Cleaning water cooling loop?

[aphasia]

picked up and extra block for my water loop tho after looking at my tubing, considering doing a flush & clean.

wondering what i should add to the loop to flush (have no interest at the moment of pulling loop apart and cleaning parts individually) it clean. just judging by the tubing (clear primochil LRT), which is a little cloudy, (the breaking down of the plastiser?) considering draining then adding fresh distilled water mixed the lemon juice. thought i'd run that mix for a day then flushing again a couple of times with just distilled.

the loop has a mix of metals;
-3 brass/copper radiators (2x swiftech, 1x magicool)
-copper cpu block (XSPC)
-EK (EN) nickel plated chipset block
-EK (EN) nickel plated gpu block (new block i'll be adding)
-various fittings (combo of koolance QDC's and Bitspower compression)
-2 strips of silver.

is a solution of distilled + lemon juice a wise method of cleaning the loop or should i consider a different method?

 

[Tsumi]

I've heard vinegar is a good way to help clean blocks, but not sure what that would do to the tubing.

 

[aphasia]

I've heard vinegar is a good way to help clean blocks, but not sure what that would do to the tubing.

yeah i've used vinegar on individual parts tho if left to soak, it tends to stain fittings. i noticed this on some of my bitspower compression's & koolance QDC's. i'm guessing anything nickel plated doesn't react well to prolonged exposure to vinegar.

no idea how vinegar would behave with tubing either.

was hoping the acid in lemon juice (saw clip youboob, works wonders with copper) would remove the build-up of crap that makes clear tubing go cloudy.

my main worry is the nickel plating on my EK blocks. they all have the newer EN process tho i still worry if it will damage it, especially considering EK shit track record with their older nickel plating.

 

[Arcygenical]

Clear tubing clouds, often, because it absorbs water... It may be a film on the inside, but even scrubbed with a brush, many brands stay cloudy.

I've run straight up vinegar in a loop for a day or two, then disconnected the pump from the flow, placed the line running to the pump's inlet in the drain, and the line from the pump's outlet to a 1/2" to faucet hose adapter... Then run the hottest house water I possibly could through the loop at full pressure. Really takes a lot of crap out. Make sure you're using clamps

 

[aphasia]

Clear tubing clouds, often, because it absorbs water... It may be a film on the inside, but even scrubbed with a brush, many brands stay cloudy.

I've run straight up vinegar in a loop for a day or two, then disconnected the pump from the flow, placed the line running to the pump's inlet in the drain, and the line from the pump's outlet to a 1/2" to faucet hose adapter... Then run the hottest house water I possibly could through the loop at full pressure. Really takes a lot of crap out. Make sure you're using clamps

i remember someone here (i think?) mention the cloudiness in tubing, regardless of the make (tygon, primochil, clear flex etc) is a result of the 'plasticiser' leaching out/breaking down. whether that's due to temperature, fluid/additives or light, not sure.

i've run 2 lots of tubing, 'clearflex' & 'primochil' and both go cloudy after a time, tho primochil seems more resistant. i've used the cheaper clearflex for years before this build however i didn't notice the effect on tubing as i used the swiftech 'green gunk' additive. once you've had that stuff running in the loop, almost impossible to clean out (not that it mattered as clearflex is dirt cheap).

i did try cleaning out the clearflex (1st lot of tubing for my current build tho dumped it later in favour of primochil) by soaking in tub of vinegar overnight. didn't return tubing to original clarity so tried a wire coat hanger with paper towel. it did remove the cloudy film but its way to time consuming to clean the tubing in this manner.

from my understanding, vinegar is ideal for killing organic material but for cleaning up the milky film, not so great.

the only other thing i can think of (aside from the citric acid in lemon juice) to clean the loop is descaling fluid used in consumer & industrial coffee machines. tho the prime purpose of coffee descaler is to remove limescale (as a result of 'hard water'), one of the primary ingredients in descaler is citric acid. i might try a test with some descaler (citric acid) in a weak solution on some old tubing. have read that descaler in a strong enough solution can cause pitting on nickel plating tho.

any other thoughts on this?

 

[aphasia]

thought i'd post an update to my WC loop cleaning exercise. to re-cap, i wanted a way to clean my loop without pulling the thing apart and cleaning each section individually or just tossing the tubing all together and cutting new sections. decent tubing isn't cheap (the primochill LRT is $9 a meter locally) plus breaking down the loop drastically increases the system down-time.

as i do a fair amount of maintenance on consumer & industrial coffee machines, decided to perform a test with some of my descaling fluid. my initial findings are promising.

i didn't have the best test subject as the section of tube wasn't that cloudy. i believe this section was only on my loop for maybe a month. despite this it's evident that the tube has undergone some 'dulling' of the transparency of the tubing. when it comes time to attack my loop, i'll post better 'before' & 'after' pics.

BEFORE
the 'TOP/LEFT' is the virgin unused PrimoChill 1/2ID - 3/4OD tube. The 'BOTTOM/RIGHT' is the used section i pulled from my loop a few months ago. it's fairly clear that the text isn't as legible or clear thru the used tube as it is thru the unused section.

AFTER
again the 'TOP/LEFT' is the new tubing and the 'BOTTOM/RIGHT' is the older test subject after the clean.

other than the deformation caused by the compression fitting at the top of the used tube, the clarity is identical to the unused tubing.

i used approx 40-50ml of descaling fluid mixed with cold tap water (about 5 litres) in a medium sized cooktop pot. i left it to soak for 8-12hrs. afterwards i rinsed the tube in hot water from the tap.

overall i'm happy with the result. my only concern now is how the descale cleaner (which is mainly citric acid) reacts with nickel plating. to that end i've dropped one of my cheap enzotech 1/2ID compression fittings into the same pot to see what happens. i'll leave it for the same amount of time (8-12hrs) as i did with the tubing. if there is no obvious damage (pitting or flaking) to the fitting, i'll try it in my loop. obviously this test doesn't properly emulate the pressure and flow rate in a water cooling loop but when descaling, you only leave the mixture in for 40-60mins before rinsing. i imagine 2 complete fill & rinses with distilled water should be sufficient to totally flush the descaler.

earlier on in my build when i used cheap 'clearflex' tubing (see in link below), clouding was particularly bad. after reassembling my case after powdercoating, i washed the tubing in hot soapy water and rinsed with vinegar then distilled. when it was wet, it looked ok but after drying the cloudy film remained. not sure if it was due to poor cleaning technique or just due to the shit nature of the cheapo 'clearflex' tubing...

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1621835&page=6

if all goes well, think i've found a fairly painless way of maintaining my water loop. in any case i'll be posting updates till i complete the process for those of you interested.

 

[Karlitos]

Are you done testing this method? I am very interested in the results. I hope they are positive.

 

[grandpatzer]

Clear tubing clouds, often, because it absorbs water... It may be a film on the inside, but even scrubbed with a brush, many brands stay cloudy.

I've run straight up vinegar in a loop for a day or two, then disconnected the pump from the flow, placed the line running to the pump's inlet in the drain, and the line from the pump's outlet to a 1/2" to faucet hose adapter... Then run the hottest house water I possibly could through the loop at full pressure. Really takes a lot of crap out. Make sure you're using clamps

Hmm I have considered running vinegar in my system but worried for the Acryl blocks, pump and Masterkleer/Tygon tubing.

But for you it worked fine for 1-2days?

 

[x509]

Clear tubing clouds, often, because it absorbs water... It may be a film on the inside, but even scrubbed with a brush, many brands stay cloudy.

(water-cooling) noob alert.

Appearances aside, is there any real problem with clouded up tubing? That is, if the rest of the loop is clean and it's still working effectively?

Or, if it's time to drain the loop and clean all the blocks, why not just replace the tubing? I know this is a hobby, but at some point, isn't the savings in time worth the expense of new tubing, considering the total cost of the blocks, radiators, pumps, reservoirs and fittings?

 

[Reality]

sometimes you cannot avoid clouded tubing as it's due to plasticizer leeching

and no, there isn't anything you need to do if your tubing is clouding, the loop is still performing as intended

remember, some people use completely opaque tubing (myself included, I use pure white), so you wouldn't even know if it were clouded anyways

 

[magoo]

aphasia.......what is your coffee descaler's brand name?

I think you are on to something here.

My only question is, over time could the descaler weaken the plastic tubing, especially at the point where it is compressed at the fitting?

My guess would be no, because there are an aweful lot of consumer coffee machines with plastic parts.