Tubing and clouding, Ongoing mini test!

[Brodholm]

Hello. I know there have been a lot of discussion over clear tubing and clouding. So I thought I'd make a little "test" to see what happens to the tubing after a while. I know some have come to think that the PT-nuke makes tubing cloud. We will just have to wait and see.

So basically what i did was to take 3 small pieces of tubing and put them in 3 sterilized jars. Three different jars. One with PT-PHN and one with only distilled and finally a jar with a silver chain and distilled water. The distilled is not a good option because of Algae and stuff. But I just wanted to add it to see what it does to the tubing as some kind of baseline.

And when I say distilled water I mean deionized water (so there is no confusion).


3 Small pieces of tygon B44-4X tubing.

The tubing was put in a sterilized container and shaken with distilled water to ensure that they where clean (tubing is also new from sidewinders and came in a plastic bag)



This is how the jars look like. Its just standard glass jars that I have cleaned and sterilized with boiling water.



I just had boiling water in the jars. (It was really hard to pour out the water with them being about 90 degrees celcius). Not the best but good enough. There may be some junk left in some corner or something. But It should be clean do to the high heat.



I also cleaned the silver chain and poured boiling water over it an let it be there for 1-2 minutes.



Done, everything got sealed with the lids.

The jar with the "ABBA" lid have distilled water + PT_Nuke -PHN (half a drop, maybe to strong).
The jar with the "ICA" lid is just distilled water.
The jar with the "Felix" lid have a silver chain and distilled water.




And finally I put the jars on a radiator (no not a "radiator" that you use in computers) so it have a high temperature. I would guess it keeps a temperature of 30-40 degrees.


Thoughts

I know that the conditions are not a 100% accurate but it should be similar. I try to shake around the jars when I walk by them. So the water will move in the tubing. I know this will not get super accurate but it should be quite good. And it should be consistent as all the jars will keep the same temp! (the values may fluctuate some degrees).


Note that I did this today. So if there is anything in my method you think I should change please say so now And also I will not have results until a few weeks at least!


If you where to guess how long will I take for each to cloud?! Myself I really don't have a clue but ill check it from day to day without opening the lids to ensure that no other stuff gets in the jar.

Martin and skinnee watch out!

[Brad8988]

Be interested results as PT nuke clouded mine to hell but i may have added alittle too much.

[Brodholm]

Be interested results as PT nuke clouded mine to hell but i may have added alittle too much.

Yeah, at least it seems like people that use distiled + silver don't get clouding? Not as much at least. Or maybe its me that haven't looked good enough.

Isn't a recommended dosage 1 drop per liter of pt-nuke?

[Stealth42o]

Martin and skinnee watch out!

Quite a brilliant idea, will look forward to the results.

[millertime359]

Great idea, would be cool if you had some Feser 1 to add to the test, be interesting to see what the results are. How long will you let the jars sit for?

[Brodholm]

Don't know exactly. But when it gets cloudy I will take it out and have a look. Take some pictures. I see no point in taking them out unless they aren't cloudy. But after a month or so I may have a look and take some pictures. Haven't decided yet :P

[zanzabar]

i have blue primochil pro lrt and it dosnt look clouded, but i will see if there is platicizer on the tubes when i redo my loop next week

[millertime359]

I know my Tygon and res clouded during the first week, I am pretty certain it was the die I used seeing it was settling in the bottle of PC ICE when I only pour half the bottle of die in. and also when I was flushing the system with distilled water, the Tygon ad res were still UV reactive. Thank god i had ordered 10 feet of tygon, had plenty to re run my loop.

[Petra]

A few notes:

In general, I haven't really had issues with the Tygon B-44 series of tubing (B-44-3, in specific) clouding. R-3603, on the on the other hand, I've had cloud all to hell with just distilled (especially if a system is just let to sit... actually had that happen in a test loop comprised of B-44-3, with a short section of R-3603 in it... the 3603 section clouded while the B-44-3 didn't).

The other thing I noticed while submerging tubing like that (using Masterkleer) was that all of the test pieces became a foggy/milky color after a period of time due to what I assumed was water absorption. Leaving the test sections out to air dry for a while (may have been a day or so) resulted in them clearing back up. That little submersion test was done over the course of a few months with distilled, G11 (10%), G12 (10%), and HydrX (10%)... the control was fine, the G11 piece had a slight blue tinge to it but was clear, the G12 piece was dyed UV hot pink but clear, and the HydrX piece was just kinda nasty (grimy/filmy and had a but of a brown tinge). I'll edit this post if I can find a photo...

The tubing formulation and radiator cleaning probably have more to do with clouding than coolant additives. Heck, the display system in our office has been going without a coolant change for over two years now without a coolant change and the tubing (Masterkleer) is still quite clear... It's running a 10% G11 mix that has had insane amounts of various different dyes and biocides added to it over the years (both the Nuke Cu and the Nuke PHN are in there at concentrations that are way above anything that anyone should be using).

BTW, the regular Copper sulfate nuke (the blue stuff) has a recommended mix ratio of 1-2 drops per liter of coolant. The nuke PHN (clear), on the other hand, has a recommended mix ratio of 4 drops per liter.

*edit* Found one of the instances where I posted the photo and stuff previously: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...44&postcount=2

[Brodholm]

Good info, Then it was not such a overdose. I used one drop of PHN in about 1dl of water. Thats about twice what is recommended then. And I agree that not cleaning your loop is probably one of the main reasons why it clouds. I think I will be running just straight distilled in the loop for some hours and then do the same thing twice. Before I go with the real water. Just to flush out everything that i didn't get when cleaning the components.

[Russ_64]

Feser 1 (Green) clouded my Clearflex 60 but has not clouded my XSPC (MasterKleer?) tubing, just changing to Coolaboratory Blue (pre-mix) - so far (week) it's okay.

[WhiteFireDragon]

i sort of tried this before. i boiled water and poured it into a container with masterkleer tubing in it. after a few hours of letting it sit in the hot water, i was permanently clouded. its like i cooked it or something, similar to how when you cook egg whites, it's becomes clouded and no so clear anymore

[Russ_64]

I think most tubing is only rated for Max 60c .................

[Brodholm]

This tubing was not boiled. The where shaken in distilled water only. I'm seeing signs of the pt-nuke sample getting more white. The silver is still clear. I may redo this test with proper amount of pt and try both pt nuke variants and take the jars to the dishwasher first. I will leave all the samples until only one remains clear.

Tygon r3603 have a maximum recommended usage temp of 74C. Same goes for B44-4X.

[SoulsCollective]

B-44-4X was not the best to test if you want to show clouding. I've never had that stuff cloud up on me, as opposed to R3603, which went horrible after only a few weeks.

[Brodholm]

B-44-4X was not the best to test if you want to show clouding. I've never had that stuff cloud up on me, as opposed to R3603, which went horrible after only a few weeks.

Yeah, I know. But that was all i had :\ And some ty xspc tubing that looks cloudy from the start

[ecat]

Always good to see another test. The long term tests can be a problem, people forget about them. Any chance of a photo of the three jars, say, once a week.

[SoulsCollective]

Yeah, I know. But that was all i had :\ And some ty xspc tubing that looks cloudy from the start

Petra, send the man a foot of 3603 so we can all look at the pretty clouds.

Professor Fitz: Well, the cumulonimbus formations about which you speak that look like...
Howard Hughes: Giant breasts full of milk. I want clouds, damn it.
Professor Fitz: Yes, clouds that look like giant breasts full of milk, cannot exactly be guaranteed for any particular occasion. So you might have to... to wait.
Howard Hughes: Then we'll wait. Look, whatever they pay you at UCLA I'm doubling it, all right? You work for me now. Find some clouds. Find some clouds! Find me some clouds!

[andressergio]

B-44-4X was not the best to test if you want to show clouding. I've never had that stuff cloud up on me, as opposed to R3603, which went horrible after only a few weeks.

my R3603 went cloudy after 2 weeks what are you using now souls ?

Cheers
Sergio

[Baleful]

3603 still clouds even without using PTNuke, just not as bad or fast. For some reason, PTNuke seems to accelerate the process.

[kinghong1970]

now only if iPhone has an app for this...

[SoulsCollective]

my R3603 went cloudy after 2 weeks what are you using now souls ?

Currently? R-3400, it's the reflective opaque black stuff. For clear tubing in client builds, however, the weapon of choice is the stuff being tested here - B-44-4X (Tygon "Food and dairy" tubing). Slightly less flexible and more expensive than R-3603, but worth it in my book.

I've also heard good things about the new Tygon 2001 "Plasticizer free" tubing (AE300038), but I've never had a chance to use it myself.

[bluehaze]

3603 clouds real quick. Switched to b44-4x and it's going good with no clouding.

[moiraesfate]

Hmm, I'd be interested to see the results with different kinds of dyes (like feser one) and different types of tubing, too.

If you ever have the time.

This will be quite an interesting experiment.

[MrToad]

I use silver tygon now, because every cloud has a silver lining