Distilled Water Shootout!

[Martinm210]

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend tap. I was just trying it as a fun test. Considering grocery store distilled water is less than a dollar a gallon and extremely pure, I wouldn't suggest going cheaper. It's also obvious these tap and spring type waters are pretty variable. While my tap measured at 208uS, I have found charts that say acceptable limits could be as high as 500-800uS.

[Martinm210]

We have to test with 443, your meter seems a little different to mine. All so a note for you ideally you should test at 25c even though the meter auto calibrates to take the temp range into account we found that some times it will alter the end result. Pic above was taken a 16.3c but i cannot be arsed waiting around for it to warm up.

We use a mix of test sticks / and electronic equipment to test the PH as well and the PPM.

Nice, have you tested what the conductivity is after running through a loop for a month or better yet several months? I typically don't change on long term loops but once every year, sometimes too. I'd be curious what the conductivity level does even longer term.

[BeepBeep2]

@Martin...
This test is somewhat useless to people that don't live in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Several reasons include -
Walmart water is processed by nearest municipal water supply, for example in my area it is Columbus, Ohio that does the distilled. I'm sure the other brands you've bought have more than one place they create distilled too. When I get store-brand water from a local store chain (Akron, Ohio) , it is from Cleveland, Ohio, and "Purified Water" like Dasani, Aquafina should already be counted out as they contain minerals purposely to enhance the taste.

[mlwood37]

Nice, have you tested what the conductivity is after running through a loop for a month or better yet several months? I typically don't change on long term loops but once every year, sometimes too. I'd be curious what the conductivity level does even longer term.

Yeh weve tested the Ultra pure H20, Premixes after 1 week, 1 month how ever i dont have the pics on hand. Im building a new test station and would like to re do all my tests again to make them more accurate. I dont believe my tests in the past were accurate enough for publishing (ive never really published any results ive complied) and i plan to re do them all again but this time publish all my results properly.

I have all so got my hands on some new lab equipment that will separate all fluids (coolants) and can help estimate the life time of the liquid under certain conditions (still not perfect but will be dammed interesting to see what happens).

Think its about time i did this. Oh ive forgot to say our tap water TDS is 78 here but there chlorine and fluoride levels are very high to so you could possibly get away with using our tap water (in my area) in a loop but you will eventually get a chemical build up and scale.

[Martinm210]

@Martin...
This test is somewhat useless to people that don't live in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Several reasons include -
Walmart water is processed by nearest municipal water supply, for example in my area it is Columbus, Ohio that does the distilled. I'm sure the other brands you've bought have more than one place they create distilled too. When I get store-brand water from a local store chain (Akron, Ohio) , it is from Cleveland, Ohio, and "Purified Water" like Dasani, Aquafina should already be counted out as they contain minerals purposely to enhance the taste.

Then you are missing the big picture..

I'm more interested in the instant ionization over the purity between distilled brands....If the levels jump from 0.7 in the bottle to 78 in just a few weeks of running in a loop, I could care less about 1-5uS differences. The more pure, the more ion hungry it is and the faster the ionization. In the end they are all ionized the same.

Bottom line, used distilled water and don't worry about what brand or where it comes from..it is all equally good!..

[rge]

@beepbeep2, wouldnt say useless, seemed pretty informative to me... the take home message is that all distilled tested ranged from 0.7 to 6 (all fine for our purposes), and after 2 minutes exposure to water loop components, all are going to be nearly indistinguishable from one another given after 2 mins it increased from .7 to 20, and after 1 month his was 78. In other words even if all walmart is 0.7 and all brand X is 6.0, or even if walmart ranges from 0.7 to 6 depending on where you buy, after an hour in a water loop, they are going to be roughly the same.

Martins testing just showed us instead of weeks/months of difference, probably only hours to days difference in conductivity between various distilled + ultrapure water.

And again low conductivity is only important in that you dont want certain ions that scale in your loop, ie mag/ca of tap or needless increase risk of corrosion mainly if using nickel, so by starting with something low (any distilled he tested was fine) just lets you know all ions will be from your loop.

edit...slow typist apparently

[BeepBeep2]

Then you are missing the big picture..

I'm more interested in the instant ionization over the purity between distilled....If the levels jump from 1 to 80 in just a few weeks, I could care less about 1-5uS differences.

Bottom line, used distilled water and don't worry about what brand or where it comes from..it is all the SAME!..

Okay

But then why test so many brands? Curiosity?

[mlwood37]

Okay

But then why test so many brands? Curiosity?

why not !

[Martinm210]

Okay

But then why test so many brands? Curiosity?

I was generally curious what sort of differences there were out there, but I really didn't find anything "Distilled" that was bad.

Other "non distilled" methods were a bit variable though. A few of the reverse osmosis type did ok, but most of the drinking types are possibly subject to adding of minerals and such for taste and probably something you should avoid. "Distilled" however is a pretty defined process and I seriously doubt you will find one that is bad, at least I couldn't find one here. I even have some walmart samples that I've opened and left open for months that still tests just fine.

[Proximon]

Then you are missing the big picture..

I'm more interested in the instant ionization over the purity between distilled brands....If the levels jump from 0.7 in the bottle to 78 in just a few weeks of running in a loop, I could care less about 1-5uS differences. The more pure, the more ion hungry it is and the faster the ionization. In the end they are all ionized the same.

Bottom line, used distilled water and don't worry about what brand or where it comes from..it is all equally good!..

This is where I start to have trouble with this. All we know from these tests is the level of purity of the water. We don't know what the impurities are exactly or how they may affect a loop in the long term. It's a given that there WILL be other things in the water, accumulating over time. We assume we know what those impurities are, but we don't know for certain. Copper, lead, silver, biocide, etc are all likely.

So unless I know exactly what the original H2O impurities are, I have to think that less of them will always be better.

If nothing else, the level of purity indicates the clean practices at the bottling plant, and would be indicative of the over-all reliability.

[Martinm210]

This is where I start to have trouble with this. All we know from these tests is the level of purity of the water. We don't know what the impurities are exactly or how they may affect a loop in the long term. It's a given that there WILL be other things in the water, accumulating over time. We assume we know what those impurities are, but we don't know for certain. Copper, lead, silver, biocide, etc are all likely.

So unless I know exactly what the original H2O impurities are, I have to think that less of them will always be better.

If nothing else, the level of purity indicates the clean practices at the bottling plant, and would be indicative of the over-all reliability.

Also keep in mind the scale here, it is easy to get lost in numbers.

It's all pretty new to me, but if I understand correctly the wal-mart 0.7uS translates to roughly 0.35ppm TDS. That is 0.35 parts per MILLION of total dissolved solids. That amounts to 0.00000035%

Tiny is an understatement, I'm more worried about the stuff added later from the loop parts particularly the plasticizer leaching, rad flux, etc. That's actually something you can visually see with the human eye.

[Proximon]

I certainly haven't come up with a scenario where such a small amount of anything is going to hurt the loop over time. Provided it's not alive of course.

[Martinm210]

Yeah, the scale is something hard to put in context it's so small.

It appears there is roughly 300,000 grains of medium sand in a cubic inch. I'm guessing an average loop is about 1.5 liters. If there are about 60 cubic inches in a liter, that would be roughly 90 cubic inches per loop.
90x300,000 = 27,000,000 grains of sand x 0.0000000035 = .09 or about 1/10th the size of a grain of sand.

The Total Dissolved Solids in ordinary grocery store distilled water is 1/10th the size of one grain of sand...

FYI,
Here is great article someone sent me a link to that includes a lot of the same and more. Also includes data on deionized waters and the process of various filtering methods...a very good read!
http://www.overclockers.com/pc-water...mistry-part-i/

[Conumdrum]

Finally found my water tests from a while back. Pretty much validates what Martin is saying.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=651859