[Turbokeu]

Originally posted by psychofunk
Well I have another dilema. pH says no on the relay, Bladerunner says yes, I say wtf damn water cooling . Okay not really it's just another mild area of confusion for me and two reputable guys with contradictory advice:shrug: (btw please don't take this as slamming on either of these guys as to me they are both very, very knowledgeable). So to the point already...alot of you guys have been water cooling since I was in diapers so I was hoping that maybe some of you might have some first hand experience with this. Does it really shorten the pumps life? If so, by how much? What other potential problems are there? Do relays themselves malfuction? What kind of a life expectancy does a relay have? Will I need to replace it every year? 2 years? I have a relay from cooltechnica and I am using a danner mag drive 3 and I typically will use my computer every day so figure on and off 1.5 times a day for an average. Any and all comments are appreciated. Thanks in advance fellas.

I had fishtanks for the last three decades and since the beginning I switch off the pumps once or twice a day during fish feeding to avoid precipitation of the fish food, and never had a pump failure due to it.
I had pump failures due to bad impeller bearing development (especially with the italian Sicce and Sacem brands, when closed motor mag drive pumps began to appear in aquariums in the 70's).

You can compare it to a fluorescent (TL) lamp.
It's generally admitted that switching TL lamps shortens their life and that it's better to leave them on rather than switching them on and off.
Sure, but switching on and off the TL a couple of times and leaving it off during 12 hours in total or so a day will gain you a lot more life expectancy than when you leave it on 24/24...

Also, good quality (electromagnetic) relays are rated for (tens or hundreds of) thousands of switch cycles, so don't worry about it.

Of course, this is only my opinion...

CD