Cooling Question about water color

I am designing an acrylic case and need some advice on something. The case will be blue/clear overall and green water would look nasty. Water Wetter and antifreeze color the water to green, correct? Is there a way to run a water cooling setup with clear or blue water, that won't damage the cooling equipment by dying or clogging the components?

 

I feel like spamming www.dtekcustoms.com for somer reason lately. I dunno why.


They do have a visible Blue dye that is also blue UV reactive. It should mask the color of any other additives, am I right?


well... lets wait for the true water coolin experts to show up

 

Or you could just use plain deionized water.

I believe there is an anti-freeze substance that is Purple. Called Purple Ice maybe.
I thought that UV additives were clear until a UV light is put on them.
I don't know how they'd react with other additives.
<-----WooHoo! New title! 69 Dude!

 

Depending on the additives and the kind of dye u get u should be ok....Id just throw some bleach in there if u wanted clear....Works the same

 

Yup, coolant consists of three ingredients:

1. distilled water
2. additives
3. dye

1. You don't expect me to tell you what colour water is, do you?

2. Additives can have a particular colour (e.g. water wetter is red, purple ice is, er..., purple, anti-freeze is lurid green or blue or sometimes red (Volkswagen's G12, for instance)) but can also be a custom made clear preparation (see Aqua Computer).

3. Dyes have a 'regular' colour and a UV reactive (glowing) colour. You can have invisible clear dyes that light up in a particular colour under UV only, or dyes that have one colour in daylight, and another under UV. Dyes are powerful, so whatever colour your additive is, a dye can usually override that completely. Search the net for UV dyes to see the whole range, alternatively Overclockers Hideout sell a range. I would not buy some of their hardware, but I guess dyes are safe enough.

 

So a water cooling setup would work fine with just plain deionized water, as long as Im not mixing metals, correct?

 

yes it will work like this, but if you put in just a few drops of water wetter it will cool alot better, and this little bit should not change the water colour

 

FWIW - I use Silkolene Pro Cool.
It's blue, works quite well and is available from motorsport specialists...
(or me)

 

I'll check into that stuff. Is it blue in natural light, or does it require black light?

 

Errm - no

This false info has been floating round for a while now

Water wetter will not give magical coolant performance improvements for PC cooling systems at even the recommended concentration (using less will not provide any benfit like herbicide and more actually hinders heat absorbtion/release). The difference in coolant heat absorbtion/release is negligable in watercooling systems. The best water wetter can be described as, in the context of pc watercooling, is an anti-corrosion, anti-bacteria/algae additive which does not decrease the efficiency of water as a coolant.

The only place where you would see a significant difference (and I'm not talking about some 0.1C difference like some reviews blow out of proportion) in temperatures would be in a engine cooling loop where temperatures reach well above 50-60C (as WW is designed for this).

 

once again this is wrong,

here is why,

water has something called cohesion and surface tension, water wetter will break down this surface tension and cohesion, and will allow the watter to flow throught your system faster, also it will not allow thermal bubles of heated water to stagnaget in your heating system. if your water blocks do not provied enough turbulace to the water flow, you will get hot spots that will not allow the heat to excape from the system. this is a bad thing, this is why in lakes and even the ocean there are thermal layers at different depths. this is how submarines can hide from other subs, this same idea on a smaller scale can hinder your water cooling setup.

i ran one of my systems for two weeks with strait water and the average temp while folding was 36c with an average room temp of 25c,

when i ran the same system with no changes except to add 2 caps full of water wetter to the system, even kept the same water, my temps droped 3c to a cpu temp of 33c with a room temp of still 25c.

 

Both, it's blue in natural light or under blacklight.
It also has the same properties as WW when it comes to reducing surface tension etc.

The blurb on the back of the container states:

You may not think that the -34&deg;C figure is relevant but there are those of us with a chiller project on the kitchen floor...

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Water wetter is not unique or special - any detergent will lower surface tension, in fact most coolant additives do exactly the same with the added bonus of providing anti-freezing characteristics (for those of us with chillers like myself). Sodium Carbonate or even soap solution will equally lower surface tension like WW. After all WW id just a detergent with anti-corrosion additives (to anodise the surface of any metal components if you want to be more specific ).

Seeing as you are obviously the foremost authority on coolants I have put together a few helpful suggestions and comments...

In your utterly scientific test (which I assume was repeated numerous times on a die simulator in absolute controlled conditions from your confidence in your conclusions - Only a setup such as Bill Adam's can be used to accurately assess coolant efficiency) . Even our results taken from my collegues extremely highly calibrated test rig are not published as absolutely accurate! surely if you are used to technical debate you are used to evaluating the accuracy of results based on induced errors in your methods? I assume therefore that temperatures were sampled using an infra red thermometer or at least one with a verified calibration for lab work.

As for hot water pockets, yes - if you have a badly designed block or a mismatched system then hot water can stagnate but if your use the correct pump size for your system then this problem will be minimised regardless of what you throw in your coolant. It is called designing your cooling loop(s) well

BTW pls don't try and explain about the fluid dynamics associated with turbulent and non-turbulent flows - I do have a very very good grounding in this type of investigation for both atmospheric and oceanic fluid behaviour as well as a good knowledge of physical fluid flow modelling and scaling of results. I actually find your explanation overly simplistic for the extremely complex flow behaviour which exists in a watercooling system. I will not say more as this would constitute no more than a petty argument with no benefit to the forum members.



oh, and how many submarines do you have in your res?? LOL

 

Gentlemen! Settle down, please. I gained the info I require. This system will not be overclocked; therefore, I am not worried about the three degrees celsius difference that may or may not exist between a system utilizing Water Wetter or one that does not.

I will be running a silent system that will utilize a maximum of two fans for the radiator. The system will be transparent to some extent and will use either clear deionized water or water with a the correct solution of blue Silkolene Pro Cool or blue dye with some Water Wetter mixed in, should I not be able to find this product in my area.

Please take the discussion of the cooling properties of Water Wetter to another thread.

Mods, close this thread if you please. It has served my purposes.

 

Quote from Coolrunnin --------------------------


Water wetter is not unique or special - any detergent will lower surface tension, in fact, most coolant additives do exactly the same with the added bonus of providing anti-freezing characteristics (for those of us with chillers like myself).
End quote------------------------------------------

I have never clamed that water wetter was unique special, or anything other then what it is, an additive that in my very unscientific testing a very useful one at that.

Quote from Coolrunnin --------------------------
Seeing as you are obviously the foremost authority on coolants I have put together a few helpful suggestions and comments...
End quote------------------------------------------

Nope, never claimed to bet the "foremost authority" on anything, and I look forward to reading and responding to everything you have posted.

Quote from Coolrunnin --------------------------
In your utterly scientific test.
End quote------------------------------------------

did I use a die simulator, no, I used my main water cooled 1.8a@2.89 ghz p4 system, I did no other changes to the system I did not add any fans, I did not add any more coolant, I did not move anything. All I did was remove the fill plug from my reservoir and add in 2 caps full of Water wetter. In addition, when I looked at the CPU temperature from the asus probe, it was 3c cooler, my temporary line in the history is pretty much a strait line across the screen because I run the machine 24/7 and fold all the time. After 2 days the Northbridge/system temperature was the same as before (no cooler just the stock Alum heat sink) but the CPU temperature was 3c cooler. I have no way of figuring out how or why this change happened. The room temperature was kept at a constant 30c/86f. my room temp does not change much because I have 2 180 gallon salt water fish tanks, that are heated or cooled to a temp of 85f +- 2f, and my water bed is in the same room, I live in a loft type apartment. My room heater stays at 80f and the ac will kick on at 87f, so the room temperature stays about the same. Could this have been done better yes, but I do not thing so, but I do not have the time or the tools to do a better test then this.

Quote from Coolrunnin --------------------------
As for hot water pockets, yes - if you have a badly designed block or a mismatched system then hot water can stagnate but if your use the correct pump size for your system then this problem will be minimised regardless of what you throw in your coolant. It is called designing your cooling loop(s) well
End quote------------------------------------------

I always thought that it was more a matter of matching the flow rates of the pump with the block design or to place a twisted piece of plastic in the tubing to force the water to spin; this does work and will lower cooling temperatures, from what I have seen.

Quote from Coolrunnin --------------------------
BTW pls don't try and explain about the fluid dynamics associated with turbulent and non-turbulent flows - I do have a very very good grounding in this type of investigation for both atmospheric and oceanic fluid behaviour as well as a good knowledge of physical fluid flow modelling and scaling of results. I actually find your explanation overly simplistic for the extremely complex flow behaviour which exists in a watercooling system. I will not say more as this would constitute no more than a petty argument with no benefit to the forum members.
end quote------------------------------------------

I agree and you have a far greater depth of knowledge in this area. In addition, I will defer to your judgment.

Quote from Coolrunnin --------------------------
Oh, and how many submarines do you have in your res?? LOL
End quote------------------------------------------

none but I tried to use this to show a point, not to state that I have them in my res, but the picture of a Trident submarine doing an emergency blow and surfacing in my one of my resavors brought a smile to my face

 

be cool ladies be cool

 

If you look we have both said the same thing - Matching the system's components to prevent inefficiency The only reason I said the system rather than the block is that flow rate through the radiator is critical too - ( not too fast )

Spinning the flow does sound interesting - I too have seen a cople of people doing similar, even the TC-4 uses a similar idea. Time for some expeirmentation it think

and the sub thing was just for a laugh - glad you liked it


Apologies to forum members for being 'heated'

 

yeah man, but will a submarine's engines not add heat to the cooling circuit? I mean, shouldn't you avoid adding submarines as much as possible? I've successfully designed a system without a submarine in it. People said I was crazy, that I was pushing the envelope beyond the reasonable, but I thought: "let them talk. I'll show them". And presto, it worked. Next I hope to get rid of those noisy aircraft carriers, to improve LAN portability.

 

but think of the power, if you frag me too often i will nuke you