C-Systems 12 VDC Pump review...

[Tempus]

Dan, where are you all located. I'm flying over to get one of those pumps. I'm tired of waiting.

[Hotseat]

^If I had one to give you, I would UPS it too you today.

I'm not BSing you, every pump coming off the machine is accounted for already.

[Stang_Man]

Originally Posted by Hotseat

^If I had one to give you, I would UPS it too you today.

I'm not BSing you, every pump coming off the machine is accounted for already.

if you dont mind me asking, what kind of CNC machine are you making these on?

[Tempus]

Originally Posted by Hotseat

^If I had one to give you, I would UPS it too you today.

I'm not BSing you, every pump coming off the machine is accounted for already.

congrats man. Thats actually one of the best pieces of news I've heard. It means good things for everyone - watercooling market keeps getting bigger. Better products for us all.

[HammerSandwich]

Hotseat, did any of the Mark I pumps have Type-3 anodizing?

[Hotseat]

Yo, answers

What machine?

We have 13 CNC machines in total, so I'm not sure what your asking?

The first 250 cases where made on the prototyping / tool room mill, but all others have since been produced using one of our high speed (20,000 rpm) production mills, designed specifically for aluminum.

The D-Tek Mark I should all have been type III, the blue units with "c-systems" are likely just type II. But since we have had mark I's in a tank for over year, and none show any corrosion (expect the bolts on one batch) , I think it's a dead issue. You should also note we moved to 6063 alloy too enhance resistance.

I believe what you guys have seen in the past, was galvanic.

later, busy busy

[Hotseat]

Sorry, just realized above maybe mis-leading, we do not have all 13 machines making PC-pumps.

Most of the machines make our industrial units, and ABS blocks- the big piece of alumimum that holds your ABS pump, sol, and line connects.

As you can see, making the CSP cases is not a big leap for us

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by Hotseat

The D-Tek Mark I should all have been type III, the blue units with "c-systems" are likely just type II. But since we have had mark I's in a tank for over year, and none show any corrosion (expect the bolts on one batch) , I think it's a dead issue. You should also note we moved to 6063 alloy too enhance resistance.

Just for additional testing, I would love to see the results of the pumps being run in an actual closed loop distilled water environment, since this is what many of the people using these things will do.

i.e. 5' of tubing, a large copper cored radiator and a copper (or better yet silver) impingement style waterblock. Let those pumps run for 5 different test systems for 6 months straight and inspect the pumps then.

Blocks sitting in a tank doesn't tell me that much.

Forgive me for being cynical. Every single product that has been anodised aluminium with the manufacturer swearing black and blue that it absolutely positively will not suffer from galvanic corrosion, ultimately has ended up with pictures posted in some forum with horrific corrosion, sometimes in a matter of months, sometimes even when corrosion inhibitor is used.

Test for the worst case scenario, which is basically the pumps sitting in a loop with distilled water, and 3 other components in the loop being all copper/silver based, to simulate what customers will see.

I used to swear black and blue that the polycarbonate I used on my waterblock tops would not crack after running extensive physical stress tests. Turned out that all it really took was 20-50 major thermal cycles (varying from 20C to 40C water temps) for some tops to begin failing, something which I admit to not adequately testing (I ran about 20 cycles of 20-30C on a few tops with no failures). Some materials are just a bad idea for certain applications.

[BillA]

bullshit Cathar
every mfgr includes Swiftech

please provide quotes for "swearing black and blue that it absolutely positively will not suffer from galvanic corrosion" being said by Swiftech

that a horror can be produced in months with tap water is well known, so what ?
IF the mfgr recommended that usage, fine - lynch 'em
IF the user is a dumb shit, blame the material ? the anodizing ? the mfgr ?
- but not the user

just because you say so, does not mean it is so
think on Greenman100

I stated exactly the problem re threads in plastics, none cared to listen - including you

[Cathar]

Temper Bill.

To quote exactly:

Originally Posted by Cathar

Every single product that has been anodised aluminium with the manufacturer swearing black and blue

with - as in a product with accompanying statements that the product won't corrode, not that every single anodized aluminium product from every manufacturer has had every single manufacturer making those claims.

The point being that just because a manufacturer says it won't corrode, that does not make it true.

Bill, there has even been the odd case where people have said that they used ~25% concentrations of corrosion inhibitor and still seen issues. Of course we don't know if the user is lying or not about the use of the inhibitor in the first place.

Forgive me, I have troubles grasping why, for the sake of a few dollars (maybe $5 or so), pumps or other items get made out of anodised aluminium, and then sold to the very same spend-thrift customers who can't be bothered to spend $5 on the corrosion protection required to prevent damage.

It doesn't make sense to me. Save $5 in manufacture and sale price, only to then burden the customer with the same $5 to protect the thing, except this time it's optional, which they clearly don't take that option far too often.

Just build the thing to suit the application in the first place. The headaches that I'm sure both you and I know all too well when dealing with items that may fail after sale, even if through customer ignorance/misuse, just isn't worth it in my opinion.

I was clearly wrong on the barbs in polycarb - I admit it. I ignored the lessons that were clearly being shown in other user's experiences of poly/acrylic tops from other manufacturers, and mistakenly chose to think that I could do better, mostly upon being urged by people telling me that's what they really wanted. I was wrong. Bloody obvious now why they were failing eventually.

I just see an all too familiar parallel here, that's all.

On thinking on Greenman100, perhaps the quote from his sig has relevance here:

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for."
--Socrates

I know I wish I had re: poly tops.

[BillA]

many mfgrs have been the cause of the failures, an example being chromed brass barbs in aluminum
but even w/o any anodizing, with a appropriate alloy, bare aluminum is a suitable material with a corrosion inhibitor

it would be interesting to calculate the total years of use that exist with Swiftech mixed metal wbs, and with the alu 676 rads

re lessons: been gettin' 'em in pumps

[Stang_Man]

Originally Posted by unregistered

many mfgrs have been the cause of the failures, an example being chromed brass barbs in aluminum
but even w/o any anodizing, with a appropriate alloy, bare aluminum is a suitable material with a corrosion inhibitor

it would be interesting to calculate the total years of use that exist with Swiftech mixed metal wbs, and with the alu 676 rads

re lessons: been gettin' 'em in pumps

then why were you busting my nuts about my t-line caps??

my caps are 6063 anodized aluminum.. they're not corroding any time soon

[BillA]

consumer prejudice, brass is more acceptable to many
byn ??

[Stang_Man]

Originally Posted by unregistered

consumer prejudice, brass is more acceptable to many
byn ??

it is, though that makes them uneducated/mis-informed then.

[Hotseat]

"Forgive me, I have troubles grasping why, for the sake of a few dollars (maybe $5 or so)"

Not sure where you get the 5$ figure from?

Are you suggesting Polycarbonate in place of Alum?

Thats not a good idea, engineering wise.

Machining Polycarbonate is bad... Mmm'K

You can not machine poly without forming cracks, it's a fact that I will not even start to argue about. So you will need to use straight thread adaptors and a o-ring, which are not cheaply available right now.

If you want to use plastic right, that means a mold, which add's big $$ to your value stream.

Given how complex the pump housing is with inner pipe threads, it would be a 3-5 peice mold costing even us, with our own CNC machines, around 10-20K$ USD.

That means 20$ per 1000 units !!

Now if you only wanted to provide a unit with built in bards at a fixed size of 3/8 then the mold drops to around 5-10K, which is what we use on are indusrtial units. However you loose the wide scale system adaptablity.

Guys, I have been a design engineer for 15 years, and there are always compromises to be made, in fact design=compromise.

We will likely go to a plastic pump housing in the future, but would likely be Delrin not polycarb, and be a cost effective hybrid of injection and post machining, and be adaptable to current units

**You should know, that because of the pump action, most Al housings deal with corrosion fine, since the water action cleans excessive area's. It's different then static blocks.

[Stang_Man]

machining polycarbonate is impossible like you said.

delrin would be the only plastic that's strong and machinable. however, black delrin costs more than aluminum! thus driving up costs again.

[Hotseat]

^Not really, since we will inject the Delrin, the cost of material will go up, but less machining and finishing will reduce overall costs.

Not to sound smarky, but I did the math about 4 months ago

You should try Delrin guys, GREAT STUFF for small production runs.
Very good mech-chars, machinable, and can have nice finish.

It works well with a laser, not as nice as acrylic, but still good.

[Stang_Man]

Originally Posted by Hotseat

^Not really, since we will inject the Delrin, the cost of material will go up, but less machining and finishing will reduce overall costs.

Not to sound smarky, but I did the math about 4 months ago

You should try Delrin guys, GREAT STUFF for small production runs.
Very good mech-chars, machinable, and can have nice finish.

It works well with a laser, not as nice as acrylic, but still good.

yeah, you are right about that..

[HAL-9000]

Originally Posted by Hotseat

^Not really, since we will inject the Delrin, the cost of material will go up, but less machining and finishing will reduce overall costs.

Not to sound smarky, but I did the math about 4 months ago

You should try Delrin guys, GREAT STUFF for small production runs.
Very good mech-chars, machinable, and can have nice finish.

It works well with a laser, not as nice as acrylic, but still good.

I was about ready to have a custom block made by emachineshop.com. I'm glad I read this thread as a big piece of it was going to be polycarb. I guess it will now be Delrin! I was wondering though, the Delrin types available at emachineshop are either black or opaque white. Is fully transparent Delrin available?

[Hotseat]

"Is fully transparent Delrin available?"

Not that I know of, but it can be dyed at injection time for other colors.

Be careful if you make yourself a custom housing Hal, we put ALOT of stress on it for good o-ring seal, since it's a big sucker, and the matting finish is not that good.

Your going to have to change the deep of the o-ring inset to reduce the stress and not risk cracking the poly housing. You may also have to sand the matting surface to get a good seal at the reduced pressure, or just try some sealant / grease

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by Hotseat

"Forgive me, I have troubles grasping why, for the sake of a few dollars (maybe $5 or so)"

Not sure where you get the 5$ figure from?

Are you suggesting Polycarbonate in place of Alum?

Actually I did have Delrin in mind when I said that.

Had made the switch to machining with Delrin 3 months ago. Yeah - about $5 difference. Agree with its wonderful properites. Polycarb and acrylic suck for machining and long term strength.

Earlier reference to polycarb was somewhat tongue-in-cheek in reference to people always wanting clear things, despite that they may not really want the structural properties that go along with it.

[AngryAlpaca]

Had made the switch to machining with Delrin 3 months ago. Yeah - about $5 difference. Agree with its wonderful properites.

True for waterblock tops, but to my understanding, a pump is a lot more machining and material. Is it true for this as well? This is a budget pump while your stuff is high end waterblocks, so does the "value" of $5 change?

Is anodizing the only solution to dealing with corrosion? What about nickel or gold plating? Would that work as well/better?

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by AngryAlpaca

True for waterblock tops, but to my understanding, a pump is a lot more machining and material. Is it true for this as well? This is a budget pump while your stuff is high end waterblocks, so does the "value" of $5 change?

Is anodizing the only solution to dealing with corrosion? What about nickel or gold plating? Would that work as well/better?

Delrin machines faster than aluminium if that's a concern. In fact, the more machining there is, the more it favors Delrin. We're ripping through the Delrin at pretty high feed rates presently.

The middle plates in my blocks are made from Delrin though, and I can assure you that there's more machining time in one of those than a pump.

[Stang_Man]

problem with ripping through delrin at fast rates, is it'll chip away as the mill starts milling, but it will never chip big enough to ruin the piece.

so, just a small concern i have when i machine delrin, is the fear of it chipping too far.

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by Stang_Man

problem with ripping through delrin at fast rates, is it'll chip away as the mill starts milling, but it will never chip big enough to ruin the piece.

so, just a small concern i have when i machine delrin, is the fear of it chipping too far.

I was speaking in a relative sense in comparison to machining aluminium...we're cutting it at a speed that still leaves a very good finish, it's just a lot faster than could be done on aluminium.