- Joined
- Dec 31, 2002
- Location
- Honolulu, HI
A warning for anybody that considers CHEAP pond pumps as a possible alternative to the real thing...you're asking for trouble..or you're a gambler of some kind.
Anyway...I was setting up my first useful watercooling setup consisting of Koolance CPU 200 gold and a nice FORD F 150 heatercore when I suddenly realized that my Little Giant pump had disappeared somehow. Since I didn't have the patience to search for it any longer I rushed over to Home Depot and bought a Beckett pond pump listed at 190 g/hour, submersible only. It was kind of tiny and made in China...oh well, only $ 29...
Two hours later I was all set up and fired it all up without problems. (Shock) Other than the correction of a small leak on the block, misfit clamp, everything was cool...
Temps at full load were only 9C over idle so I opened up a bottle of champagne (plenty of that just before New Year!) and celebrated my first successful water cooling rig.
The first 24 hours were uneventful...but a day later I noticed something weird, there was a faint grey residue in the water in my reservoir (2 gal. bucket for now). WTF...first I thought it might be dissolved solder from the heatercore but I realized that this was very unlikely at those temps....(27 C water)...and a closer look revealed tiny, tiny pieces of metal that looked like glitter streaming thru my vinyl tubing.
It looked kind of cool but I knew deep inside that this was trouble, unknown trouble, and you know that unknown trouble is the worst of them!
So I pulled the pump out the water and it was too warm to feel comfortable, grey metal shavings were sitting on its body, very very fine shavings that glittered in the light, maybe aluminum.
That was strange since I only have brass, copper and gold in my system...
So I dropped the pump back in the bucket and while I started to think what to do about this mess I noticed a whole lot of tiny bubbles forming on the pump body, thousands of them.
Oh well... (btw. great Fleetwood Mac song for my generation at least)...time to shut down the cpu...
A few minutes later, with more glitter in the tubes and more bubbles, it started to smell somehow burnt from the reservoir, the bubbles releasing small puffs of smoke!
I can only guess that the encapsulation of the pump was finally burning up inside.
O.K. pump No.1 went to pump heaven...4 hours before New Years. Darn...time to bust out the other bottles of Champagne...
Fast forward to next year...Home Depot was open...SHOCK...
The clerk handling my return was not happy to work today. I tried to be honest but at the words of "...watercooling..." he just frowned so I added "...two of my goldfish died!..." and he responded with "...that's BAD!" and I nodded mournfully while I got my money back...no more Beckett pumps for me...
So...lessons learned here are:
Don't drink and drive!...no wait...Don't pump and drive!...no wait..
I'm so close...
Don't pimp and drive!..No, No...almost...
Don't skimp on pumps...Yeah, that's it!
Happy New Year
moonchild
Anyway...I was setting up my first useful watercooling setup consisting of Koolance CPU 200 gold and a nice FORD F 150 heatercore when I suddenly realized that my Little Giant pump had disappeared somehow. Since I didn't have the patience to search for it any longer I rushed over to Home Depot and bought a Beckett pond pump listed at 190 g/hour, submersible only. It was kind of tiny and made in China...oh well, only $ 29...
Two hours later I was all set up and fired it all up without problems. (Shock) Other than the correction of a small leak on the block, misfit clamp, everything was cool...
Temps at full load were only 9C over idle so I opened up a bottle of champagne (plenty of that just before New Year!) and celebrated my first successful water cooling rig.
The first 24 hours were uneventful...but a day later I noticed something weird, there was a faint grey residue in the water in my reservoir (2 gal. bucket for now). WTF...first I thought it might be dissolved solder from the heatercore but I realized that this was very unlikely at those temps....(27 C water)...and a closer look revealed tiny, tiny pieces of metal that looked like glitter streaming thru my vinyl tubing.
It looked kind of cool but I knew deep inside that this was trouble, unknown trouble, and you know that unknown trouble is the worst of them!
So I pulled the pump out the water and it was too warm to feel comfortable, grey metal shavings were sitting on its body, very very fine shavings that glittered in the light, maybe aluminum.
That was strange since I only have brass, copper and gold in my system...
So I dropped the pump back in the bucket and while I started to think what to do about this mess I noticed a whole lot of tiny bubbles forming on the pump body, thousands of them.
Oh well... (btw. great Fleetwood Mac song for my generation at least)...time to shut down the cpu...
A few minutes later, with more glitter in the tubes and more bubbles, it started to smell somehow burnt from the reservoir, the bubbles releasing small puffs of smoke!
I can only guess that the encapsulation of the pump was finally burning up inside.
O.K. pump No.1 went to pump heaven...4 hours before New Years. Darn...time to bust out the other bottles of Champagne...
Fast forward to next year...Home Depot was open...SHOCK...
The clerk handling my return was not happy to work today. I tried to be honest but at the words of "...watercooling..." he just frowned so I added "...two of my goldfish died!..." and he responded with "...that's BAD!" and I nodded mournfully while I got my money back...no more Beckett pumps for me...
So...lessons learned here are:
Don't drink and drive!...no wait...Don't pump and drive!...no wait..
I'm so close...
Don't pimp and drive!..No, No...almost...
Don't skimp on pumps...Yeah, that's it!
Happy New Year
moonchild
