how corrosive is distilled water?

pwnt by pat · Jan 26, 2004

in the article here:
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1098/index.asp

it says that distilled water is dielectric, but corrosive. im planning a submersion cooling system but i cant afford flourinet. well if i were to use distilled water, how long would it be till my board was ruined? would it ruin my board?

kthxbye
pat

iNSiGMA · Jan 26, 2004

Last night I just happened to be doing some electrolysis, I used some solid copper wire and distilled water from the corner store.
When power was applied to the lines one started corroding and the other started rusting... I'm talking an hour and I got water full of corrosion and flakes of rust....

Korndog · Jan 26, 2004

iNSiGMA said:
Last night I just happened to be doing some electrolysis, I used some solid copper wire and distilled water from the corner store.
When power was applied to the lines one started corroding and the other started rusting... I'm talking an hour and I got water full of corrosion and flakes of rust....

Just copper alone???

Diggrr · Jan 26, 2004

pwnt by pat said:
well if i were to use distilled water, how long would it be till my board was ruined? would it ruin my board?

Your board would last and last, until you plugged in the power supply.

Distilled water fresh from the still conducts just fine, nearly the same as tap water.

If you want to submerge a motherboard, use either mineral oil based transformer oil, or regular food-grade mineral oil.
There's arguements about the capacitor's rupturing, but it's yet to be proven to me. One guy here asked some pros, and they said you'd be upgrading long before it became a problem.

Search the username Beppi, he had a very nice submersion project.

Be safe, save the water for waterblocks/radiators.

pwnt by pat · Jan 26, 2004

wow... an hour. so the article is wrong about pure distilled water being dielectric? hmm. guess ill be using oil then. anyone know what temps they freeze at and if there are any clear oils(olive maybe?)?

edit: no results for anyone named Beppi unless im doing something wrong.

obsolete · Jan 26, 2004

So distilled water is not the greatest fluid to use in a water cooling system? I was recently thinking of purchasing a water cooled system........But I do want it to be reliable. Any ideas on how long your system will last with distilled water? Like pwnt said, how about olive oil? lol

pwnt by pat · Jan 26, 2004

distilled water is awesome for a real watercooled system. toss in some water wetter and you have an awesom system. what im talking about with oils is for putting the motherboard and psu in a foam say, ice chest, and dumping some kind of liquid. oil = bad for pumps.

obsolete · Jan 26, 2004

lmao, sorry.

Sad thing about that is.....I read that article, geez today is not so good, sorry I'm just a retard, but thanks for clarifying that I am!!

That is what I was thinking to........You guys put oil in pumps? Wouldn't that stop it from working.......oh geez, k....I'll stop talking.

pwnt by pat · Jan 26, 2004

okay, found some motor oil i should be able to use - 90 for 4 gallons (OW) but its good to -45c. check the extreme cooling for what i want to do.

Diggrr · Jan 26, 2004

pwnt by pat said:
no results for anyone named Beppi unless im doing something wrong.

Nope, you did it right, I was wrong.

It was in a link I had followed from here, but I swear he was posting here....old age maybe.

But I did find out a couple of things for you:
PICS
And he did finally have problems with only the very large caps on the board. They continue to work, but the rubber plug on the bottom of them swelled up and pushed them away from the solder joints.
He extended the legs on them and reattached them, and it continues to work fine with the origional though swollen caps.
It's not the cap itself was swelling, just the rubber plug on the bottom was pushing against the mobo.

Now there's finally some proof that it would swell some caps.
A quick sealing with epoxy would prevent that though, maybe remove some of the shrink wrap sleaving on the cap to get a good seal.

He's had the system for some time, and I believe this is his second.

Have fun!

pwnt by pat · Jan 26, 2004

so what did he use? distilled water?

BeerHunter · Jan 26, 2004

I've only had ap hs chemistry but water has a dissociation constant therefore it ionizes to produce hydronium (H+) and hydroxyl ions (OH-) which conduct electricity just fine. Don't try it as this "breakage" increases with temp..

Edit I hate that word "conduct" it actually excites electrons just fine.

PS- Also how are you going to stop CO2 and other gases from being absorbed into the water and ionizing even more?

pwnt by pat · Jan 26, 2004

ive completely scrapped the distilled water alltogether now. the motor oil is looking to be the best bet after i buy a new vid card

Diggrr · Jan 27, 2004

pwnt by pat said:
so what did he use? distilled water?

Nope, food grade mineral oil. I think he quoted $45 for 10 gallons. He used alot because it was pumped outside to a barrel of water with a radiator in it.

Distilled water is more of a resistor. It's definately NOT dielectric.

Koooler King · Jan 27, 2004

Distilled water describes a process that removes most, but not necessarily all minerals. It is the minerals disolved in water that make it conductive. Even with only a few ions floating around, it is still conductive enough to cause trouble with any electrical circuit.

Laboratory grade deionized water is essentially an electrical insulator. However, like all things that sound too good to be true, using it to directly cool a board or chip is a bad idea. This is because as soon as DI water comes in contact with any metal, salt, or compound that can be disolved in water, it immediately is no longer DI water and becomes conductive.

There are some high-tech compounds being developed for computer cooling that are non-conductive, but still have relatively decent heat capacity, although not up to that of water. It is good to keep thinking of creative ideas though.

KK

pwnt by pat · Jan 27, 2004

okay, thanks for clairifing kk, thats what i thought when my friend told me that distilled water doesnt conduct - hes and idiot and condesses to bull****ting.

one final question, can mineral oil be bought in a grocery store or where?

Koooler King · Jan 28, 2004

I don't think mineral oil would be a very good conductor of heat. I beleive it can be found at grocery stores and drugs stores. I'm not sure what's in it, but it may have some water and other things, even in trace amounts, that may make it somehwhat conductive ... probably best to test it with an ohm meter before actually putting it in contact with a live circuit.

KK

pwnt by pat · Jan 28, 2004

well, food grade mineral oil is non-conductive and has been used in many submersion projects before this so i have no worries. ill probably test it with an old celeron 533 pc first anyway, just to be safe.

Diggrr · Jan 28, 2004

Water may get into a tank of mineral oil from the rooms air, but it doesn't mix with the oil. Rather, it sinks to the bottom and accumulates as dropplets that you can drain off.
It's best not to have the motherboard laying flat on the bottom

Mineral oil is a very good insulator, it's the fluid that fills my pole transformer (the large grey cans on a phone pole that transforms power to your house from 7200 volts to 220 volts) as a replacement for the older transformer oils that contained cancer causing PCB's.
They fill these cans with oil to keep moisture from the air and rain from corroding the copper windings and connections, and to transfer heat from the transformer core to the can as a heatsink.
No, it's doesn't transfer heat as well as water, but it works.

It's also used to displace air between layers in high power electrolytic capacitors.

The food grade version is crystal clear, and is thinner than the transformer version (which is like motor oil).

You might even get the local pharmacy to order it by the gallon for you.
If you google for "beppi mineral oil" you'll find his link to where he bought his from on the net.

You must provide pics

pwnt by pat · Jan 29, 2004

i will make sure to post some pics of this project when its done. as of now, i have to con my friends folks into giving me their dehumidifier thats just sitting in their garage. or i could just steal it.

what i planned to do was use a styrofoam cooler to house all this. i would have the cooling element in the bottem (like #rotor's guide) with some sort of bar going right across in a grid fashion to support the mobo and psu (i love how they love to swim)

i will probably starting in the next week after i *cough* get that dehumidifier. if i can get my hands on a camera, ill make a pic journal. if not, a final pic will have to suffice.

how corrosive is distilled water?

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