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PT Nuke safe?

R

Ravynmagi

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 12, 2006
Messages
1,464
I have a Koolance 4870X2 GPU water block. It has an acrylic window on it that developed a very small crack and began a slow leak.

I sent the block to Koolance for repair. And it took them a while to get the part, but that has now have it fixed and they sent me this message:

"The acrylic appears to have been damaged both by a third party chemical and excessive heat. Please be sure to use only authorized liquids and do not run with poor liquid circulation."

I'm going to dismiss the heat, because my GPU temps were always very good (40 to 55C) and I have periodically checked the GPU block temp by feel and it was always relatively cool to the touch. I do not believe heat was an issue.

I also believe my water flow was pretty good. I use an MCP655 set on 5. And from the good temps and visual water flow appearance in the reservoir, I don't believe this to have been an issue.

So I'm just left to the only liquid additive I used. PT Nuke. I put 2 drops in after a fresh build. Which I thought might have been a little on the light side since it says 1 to 2 drops per liter (think I might have 2 liters of water in there).

And I use distilled water by the way. Should I stop using PT Nuke? Use less? Use something else? I'm not concerned about clouding because I have colored water tubes, so I wouldn't see it anyway.

Or do we think this just might be a generic explanation for the failure and I shouldn't worry about it?
 
My old setup I always just used distilled water with no additives, worked fine. I know this post doesn't provide much of an answer, but...
 
Maybe the block was flawed to begin with and it just took a while for it to get worse.

Nuke shouldn't be eating away at parts if you only put a few drops in.

If you are worried about nuke in the future you could get a silver coil that a lot of people are using now.
 
i put the pt nuke in the gallon of distilled water before i put the water into my setup, i dont think that pt nuke would break acrylic, i have a piece laying around, i could try it, with and without heat.
 
"The acrylic appears to have been damaged both by a third party chemical and excessive heat. Please be sure to use only authorized liquids and do not run with poor liquid circulation."
Click to expand...

/moderator mode OFF.

Ok, that sounds very unlikely to me.

What does the manual say about fluids ? Is an "approved" list included in the manual ? Any warnings about what not to use ?

No picture of the part so I am going by your description and assuming it is correct and complete. If you have left something out please come back and clarify. Koolance has started to out decent stuff and until I saw that I was beginning to think they where on track to be recommended to some of my customers.

1) heat causes acrylic to melt/deform, not crack, and if there was any liquid at all in the block the gpu would had had to almost gone nuclear before damaging the acrylic. Actually there is no way, with water present for the block to exceed 100C (boiling point of water) so either way I dont buy that and I think you would have noticed steam in your loop. At about 90C acrylic starts to soften but the temp you report I will bet is the internal gpu temp. It is almost inconceivable your loop/water temps could get that hign and you comments about feeling the temp of the parts by hand bears that out.

2) Chemicals would errode or discolor the acrylic and unless you way over did it with the pt-nuke (it would have foamed up your loop, not enough of a chemist to know what the effect of ammonia salts is on acrylic but PT-nuke is just a weak sanatizer like what is used in bar sinks etc as a sanatizer rinse. This is nasty stuff highly concentrated but in normal usage and in the concentration it is sold as PT-nuke it is not very nasty and a few drops in a liter of water even less so.

So I too am having a real problem with the reply you got. The question in my mind is it just ignorance or is the company aware of stress cracks in acrylic and is trying to hide a common problem with poor manufacturing process control. Acrylic is fine for tops when the fasteners are engineered properly and proper care it taken during assembly. However to really do it right is not a cheap labor cost and good tooling should be used. It should be done like head bolts on an engine using tools with torque readings/limits and tightened in a specific pattern in stages. This is expensive in regards to labor costs during manufacturing and it is also possible the raw sheet had a stress defect before koolance even machined the cover out of raw stock or when the part was cast.

I will go further, based on the wide use of products like PT-nuke if there was a chemical issue Koolance should know about it and mention it in their literature. Or use a better plastic. Ok course the only "approved" fluids I could find is the stuff Koolance sells.

Product Description and Composition
Koolance liquid cooling fluid for computers and electronics. Various colors, shipped in double-sealed vinyl bags
or plastic bottles. Product codes beginning with “LIQ-702”.
• Distilled Water: 70 wt%
• Propylene Glycol: 27 wt% (CAS #:57-55-6)
• Additives: 3 wt%

Pretty standard stuff - little high on the % Glycol IMO and would like to know the additives are but I guess those additives are why it is $15 for .7 liters and the stuff is not even aged for 7 years like other liquids I can get in 750ml containers for that price.


A small crack that grew larger is a stress fracture unless someone can educate me othewise. So unless you took the cover off and overtightened it when you replaced it, I think you got a canned message that makes little sense. Not real happy with putting the acrylic cover behind some "bling" cover that would hide developing problems with the acrylic although it would act as wide washers to spread out the pressure of the fasteners. Not sure how they could visually inspect for overtightened fasteners/damaged acrylic with that decorative cover there much less an end user checking it before installation.

/moderator mode ON.
 
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putting pt nuke on they acrylic did nothing without heat and nothing with heat! i dont believe that they are telling the truth, i second bills thoughts on it having a fracture that grew or somthing
 
Alright...

If the acrylic can stand up to Propylene or Ethylene glycol (the stuff in Koolance's coolants) It can stand up to Copper III sulfate (PT nuke).

Like, without question.
 
I have seen acrylic fractures of all kinds......

Swiftech micro-res, waterblocks, taillights, you name it.
Pt nuke has come up, but no more than any other compound.
Some think it does discolor plactics????

Generally plastic fracture on from trauma or constant pressure or an initial weakness.

I think you got a generic statement from the manufacturer.:D
 
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