I just finished my first ever liquid cooled built a while back, using Feser One non conductive coolant. I followed instructions and flushed everything with distilled water then got most of the water out and added the Feser One. First power up to the loop and I had what looked like billions of micro air bubbles in the fluid. I've seen this in water in some areas where it was sort of ultra micro-carbonated out of the tap, but I have no explanation of why it was in my loop. After a while the 'bubbles' coalesced into a long 'string' of denser white material in the loop. It wasn't really stringy, but looked sort of like how the vortex forms in the center of the drain when you drain a tub, except it was white. Overnight this cleared, but I was left with what looked sort of like beer suds floating in my reservoir. By adding fluid I was able to overflow the stuff out onto my fingers and it was indeed some sort of squishy deposit. Sort of like mayonnaise. My first thought was that I used my breath to evacuate the distilled water out of the loop and the Feser reacted with something in my breath. But since then the only conclusion I can really come up with is it's an emulsion of something left in the radiator or blocks, and the Feser One. Anyone ever seen something like what I've described? I'll be adding more water blocks soon so the whole loop will be disassembled and cleaned again, and I'd like to avoid this a second time.
Theres a good chance it could be flux from when the rad was soldered up and not cleaned properly. That gives the same foamy thing you've described. I get it all the time at work with new pipe work. Question: if it reacted with your breath WTF had you been eating before you had a blow.....
White gunk? Blow? Ahh, I love being childish. Bulldogjeff is probably right, though - it's most likely flux left over from when then rads were soldered up.
I had flushed the radiator VERY extensively with warm tap water under mild pressure and nothing came out. But flux isn't water soluable. So what's safe to use in a copper/brass radiator to get the flux out, that won't take the solder with it? (I have a Dalvey hip flask I got in Scotland years ago. It says not to leave booze in the flask all the time as the alcohol will eat through the silver solder they use....)
When soldering you use isopropyl alcohol to clean away flux. It's OK because it's not sealed so the alcohol evaporates extremely quickly.
Actually you don't any more, or at least not in all situations. For PCB manufacture, the accepted solvent to use is now fluxclene or simply "FLU". There's a good chance this does contain isopropyl alcohol, but it's a different formula than just straight iso from a bottle. We get through about 20 cans of this stuff per week in work!
I do remember reading you should flush with a bit of white vinegar in your water, the reason being was that as you've read, flux isn't water soluable, and the vinegar would do the job as a solvent. (remembering to "rinse" afterwards with clean water) it's possible something in the Feser one has done this job?
I've never heard of it before, but Rapid have it for £4.50/200ml can. The COSHH sheet says it's mostly propan-2-ol, 1-methoxy-2-propanol, cyclohexane and a couple of other alkanes. Straight IPA is propan-2-ol, so it's basically IPA in an aerosol form, with a little bit of water displacers. I bet it's a lot more convenient than brushing it on when you're working at a larger scale than home use, but I think I'll stick with IPA!
Flux will wash out. Think about it, would you want it sitting in your water pipes at home, It's not like it's even the old leaded gear that was used a few years ago and that used to flush out aswell. If you really want to clean it out get some fernox , it's waht they use to flush out heating systems. If there is any slugde in there, that stuff will clean it out no trouble, just remember that you have to flush that out as well.
remember that feser one *has* been known to separate in bad batches. I'd watch it in the future if I were you - especially since you seem to have a lot of gunk in your loop - imo from what you've written your radiator must have been full of soldering flux when you bought it.
Feser One, like all dyed coolants, eventually separates into its constituent components (dye, ethylene glycol, distilled water, the four anticorrosives they put in). Some of those components - notably the dye - can agglomerate into a kind of sticky gunk that's well known for getting trapped in CPU blocks and crippling heat transfer. It also dyes certain plastics - including some Tygon alternatives. The 'bad batch' theory I've never found very convincing - I think it's more accurate to say that under certain conditions the degrading is accelerated so that the gunk/discolouration occurs before the owner cleans out his loop (i.e., it happens within 12 months or whatever). Nobody seems to have a good idea what causes it but suspects include high ambient and loop temperatures, high flow rate/turbulence, and certain combinations of metals. Unpleasant pictures/stories here, here and here by way of example. That said, I think it's unlikely to have started to separate right away; I'm going with flux leftovers.
How many parts are made of Alu these days? As using water would cause the Alu to corrode the copper, correct?
I don't have any alum. in the loop. I was going to but when I heard about the problems, I removed my pretty, but alum. lined, reservoir.
Just thought I'd post some of my experience using Feser one, contrary to what a few posts have indicated, I've actually had a fairly pain free experience with the stuff. I recently cleaned my loop after running Feser for around 7-8 months after seeing a slight rise in temps (I assume now that it's just the fact the weathers been better but I wanted to be sure). I had kind of expected some gunk to have formed in the blocks but to my surprise they were spotless and my pipes aren't stained at all, couldn't find any traces of lumps or corrosion in the fluid itself or the solution I used to flush the loop. The liquid itself also provides a far better colour compared to some of the other coolants I've tried (Primichill PC Ice, awful stuff). I could definitely recommend it based on my experience alone
Aluminium + Copper = disaster, eventually. For a closer look at what galvanic corrosion does (although I think this is to some unspecified pot metal, though zinc and aluminium corrode in exactly the same process) enjoy. Yeah, like I say - the vast majority of users have no issue with Feser's products. However, those that do find themselves with pretty unpleasant problems. Personally - I'd use coloured tubing and distilled water/silver kill-coils any day.
