Silver Kill coil turned copper coloured

My first post.

About 3 weeks ago I fitted a Phobya Silver Nickel Balancer 150 Res in my loop. Today I drained it and found that the silver kill coil had turned copper coloured. I think the res is nickel plated onto a copper plating on top of the brass and I can see what I think are machining marks on each side of the res where the anti-cyclone plate fits into the base which is either a copper or brass colour. I can't see any signs of corrosion on the res though. I checked the water when I'd drained it and it looked clear.

The other nickel plated items in my loop are the fittings and the top of the Kryos XT block. The base of the Kryos is copper as are the EK 5770 blocks. The fittings are a mix of Bitspower and TFC. The Kryos has been in the loop since March and when I replaced the old res with the Phobya one the silver was untainted. I haven't yet dismantled the blocks.

Attachment 116276Attachment 116277

I've been running deionised, PT Nuke and a kill coil. I run a few loops all with the same fluid and kill coil and none of them have discolouration including the one that has a Phobya Black Nickel Res which I've just checked and looks fine.

Is this another 'corrosion' problem?

Fake silver kill coil? For the looks of it it seems as if the silver has been worn out...which can't be because it should be all silver. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm weird...it just looks as if it was pure copper and just platted on top.

I'm fairly certain the copper deposits are on the top of the silver. It doesn't rub off easily.

It was sold as a Pulse Modding Silver Kill Coil (Anti Algae) and 99.9% pure silver coil.

denotes a weak battery being created, galvanic separation of silver and pure copper is .2 V while this is low, clearly it is enough to induce exchange of element.

I wonder if Ian knows that Pulse Moding is marketing their silver coils as "Kill Coils".... interestingly, they're also marketing their copper sulfate -based biocide as "PM Nuke" (looks to be a Nuke -Cu clone).

I've dismantled the Kryos and the internal nickel looks fine. There was a slight bit of oxidation on the copper pins but that's all. I'd forgotten what a pain it is to re-assemble with only 2 hands.

Can I assume that the 'weak battery' was caused by the Phobya res or should I be looking for something else? As I mentioned previously none of my other loops show this problem and one of them has a Phobya black nickel res in it. I've replaced the Phobya res in this system with a Delrin one.

That "Kill Koil" is suspect.

I've just snipped a bit off the end of it and it's silver all the way through, just the top surface has the copper deposits.

Edit: I've put a new kill coil that I bought at the same time in the loop and see what it's like in a few weeks.

its 99.9% lol most other including ours is 99.999%. i all so know I&H is that as well.

The reason why we use it that high is because of the other impurities that will be in it are less in ours. That all so explains why there so dammed cheap.

Its the same for making collide liquids you need to use purer silver to do it.

You get what you pay for at the end of the day ....... What's even more amazing is its 1/2 the weight of our's and I&H ...

Petra mate they have tried copying our biocide (even going as far as copying our text & yours (esp in the ppm text you guys use)) how ever we ran tests and found that it is no were near as good.

im wondering wtf has changed in the past 2 yrs which is making silver cause havok.

Dont u guys see that trend?

Something was changed which is making the silver react, or something react inside.

I have never had what ur posting on silver with almost any combination of parts.

It's a conspiracy! *tinfoil hat* oh darn it, the tin foil isn't the same anymore, I'm screwed.

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Originally Posted by Sparky

It's a conspiracy! *tinfoil hat* oh darn it, the tin foil isn't the same anymore, I'm screwed.

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AHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Pretty soon im gonna be like this:
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/somedays.jpg

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Originally Posted by NaeKuh

Dont u guys see that trend?

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The only trend I've seen is companies doing all manner of things to cut costs...

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Originally Posted by Petra

The only trend I've seen is companies doing all manner of things to cut costs...

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Yeah... im seeing that now also..

What now? we need to filter out for the junk / premium stuff?

Man id rather just go back to custom fabing though bei fei.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Petra

The only trend I've seen is companies doing all manner of things to cut costs...

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Mate obversely not running tests on there stuff there selling. i spend more on my test equipment than i do on my products. it makes my cry spending £170 on some thing just to measure PPM's

I know for a fact that 99.999% pure silver costs a hell of alot more than what the base price there selling there 99.9% silver for.

I am not sure why you would put it back into your loop. It might not even be silver. More water cooling vendors flooding the market with garbage.

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Originally Posted by mlwood37

Mate obversely not running tests on there stuff there selling. i spend more on my test equipment than i do on my products. it makes my cry spending £170 on some thing just to measure PPM's

I know for a fact that 99.999% pure silver costs a hell of alot more than what the base price there selling there 99.9% silver for.

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That cost cutting comment wasn't directed at anyone in particular.... the trademark comment via PM, on the other hand, was.

yeh ive all ready attended to that on my product line as i defo don't what to encroach on naming conventions.

Note to self: avoid this "pulse modding" stuff, reminds me of the chinese-made cheapo knockoffs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sparky

It's a conspiracy! *tinfoil hat* oh darn it, the tin foil isn't the same anymore, I'm screwed.

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As we are approaching the year 2012, the solar neutrinos have started to interact with matter [1] at a much higher frequency than previous terrestrial experiments have detected, specifically with silver and nickel. The new flux of this new flavor of silver/nickel-interacting neutrinos is responsible for the recent wave of watercooling incidents and otherwise unexplained phenomena.

[1] Dr. Adrian Helmsley, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190080/

I've removed the other kill coil and when I can get my order accepted at Mayhem's Dyes I'll replace them all. As far as I can tell the Pulse Modding Coils are supplied by all the main UK Watercooling suppliers (not Mayhem's obviously).

Out of curiosity I've put the new unused coil in a container of deionised water and some copper and see what it looks like in a few weeks.

Mate send me your address ill replace your coil's for free. Ill drop them off in a post box as im going to the airport ...

just pm me your address across bud. (thats as long as its in the UK as the post office wont be open at 4 in the morning lol)

You could do a quick test of the purity that I used to do for pure silver coins. Put a droplet of nitric acid on a clean piece and see if it turns a creamy color. If not, its below 90% silver. I'm thinking it might be a very low grade silver that they plated with 99.9% judging from the price.

No nitric acid available. I just wonder why someone would go to all the trouble of faking it? It's not as though it's a mass market and I've just noticed (kicking myself now) that the proper silver from Mayhem's is actually cheaper than the Pulse Modding stuff.

Mind you I should have known about the Pulse Modding quality. I wanted to put some side fans in my TJ07 and rather than cut the original window I bought a the pre-shaped, pre-drilled Pulse Modding one. The mounting holes were out by up to 1mm in some places. Might not be a lot but it still stopped the screws fitting without a bit of filing.

Edit: mlwood37, that's a very generous offer and I've sent you a pm but I'm happy to pay for them.

It's actually easy to get nitric acid, just look for a coin testing kit online. They come in handy for testing the purity levels of gold jewelry as well. Ive had 2 or 3 pieces of gold that were said to be 18k, and they were actually 10k....... Price difference between 10k and 18k is quite a bit........

99.9 % is easy to get in the UK and is way cheaper than 99.999 %. Here in the UK atm silver is very highly priced. When we did a electrode test of UK 99.9 Silver we saw the same thing happen in a matter of hours were as the 99.999% it didn't happen we just got oxidisation ...

I have the pulse modding conversion kit for the HK and its perfect and relay well priced (saved me buying another one). So im defo happy with that.

Or take it to just about any jeweller, they'll almost certainly have a simple testing kit for precious metals; I'm not at work so I can't tell you which acid(s) are in it... but if memory serves it only really tests up to and including stirling (925/1000) the quickest test I can think of actually is to attack it with a gas flame (propane/butane/mains-gas) and if it oxidises (turns black) it's not pure silver if it doesn't, it is.

But even if it is pure silver it could be a case of copper plating onto the silver; we (jewellers) have to keep our pickle (acidic cleaning solution for removing surface oxidation and fire-stain) meticulously free of contaminants, iron participially, otherwise the copper oxide which has been leached from the surface of the silver (stirling silver, that is, as it's the copper which oxidises not the silver) and turned into copper sulphate, is plated onto the silver. So it could be that something is in your loop that shouldn't be.

Though your picture looks much more patchy than the accidental copper plating I've seen, though there the pickle was quite well on it's way (blue tinted due to the copper sulphate) and hot (50-70C) so plated pretty thoroughly.

The bit that didn't melt turned black in patches with butane.

Um... yea don't get it that hot :p

Do the black patches wipe off with a cloth (could be soot) or are they pretty permanent (like a layer of copper oxide) and are the melted bits still silver-ish/white-ish?

When the soot's wiped off it's still black underneath although the melted blob is still silver coloured.

Paradoxical... By the blob being silver coloured it sounds like fine silver; by the un-melted section being blackened it sounds like a silver/copper alloy (be it stirling, american-coin-silver, or whatever.)

...but then again, that could be exactly right... The deposited copper oxidised on the un-melted portion, and on the ortion that melted the copper content was so low that it didn't cause surface oxidation.

My bet, you've got something that's roughly fine silver (999/1000 or above) and it was a reaction between the copper sulphate bioside, and any copper in solution due to an acidic etching from your loop; causing deposition on your silver.

I won't disagree with you as you know more about it than me. Also I've been thinking that there would be loads of other people complaining about this if it were common. I add 5 drops of PT Nuke (Petra's) into 5 litres of Deionised as I've always done when I buy it. I put this particular coil into the loop when I put the res in. Prior to that I was still using the same mix of PT Nuke to water and a kill coil which still looked normal when I removed it. I planned on putting the old one into the next container of deionised when I bought it so it would have time to start working and not have to bother with the PT Nuke in future.

The Kryos has been in the loop since March, the EK copper blocks since January and the fittings for about a year and as I say the old kill coil was fine.

Both Pulse Modding coils and IandH coils use .999 (99.9%) silver going on the product descriptions written by IandH and Pulse Modding, no doubt confirmed by the silver suppliers.

I believe some people may be confusing .999 silver as 99.999% which its not. .99999 would be 99.999%. Even I had to read that 3 times to make sure it was right!

Asura seems to have nailed it, the silver is acting as a deposition piece for the copper atoms in the loop. These could be stripped from the block/res/copper suphate solution used and would happen with any silver coil used. The more silver placed the loop the less the copper deposits would be visible, then I would say its more a matter of time before they are visible depending on the surface area to cover?

Sounds like deposition plating to me as well, and the torch test would have shown like that as you said if the copper that was on the coil happened to melt in with the silver.

It's just over a month now since this happened. I cleaned and put the kill coil into the res and filled it with water from the same batch I'd used for the loop and just left it. There's no trace of copper deposits on it after this time so no real idea what caused this in the first place.

I like to say thanks to Mick at Mayhem Dyes who kindly sent me 3 silver kill coils just as he was about to go on holiday.

Very interesting thread.

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Originally Posted by Petra

The only trend I've seen is companies doing all manner of things to cut costs...

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Agreed!!! It gets so frustrating. Thank god there are still a select few out there that work diligently to maintain their quality.

asura took the word out of my mouth. I'm a not a jeweler but know some stuff about chemistry, medicine teaches a lot of stuff you won't need for treating humans, so I too would say it's the deposit originating from that copper-sulphate solution you're using as a biocide. Must be you put a bit more of it in the loop or it has higher concentration of it... Manufacturing mistake or something... Dunno...