Hi, I have seen a lot of videos about custom watercooling loops and setups and the pros and cons. The most cons I have seen is related to water having to change it at intervals, corrosion, mixing of metals, additives to the water and so on and so forth. Recently I saw an episode of Wheeler Dealers where they used a waterless engine coolant with no corrosion, no problems of mixing metals and it last the "life of the engine", so it wouldn't be needed to change it and it could fairly easily be cleaned if dirty Also it had nearly the same viscosity as water. So I thought if it could be used a coolant is custom PC loop?
There is ethylene glycol and propylene glycol. There are also mix variations like Toyota uses. There is the green automotive and the pink RV antifreeze and the clear food grade product. Sometimes they have water premixed at a certain percentage to increase thermal efficiency.
I don't have an answer, but make sure you know what you're using for sure.
I was thinking more of Evens Waterless Cooling, if it's was possible to use that as coolant, it there is anything to the idea or if it's just stupid, the guys on youtube loves it for cooling cars and such.
Worst case scenario: it might attack the tubing (since it's different from what's used in cars) and it might be less efficient than water in transporting heat. But hard to say without knowing what's in it.
May want to check the chemistry of the fluid, on the metals it should work fine, but with the tubing it may melt or harden it. Both some fairly unlikely, but I'd test it first.
Also make sure the density and viscosity are fine even at room temps, if the pump can't push it when it is cold it's useless. Cars tend to have much better pumps and much higher temps than a PC.
They say on their website it should be able to work at -40 C and the viscosity should be the same as water, but of course I didn't think of what it would do to the tubing. In some months when I need to change the coolant on my car, changing to waterless and around the same time might be upgrading to a kit system from EK. I'm wanting to try this out. Will be contacting to supplier and ask him about the tubing issue, have been in contact with him before, seems like a nice enough person.
I've heard really good things about Evans Cooling and it isn't a pre mixed coolant as someone mentioned earlier. There is no water in it. I've been planning on getting some for my motorcycle.
If you have a couple extra bucks I would find a cheap water cooling setup and run it separately from your computer for a month. This will allow you to test for compatibility and biological growth without risk to your components.
If he doesn't have a definite answer you can pick up a piece of the tube (probably both rigid and flexible since materials are different) and just dunk like an inch into a bowl of it. Leave it in for a while, maybe warm it and cool it to simulate thermal changes and see what happens.
Looking at the spec sheets and thermal points, my best guess is that it's a silicone oil. Definitely do some testing to make sure it doesn't gum up your tubes or seals.
hmmmm.... snake oil perhaps? I dont know. The risk of it damaging tubing etc vs the possiblity of it shaving a degree or to off the loop temps I certainly wouldnt risk it. I'll stick to water thanks.
Actually, modern (although not waterless coolants) are made to increase the thermal carrying capacity of regular water. Although that only really matters above base boiling temp. Since the coolants are made to increase that temperature.
I'm still trying to figure out if there is a way to have the coolant "appear" to be liquid metal (like mercury) that, or find a company that can make a pump that will pump liquid mercury.
Then a glass blower to make me an all glass tubing (quartz glass) water cooling loop.
Yeah it would. Also be crazy ass expensive, especially the glass tubing watercooling loop. I actually tried to do one, turns out bending glass tubing is a fuck ton harder than it looks on youtube videos.
Ended up going to a glassblowing forums and asking about it. Apparently it's been done before, but I've never managed to find a working example. But I was told that a scientific glassblower at a college would be capable of doing it.
I just want my watercooling loop to look like something a mad scientist built, is that so much to ask? lol
If you get normal glass (not borosilicate) it's actually very easy to bend over a bunsen burner. I wouldn't use it for a water cooling loop because I'd be afraid of it breaking (thermal stress, too tight fittings, stress when picking up the pc, etc.) but I do bend glass tubing for my micro algae cultures and it's very easy, especially at the comparatively small diameters needed.
As for mad scientist: a lot of the glassware is modular and I'm sure you could use that together with soft tubing to make some spectacular loop/reservoir. (Maybe add an air pump with bubbler to get some nice effects.)
But maybe even just adding a rack with filled and stoppered test tubes could add to the mad scientist feel, despite not having a function in the loop.
Oh I was definitely thinking of using some kind of large condenser looking thing as the reservoir. Not to mention coiling the lines going into and out of the blocks, just because.
I also had an idea for an all glass radiator. Put a bunch of microscope slides in some kind of bracket, heat them, push tubing through, reheat, allow to cool, and bam, glass radiator. Probably wouldn't work for some reason I'm not aware of. Would be ballin as fuck though.
Not worth the risks to me along with the tubing I'd be concern with the actual pump and the impeller in that pump that moves the coolant, while I'm not sure there is a very strong chance that the impeller is going to be made of plastic or rubber that may not be compatible with automotive coolant of any type, biggest problem is that it will work at first and maybe for a year but eventually it could cause a failure that could lead to a very expensive failure of the CPU / GPU or a continual slow rise in system temperature over time that will be very hard to figure out.
Is the proper coolant for a water loop that expensive?
Would definitely look awesome but glass is a very bad conductor of heat, so it would be much less efficient than a metal radiator, unfortunately. But you could use it as a decorative piece in conjunction with a normal radiator.