cleansing product ...

[Got KarmA?]

I had read a while back about someone using some cleansing product through their watercooling system which immediately and drastically cut down on the amount of buildup of "gunk" in their system and prevented it from coming again for a good period of time ... unfortunately, I can no longer locate that information.

Being an open-air system (dispite air and water filters that I use), my bong loop tends to collect this kind of stuff at an alarming rate ... which clogs up the CPU block (cathar's LRWW) as well as the showerhead ... the two primary bottlenecks. The hoses have a visible film to them as well ... which breaks off over time and clogs up the system more.

I can regularly dump the loop into a separate pail, turn the system on and off a couple time which dislodges a fair amount and helps keep the system running ... but its still not exactly what I'm looking for, since it doesn't attack the root of the problem ... and mainly just relocates the unwanted material instead of obliterating it entirely.

Does anyone have a clue of what could be run through the system (temporarily of course, I don't want to be breathing it in over an extended period of time) that would clean things off of the hoses and dissolve buildups with a fair amount of efficiency? Its important that it doesn't harm copper, or kill any o-rings on the waterblocks and pump, of course.

Thanks!

[jaydee]

Could it be: http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...&threadid=6485

[Got KarmA?]

thats it! thanks!

[Got KarmA?]

Okay ... so I'm probably going to target my problems as such:

1) about 50% pine-sol/water mixture to clean out the tube gunk ... yellow bottle or whatever that was.
2) Water flush
3) CLR run, not sure on the concentrations as of yet ... primarily to clean out the showerhead. I MAY just do this separate from the entire system to save myself some flushing hassle.
4) Water flush
5) pine-sol run again
6) Water flush
7) Normal operation.

[boomer235]

I would add at least one additional water flush after the CLR to really flush it from your system. DO NOT use CLR is you have Aluminum in your system at all it is very reactive with aluminum.

[ndtinker]

If I remember right, CLR isn't for use with pure copper, either. I think it tarnishes it.

[Got KarmA?]

CLR won't react with my showerhead will it? I'm guessing its brass inside and I'm pretty sure thats safe.

And can it be confirmed that it reacts with copper? I was under the understanding that it did not ...

Here's a quote from airspirit I picked up in another thread about cleansers: "I know it works wonders on lime deposits and won't hurt copper ..."

[Zhentar]

speaking of tarnishing... how can I get my copper to be all nice and shiny and then stay that way?

[Got KarmA?]

Originally posted by Zhentar
speaking of tarnishing... how can I get my copper to be all nice and shiny and then stay that way?

Well, ketchup will clean a copper block pretty well.

And well ... if you don't want it to tarnish, never touch it again and seal it in a vacume

[Zhentar]

I tried vinegar and that was a complete failure, if anything it was worse than before.

[killrtech99]

The copper and CLR question is very convoluted. On the one hand, you have the directions on the bottle itself that say do not use on copper.

On the other hand, I soaked a penny overnight in the stuff and it didn't do a thing (that I could tell) to the penny. Nothing. :shrug:

So my suspicion is along the lines of the "tarnish" factor that was brought up earlier in this thread. I'm guessing those instructions on the bottle are aimed at people with those pretty copper pots and pans that they like to have shiny looking to hang on their too cool display rack hanging in their kitchen. I don't particularly care if my wb is a shade darker than it was before CLR.

My wb had become really pretty gunked up looking (once I got it clean, I realized how bad it had become). I too tried vinegar which seemed to get about 2 percent of the gunk off. Not enough. Since I have anodized aluminum in my setup, I disconnected just the portion of my circuit containing the wb and fed it some clr and let it soak for about 10 minutes then drained and ran a bunch of water (first a ton of tap then some distilled to flush the tap) and cried with joy at how purdy my wb was looking after that.

Also, I too got bitten by the water wetter residue from hell and nothing seemed to strip that stuff off but CLR. At the time, my entire setup was all copper and I simply added about a capfull or so to my water mix and ran like that for about an hour. It worked like magic on the WW residue. I have no information about CLR's efficacy on biological problems, certainly airspirits witches brew does a smash up job on that type of problem. (my personal variation is more of a 50/50 mix of pine-sol and lysol as opposed to his 90/10). Works great for me.

From my personal experience and what I've gleaned from this and other forums, I conclude that if your setup is all copper or copper and brass, you can run CLR in your mix as a general clean out for things non biological. If aluminum is in the mix, you either have to do an isolated clean or post back to this forum asking for a CLR alternative.

[Zhentar]

Thats a helpful post, thanks.

One question though: What is CLR?

I need to clean out the inside of the block, not get it real shiny, but I would like the outside to be shiny. I can get it there with sandpaper, but once its nice and shiny how do I keep it that way?

[killrtech99]

Originally posted by Zhentar
Thats a helpful post, thanks.

One question though: What is CLR?

I need to clean out the inside of the block, not get it real shiny, but I would like the outside to be shiny. I can get it there with sandpaper, but once its nice and shiny how do I keep it that way?

Thanks for the compliment and hello to you in Madison. My wife is from Wisconsin, beautifull place in the summer and a stark contrast to the southwestern landscape I have grown up with.

Well I can readily answer 1 out of 2 of your questions. CLR simply stands for Calcium Lime Rust (remover, as it were). Its normal purpose is to remove the above materials from your kitchen and bathroom surfaces. Leave it up to the insane watercooling crowd to find many more applications for it.
Here is a product link:

http://doityourself.com/store/6571988.htm

As for preventing copper from tarnishing, I did some brief Googling and actually didn't come up with that much. Go figure. All I've got is some wild speculation on perhaps a mineral oil rub? Then I was thinking, if corrosion inhibitors prevent it in one context, maybe rub some hy-perlube on it and see what that does. Again, I emphasize I'm just throwing out a couple of things that flashed through my fevered little mind. Hopefully others may have something more definitive for you.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Bladerunner talks about how he gets his copper blocks all shiny and sealed on his site here.... Hope that helps...

I pressure test my blocks with air by simply fitting a length of tube to one of the barbs (4 meters is good), that has a car tyre valve in the other end. The other block barb is blocked off and about 2 bar, (24 psi), is pumped in. The block is then completely immersed in a bowl or bucket of de-aerated water and left for at least 24 hours. If there are no bubbles then there are no air leaks, and if it won’t leak air under 2 bar there is no way water or coolant will get out. Once this test was passed the block was filed clean and then finished as outlined below.

1. I use Wet and Dry, (wet), starting at about 180 grade and going down to 1200 grade with various grades in between as required. I do this with the Wet & Dry sheet on a flat surface, (glass is good), and move the block on the Wet & Dry, similar to lapping.

2. When it is smooth with the final wet & dry grade, I use T-Cut colour restorer, (designed for use on car paint that has gone dull or tarnished). Once happy all scratches are removed it's finished with car polish, (Auto Glym Silicon Resin polish), for that deep shine. Both of these are also done with a cloth flat on the glass and moving the block back and fourth.

3. Once I'm happy with the finish and it is ready to install, (won't be handled any more), I use white spirit or brake cleaner to remove any polish residue so it can be sprayed with clear cellulose lacquer to prevent the shiny metal tarnishing. This needs to built up in very thin coats initially or it will "ball", "fish eye", or "run" on shiny.

[Got KarmA?]

^^ as a little addition to the post above, it must be stated:

DO NOT PUT THAT KIND OF STUFF ON THE CONTACT SURFACE OF YOUR WATERBLOCK. IT WILL INHIBIT THERMAL TRANSFER!

But on the sides and top, you're fine. Some people do it anyways to the bottom so they can show off their "amazing shine" but it actually hurts thermal transfer.

[Zhentar]

thanks to both of you, thats what I needed.

And I wouldn't coat the bottom, no one will see if its shiny anyways.

[Got KarmA?]

This system ... is gonna regret it ever messed with me

Anyways ... I'm too cautious about the CLR to risk putting it through my entire system, so I'm gonna do what it recommends for showerheads ... dilute 50% in hot water, and have the showerhead soak in it. Works for me! I'll have enough for as many soaks as I need.

I'm gonna go one half bottle of lysol, and one full bottle of pinesol plus 50% water, and let that run through the system for as long as it takes after the CLR solution is finished with the showerhead.

Plus a few water flushes after that. Two or more.

This will definitely help realize some flowrate improvements, as I've seen it degrade slowly over time as tubes, blocks, and the showerhead slowly get clogged with buildup thats characteristic of a typical bong system. I'll post results when I'm finished!

Oh, and for a completely random picture, I got bored one night and broke out my old maze 2-2 with two 120w peltiers ... stuck it into the loop, and PRESTO!



Anyone interested in taking this off my hands? lol ...
believe it or not, but a dual 120w peltier setup was my FIRST foray into watercooling. The black stuff you see on it is neoprene that I never took off completely, but will come off easily if I wanted it to.

Its extreme or nothing, eh?

[Got KarmA?]

<neo>whoa</neo>

That sure did the trick! Not only is the showerhead operating without any clogs, but that mix cleared 80% of the gunk off of my tubing walls within seconds.

I can still see a few trailers in areas that don't get as much flow pressure on them (around the inside of the curves) so I'm going to let it run for an hour or two, and just totally wipe my system of ANY contaminants.

time to leave the room ... these vapors are making me woooozzyyyyy

[winewood]

Karma..
Ill take those pelts off your hands providing they are 12-18V operational and 40X40. Pm me with price info please.

[Got KarmA?]

I'll let you know as soon as I can price them out. I forget where I bought them but it was a major brand peltier supplier ... grrr. They'll handle 12-18v easily, I think they were 24v max ... or was that the power supply ... Regardless, 18v is probably the optimal level, since peltiers work on a delta T, if the hot side puts out too much heat (gets more inefficient the more power it gets) that doesn't get taken away fast enough you end up with HOTTER temperatures instead of cooler ones.

I forget what the optimum was on my old rig, but it'll vary from system to system, since radiators and waterblocks differ in how much they can dissipate or absorb, respectfully.

I'm just rambling on because I miss my old peltier rig ... but nowadays they're more common than bongs!


Anyways ... about the cleaning process, it worked AWESOME. The showerhead was the hardest to clean, and frankly I don't think it got maximum benefit from the CLR because I couldn't remove it from the PVC I had epoxied its mounts into. But ... once I got the lysol/pinesol solution going through it .. BAM, completely opened up again, just like new. The system runs great now. Originally I thought it was the two extra waterblocks that restricted all the flow, but it turns out it was just the buildup of crap that killed the flowrates.

I wonder if the iwaki MD20RZT I've got in the mail will be worth it now o_0

On a side note ... booting up, looked at processor temperature (which btw was running the same as the ambient temp of 23.5C at idle) I noticed my northbridge temperature was 60C! *HOLY SHIT!*

I turned off my system and noticed that TWO of the 4 cheezy northbridge mounts (my only friggen option, I hate abit for canning the 2-hole mounting method they used to employ) had ripped completely out ... so essentially, the northbridge was going uncooled. Some superglue fixed that, thankfully.

Mental note: next time you BSOD a couple times a week, it might be good to check to see if the northbridge mounts went funky again

So now the northbridge is a happy 26C. Hopefully it won't hold my previous oversight against me due to its current favorable conditions

[starbuck3733t]

darn it and here I was hoping for before and after pics.

After about 2 weeks of use i've got some definit WW crap, as well as... get this... *GLITTER* appears to be floating around in teh loop. Well, it isn't now. I drained the loop out and most of the stuff appears to be stuck to the top of the reservior (highest point in the res). No idea what it is. I think I'll be hitting walmart tonite after work for some pinesol/lysol.

What order did you run things in? CLR then *sol or *sol then CLR?

[Got KarmA?]

The CLR did not go through the system. It has a harsh warning on the label NOT to use it with Brass, Copper, or Aluminum. Some people have used it without a problem, others have not ... I'm not gonna take the risk on ruining 3 waterblocks and potentially my system.

The showerhead, however, I let sit in CLR for a few minutes as directed on the bottle. I didn't find it necessary however, as the pine-sol and lysol mix (10% lysol, 40% pine-sol, 50% hot water) did the job just fine, and in barely any time.

Before and after shots would be a bit pointless in my application ... the stuff was just a thin film on the hoses, but the real problem was in the showerhead I believe ... as well as inside some of the waterblocks. I shoulda gotten a shot of all the shit stripping off the hose walls and coming through the blocks though, LOL there was a lot of material in there that I got out.