper than Primochill and the clear is excellent. (FYI I'm in Australia so everything is price inflated. It could be that mayhems isn't as readily available over there)
Mayhems also happen to manufacture the cooling fluid range for EK so they play well together.

 

[VanGoghComplex]

So I've removed the MCP30 (stock DDC pump) from my Swifty combo unit:

The little bit of wiring there is a plug for the LEDs which illuminate the reservoir window:

That plugs into a little branch that comes off the pump power wiring loom:

...and soldered inline on that loom is a little PCB with a single surface mount component:

I'm not sure what it is. I'd like to find out though. I intend to remove the little LED wiring harness and attach it to the harness of my new pump, then heat shrink back over that little PCB. It looks like the LED is on the line side of the PCB, so I don't think I need whatever it is for the LEDs...

Any ideas on what that is? =)

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I'm not sure what it is. I'd like to find out though. I intend to remove the little LED wiring harness and attach it to the harness of my new pump, then heat shrink back over that little PCB. It looks like the LED is on the line side of the PCB, so I don't think I need whatever it is for the LEDs...

Any ideas on what that is? =)

I'm not a surface mount component expert, but that looks like a resistor to me. Could be they are trying to drop the voltage a little (make the LED less bright or slow the pump down a bit?) I wouldn't mess with it, they probably put it there for good reason (LED's burning out, or too much voltage hitting the pump or something)

It's an unusual way of adding a resistor though. I would just have soldered a traditional resistor with legs to the wire and covered it in shrink tubing...

 

[VanGoghComplex]

I'm not a surface mount component expert, but that looks like a resistor to me. Could be they are trying to drop the voltage a little (make the LED less bright or slow the pump down a bit?) I wouldn't mess with it, they probably put it there for good reason (LED's burning out, or too much voltage hitting the pump or something)

It's an unusual way of adding a resistor though. I would just have soldered a traditional resistor with legs to the wire and covered it in shrink tubing...

Yeah, I put my meter on it and there's no resistance at all. The LEDs are on the line side of it though, so they're getting the full 12v. Whatever it is, it's only in front of the pump.

I'll test out the LEDs before wiring them up permanently, but I'd love to keep this MCP30 handy for something. Maybe to update my outboard filler rig.