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coloring?

stinger608

stinger608

Supreme [H]ardness
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Okay, not sure if this will work or damage hardware.

I'm putting together a system and it has clear tubing. I am going to run distilled water with Biocide.

What I'm wondering is; can a person add food coloring to the water without any issues?

I know from past experiences that colored cooling solutions will stain the tubing and res but other than that will the food coloring cause any ill effects?
 
stinger608 said:
Okay, not sure if this will work or damage hardware.

I'm putting together a system and it has clear tubing. I am going to run distilled water with Biocide.

What I'm wondering is; can a person add food coloring to the water without any issues?

I know from past experiences that colored cooling solutions will stain the tubing and res but other than that will the food coloring cause any ill effects?
Click to expand...

Food coloring is mostly sugar. Bacteria like sugar, and it is sticky in solution and tends to clog things up.

Food coloring is about the absolutely worst thing you can add to your loop as a colorant.

There are additive dyes that could work, but from my research, the current best practice seems to be, that if you really want dyed coolant, just to buy a pre-colored coolant (or concentration) intended for water cooling applications like EK's Ekoolant, Mayhems, etc. etc.
 
DWolvin said:
Seconded- get colored coolant, or colored tubes. Motorcycle antifreeze is blue for example...
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Actually, the color depends on the type of coolant - different colors are used for different kinds, although the chemistry of most types is basically the same.

BMW's coolant is blue. GM Dex-Cool is orange. Toyota, Mazda and several brands use a type that is red or pink. Some generic definitely-compatible-with-any-vehicle types are yellow. Generic antifreeze is green.

Don't use Dex-Cool. Pretty much any other kind should be safe for the system components, but all are toxic, so be very careful about children, pets and stupid adults if you go this route.

Edit: Propylene glycol antifreeze - which is non-toxic - does exist. It becomes corrosive when it oxidizes, though.
 
True- I'd read the label on anything before putting my computer at (more) risk. I'm a distilled and killcoil guy, myself.
 
Can't go wrong- it's cheap and I use it to flush everything after cleaning... I'm a little paranoid so every time I break down my loop (I don't think I have gone more than 6 months often) to change the layout or parts I scrub the blocks.
 
Nimisys said:
i've ran dexcool in my loop for 5 years, it doesn't have an issue

honestly it doesn't have an issue in cars either, but this isn't the forum for that debate
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Given what happens if you ever mix it with non-dex cool coolants, it definitely does cause problems in cars, to say nothing of its more fundamental design flaw, which is that it becomes corrosive if you ever get air in your cooling system.

In a PC, I suspect it's probably fine in practice, but there are so many better options available, including plain water, that I can't imagine why anyone would ever use Dex Cool for this.
 
It would look only faintly orange in 3/8"ID tubing, though. I've dealt with many different varieties of automotive coolants, and none of them have a particularly deep color when properly diluted.
 
Ah, there is your problem... Proper dilution is the antithesis of auto coolant in a PC, IMHO. :D
 
In my loop I'm actually going for an intentional subtle color.

I'm using opaque tubing (black) and just want a hint of color to make it easier to spot leaks during leak testing.

I'm going to go with a UV Blue, but 1/3 the normal intensity.
 
My first kit was EK, and came with the dark blue UV coolant, I did that very thing. But I never replaced it when I ran out- these days I just put some colored paper down (or brown napkins), they show any drops. but I have to say I've never had any leaks from a carefully installed compression fitting, only sloppy human filling / bleeding... :confused::rolleyes:
 
DWolvin said:
My first kit was EK, and came with the dark blue UV coolant, I did that very thing. But I never replaced it when I ran out- these days I just put some colored paper down (or brown napkins), they show any drops. but I have to say I've never had any leaks from a carefully installed compression fitting, only sloppy human filling / bleeding... :confused::rolleyes:
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That is good to know. I'm using 3/8" ID 1/2" OD PrimoFlex Advanced LRT with XSPC compression fittings. They seem to grip pretty damned well, but I haven't had liquid in them yet.

I'm waiting for the EK block for my new Titan X before I start my build.
 
DWolvin said:
My first kit was EK, and came with the dark blue UV coolant, I did that very thing. But I never replaced it when I ran out- these days I just put some colored paper down (or brown napkins), they show any drops. but I have to say I've never had any leaks from a carefully installed compression fitting, only sloppy human filling / bleeding... :confused::rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Oh, I had originally planned on just using distilled water with a kill coil or PT Nuke.

The reason I used Ekoolant in mine was because of the mixed metals. Both my GPU and CPU blocks are nickel coated, and while I know everyone says it SHOULDN'T be a problem, but I ran the electric numbers on silver kill coils vs copper and nickel and didn't like what I saw, so I decided to drop the kill coil, then I decided I didn't like the PT nuke, and figured why not just use the official stuff. Nothing else should be more compatible with EK blocks than EK fluids, right? :p

Picked up two bottles of clear concentrate, and one bottle of blue concentrate.
 
That is more reason and research than most would ever do, and I agree with you. My loop is all copper so I got a coil after running out of the EK stuff. Either way is way up the 'good enough' curve that it's not worth sweating the heck out of the last 1%. The amount of corrosion between very similar metals is not going to wear through in your system's lifetime, at least not good nickel/copper.
 
I did a build for a friend and used clear tubing with Mayhems UV blue. Added some black lights and the result was very nice. Cool thing about the UV blue is its clear until you add black light. Mayhems products are really high quality, I always suggest people look into them when thinking about adding some color to the loop.
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Dex is great stuff until you mix "universal" coolant with it. Then it turns into modeling clay.
 
Ah- I wondered if it was something like that- I kept reading that it twas exposure to air and thinking there was no way something that sludges up if a bubble get in would be in a user serviceable system...
 
Takes a lot more heat and some pressure for it to start to sludge. Air alone is not enough, its hot temps (220+ F) and some pressure that does it. An open gallon will not sludge up. Even universal stuff doesn't cause issues when mixed in a healthy system. It's when you have a long slow loss that it starts to have issues in vehicles.
 
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