watercooling: distilled/deionized water?

The alternative to direct air cooling

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Mirar
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watercooling: distilled/deionized water?

Post by Mirar » Fri Jan 17, 2003 1:00 am

What is the practical difference between distilled and deionized water?
Deionized water seems to be way easier to find.

(Deionized water is simply filtered, I know that. Distilled water is boiled and stuff, and more or less pure water. But I don't know what difference that makes...)

jeffreylee
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Post by jeffreylee » Fri Jan 17, 2003 2:32 am

Wouldn't distilled water have little to no metals/minerals in it so that there isn't any build up of stuff inside the pump/tubing?

Mirar
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Post by Mirar » Fri Jan 17, 2003 12:46 pm

That's what I thought. However, I'm having a hard time to find distilled water.
All "battery water" sold at gas stations and drugstores are just deionized.

I'm going to water wet ("redline water wetter") it too, I wonder if that will remove all the effects of being distilled.

MikeC gave me this link:
http://newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem00/chem00223.htm

Bat
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Post by Bat » Fri Jan 17, 2003 2:01 pm

De-ionized should be fine.
Each of the two processes won't remove all types of impurities, but if you start from tap water then neither will leave anything that might do any harm in a water cooling system.
Also bear in mind that cars often have iron, brass/copper and aluminium in their cooling systems and are happy with the stuff.
Then, if you make sure no oxygen can get into the water, no corrosion will happen.

pingu666
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Post by pingu666 » Fri Jan 17, 2003 2:08 pm

de ionized stuff is non conductive isnt it?
but, its rather errosive (soz forgotten correct term :P)
basicly itll eat thru ya bits i belive
which is bad
(it has no ions, hence nicks em from your block etc)

Justin_R
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Post by Justin_R » Fri Jan 17, 2003 10:48 pm

I read the link above:
Ask A Scientist© Chemistry Archive Distilled vs Deionized Water

And here's my take, with bonuses from my college training:

Summary:
Distilled water is what you want.

Long Explanation:
Distilled water is what you put in cars. De-ionized water is used as a substitue for distilled water because distilled water is comparatively expensive and not always necessary when ionically neutral water is needed.

De-ionizing water removes impurities (specifically, polyvalent ions) through a filtration process, but sometimes leaves or even adds different impurities (like Sodium ions) into the water. De-ionizing systems are sometimes called "softening" systems. Distillation is typically accomplished by boiling off water and collecting the vapor. Impurities in the water do not undergo a liquid->gas phase change (for metals, if you had alcohol in the water it would undergo a phase change, but at a much lower temperature), and hence are not collected.

Even distilled water naturally ionizes (if I remember my chemistry right, into H30+ and OH-, not H+ and OH-), and hence is conductive. There is no way to prevent this kind of ionization-- there's no such thing as non-conductive water.

The most important thing for water cooling is to insure that minerals like Mg and Ca don't build up in your water lines, cooling block, radiator, etc. So you want those impurities to not be there, not just to be ionically balanced with other impurities. Thus, distilled water is what you should put in your watercooling system.

(I kind of think it might make sense to use a non-conductive organic solvent, eliminating the water danger altogether. But the specific heat of low-viscosity organic solvents is probably too low to absorb sufficient heat out of the heatsinks without a really fast pump. Not to mention that the solvent might boil at 50C!)

Ah, the joys of a MA in Biology. :roll:

Mirar
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Post by Mirar » Sat Jan 18, 2003 11:48 pm

Now I've looked around. No distilled water anywhere.
If anyone has a tip of where to get distilled water (I'm in Sweden, mind)...

There's just deionized water everywhere. And every store says "sure, we have distilled water" and puts forward a bottle of deionized water. :roll:

On the other hand, I read up on "redline water wetter", it's a corrosion inhibiter, so maybe I'll be good with deionized water and water wetter. (I can't figure out how much of that stuff to use, though.)

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Post by powergyoza » Sun Jan 19, 2003 1:35 am

Mirar wrote:Now I've looked around. No distilled water anywhere.
If anyone has a tip of where to get distilled water (I'm in Sweden, mind)...
I bet you that you can find distilled water at the drug store (or in the pharmacy section of a supermarket.

Mirar
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Post by Mirar » Sun Jan 19, 2003 1:45 am

The drug store sections doesn't have it, they typically just contain band-aids. The medicins are only sold by the state pharmacy (www.apoteket.se), and they don't have many chemistry products at all. (I checked there as well.)

The best lead so far was a paint store who used distilled water internally for some reason, but they had run out of it.

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Post by Bat » Mon Jan 20, 2003 3:39 pm

If you live in a place with clean air, you could use rainwater. That has been distilled, but might have absorbed some impurities from the air. Some of these (oxides of nitrogen and of sulphur, responsible for acid rain) can be driven off by boiling the water for a little while. I would do this anyway to kill bacteria and drive off dissolved oxygen.

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Post by JSealy00 » Mon Jan 20, 2003 6:32 pm

go with distilled:)

Mirar
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Post by Mirar » Tue Jan 21, 2003 12:23 am

I think I got distilled water. At least the shopkeeper thought that. The can didn't say either, but I gave up and just got it.

I found it at my ol'e car parts shop (they closed this Friday before I got the chance to check there) - I don't know how much computer stuff I've bought there. A few square meters of dampening mats, at least, and wires and stuff. :P (For Swedish readers: http://www.mekonomen.se/)

So now I got it all together. It's very stable in idle mode, CPU at 37°C.
Half an hour of IGI2 demo, CPU at 53°C and rather stable. I'll play more this afternoon to check.

CPU is a few degrees cooler this way then with my previous fanned Zalman solution. :-)
But my radiators have a total area close to 3 square meters, if I count correctly. (75 fins of 10x10cm x 2 sides x 2 radiators.)

Oh, and I also used the disk/PSU exhaust to push air through the top radiator. So it might not be entirely correct to call it passive, but I haven't got a fan in the vicinity at least. :D

/Mirar
passively watercooling Radeon 9700 pro and Athlon XP 1900+

chuckr
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Post by chuckr » Thu Jan 30, 2003 5:36 pm

Sorry to jump in late here....

Other places to check for either steam distilled water or for reverse osmosis water include nurseries, orchid clubs, or carnivorous plant growers. All these people (especially the carnivorous plant growers) have a need for large quantities of distilled or RO water for the health of their plants. While some claim that RO water is not as pure as steam distilled water, with properly maintained membranes, the RO water is just as good - and probably easier to find.

If you need, I can find you a carnivorous plant grower in Sweden.

Mirar
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Post by Mirar » Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:19 pm

Thanks. But I think I'm fine for now. I guess I wont know if it's the wrong water for some six months or so...

My main issue right now is vibrations from the pump. It vibrates very heavily, in my opinion, and if I have any part of the case touching it, I get a nice 50Hz resonance... (Eheim 1048)

bobkoure
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pump vibration

Post by bobkoure » Tue Feb 04, 2003 8:20 pm

I have a 1046 (next model down) which vibrates my case unless I put it on a pad of foam - so that's what I did. It's now inaudible (and there are no vibrations to be felt if I put my hand on my case)
I will eventually get some rubber/silicone/high-damping PVC "sandwich mounts" for it http://www.mcmaster.com/ (search for "vibration damping" or "sandwich mount"). Sorry if this link doesn't help you get the product (dunno if they ship out of the US) - but at least you might get an idea from it...

pingu666
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Post by pingu666 » Thu Feb 06, 2003 4:24 pm

submerse the pump in water
that will quieten it alot :)
if its inlet is thru a barb, taking that off and it suckin from res may improve flow rate

Blackeagle
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Post by Blackeagle » Fri Apr 02, 2004 6:45 pm

Distilled is the way to go as several have already posted. You could also check with lab supply companys, they will have distilled water for sure. Problem with lab suppliers is that it's often x3 distilled water which is completly free of contaminates, but costs a heck of alot.

DO NOT use Water Wetter, it is a product for automotive and truck engines, not computers. At the high temps combustion engines opperate at it is a very effective additive for increased cooling. But only at those much higher temps. Just as with anti-freeze which lowers flow rates and increases temps, Water Wetter is best left for automotive use only.

Used in a water loop of a computer it will come out of suspension and coat the walls of your lines. NOT GOOD! Also it will reduce flow through blocks with fine features such as channels, cups & other impingement or turbulance creating features inside them, I've not heard of it blocking off a block, but it can reduce flow and cooling. CASCADE users take note, it does not take much to interfear with those small jets & cups the Cascade depends on. It would not need to block more than a few of the jets to really impact your blocks superior performance hard.

The Swiftech additive is good to take care of biologics and inhibit corrosion. And that is all you will need, and with the Swiftech additive it doesn't take much of it which is also good.
Last edited by Blackeagle on Sat Apr 03, 2004 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

fmah
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Post by fmah » Sat Apr 03, 2004 12:47 am

I would use distilled water, and it used to be pretty easy to buy at the store. I remember it being available where rubbing alcohol and contact lens solutions is, but I haven't looked recently. You could make your own, by catching the steam from boiling water.

Deionized water is looking to get ions, and if not from air (which I don't think happens too readily?) it will pull it from things that do, like metals. I was told by a valve company that some stainless steel valves can be corroded by the deionized water.

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Post by Gooserider » Tue Apr 06, 2004 2:33 pm

Distilled is probably better in the strictest technical sense, but deionized will work and is better than tap water. The basic idea is to get rid of as many impurities as possible, but absolute perfection isn't all that critical, we aren't talking a surgically sterile environment to begin with. Actually I suspect that reasonably good tap water probably wouldn't cause that much of a problem either.

Regardless of what sort of water one starts with, as it circulates it will dissolve a small amount of the system's metals and pick up a few corrosion byproducts until it reaches a stable point. This is in addition to any galvanic corrosion that may be taking place (the reason why you should ALWAYS use some form of anti-corrosive.) If the water were constantly being replaced, especially because of evaporation (like the bong guys use) then mineral buildup over time might be an issue; but since the normal WC system just keeps recirculating the same water over and over, how the water started out shouldn't be a big issue.

Gooserider

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