Thermochill rad flux cleanup

[Navanod]

Truth to be told I too was pretty pissed to TC after seeing there's a horrible load of the flux crap inside the rad. I did try to flush it out with gallons and gallons of cold and room and boiling water. It appears I didn't quite succeed as even today - 18 months later - the stuff is floating in my res...
:\

Thats the entire point of me starting this thread!!!
I'm not saying TC is complete utter crap and that I'm just gonna sit here and throw rants all day long

I just wanted to discuss cleaning methods, and most importantly, find out if other's are like you, still seeing crap in their loop months later despite having cleaned their loop and getting clean water coming out for a few days.

I.E. DOES SEEING CLEAN WATER FLUSHED OUT = The rad is clean?

Until these condescending remarks started coming in...and turned the thread into a cat fight.

[eXa]

With such a petty debate, here's a good analogy to show why it's unacceptable like that but not defective :

You have a wallet full of bucks and no car so you need to get a nice car to suit your blingy lifestyle. After looking around, you fall in love with a Mercedes CLS63 AMG in the showroom so you proceed to buy it with a car salesman and pay cash for it. As you walk out with excitation to get such a exclusive car, the car salesman tell you will get it in one week (special delivery and such). When you get a phone call to learn that the car is ready to be picked up, you will go to the dealer then the salesman will show you your car. Your jaw drop to the floor at the sight of the car : A nice dark grey paint filled with lots and lots of dead hornets and bird poop all over the car. The salesman said that washing this car is not included and he dare to tell you to wash the car yourself. Will you find this acceptable ?

If all cars came dirty u wouldnt care that much.
All rads need cleaning before use.

[Navanod]

If all cars came dirty u wouldnt care that much.
All rads need cleaning before use.

If all rads required that amount of cleaning, I wouldn't care either, since the SOP would be well established

but imagine a car that you have to run through the car wash 5 times, followed by hand cleaning for an hour then driven around at 100km/hour for 2 hours to see if anymore dirt comes out of the nooks and crannies

compared to a normal car that you would run through a car wash once, followed by a quick hand wipe down

The thing is, everyone have their own home brew SOP for cleaning, and no one knows when is overkill (ie waste of time from that point on and potentially damaging) and when it is not truely clean but appears clean (such as my case, resulting in alot more cleaning work and wasted coolant)

We now know that it IS possible to clean the rad with nothing but hot water (thanks to R3) (no harsh chem needed) but it'll take a busload of water to do that.

I don't have hot taps, manually boiling water uses too much gas and time and distilled water ain't free either.
Hence, I was exploring the use of alcohol to reduce the number of hot flushes needed

[Navanod]

boil the water an place pot on top of bass speaker and crank up your favorite tune

home made ultrasonic cleaner

Loud Bass does not = ultrasonic

But seriously dude, I have ultrasonic water baths in the lab too, just nothing big enough for the PA120.3. Otherwise, that baby would've taken a long dip!

[IanY]

Navanod,

We may have something new for the recruits on Tekong to do, besides sweeping leaves lol

[Navanod]

Navanod,

We may have something new for the recruits on Tekong to do, besides sweeping leaves lol

And running to touch trees + supporting falling walls

I'm sure these recruits will be VERY good at cleaning rads, whats with all that experience cleaning choked drains, clearing mud out of M16s and M203s, polishing boots, cleaning urine stains from "mushroom heads" of the urinals and flushing water down their own throats during water parades

You just awoke all my horrid memories of that 2 years!!! ARGH~~~!!!
Knock it down!!!

[IanY]

And running to touch trees + supporting falling walls

I'm sure these recruits will be VERY good at cleaning rads, whats with all that experience cleaning choked drains, clearing mud out of M16s and M203s, polishing boots, cleaning urine stains from "mushroom heads" of the urinals and flushing water down their own throats during water parades

You just awoke all my horrid memories of that 2 years!!! ARGH~~~!!!
Knock it down!!!

I got very good at polishing the soles of my shoes and trash can covers haha

You have to come up with some new parade drill commands... shake.. turn.. reverse.. shake... drain.. fill.. rinse... hahaha

[Martinm210]

I'd just like to give Navanod a BIG THANK YOU! for providing some great scientific results regarding the issue. I was aware of the issue through a few mixed threads, but I didn't realise there was that much quantity in the rad itself. I did have some issues with stuff coming out of my MCRs, but I havn't had any sort of issue like that with my HWlabs or TFC rads. I don't see why the radiators can't come cleaned by professional equipment, if it's a matter of cost, I'd be fine with paying the extra if need be. Anyhow, the photos and details was very good information and glad you shared it with us.

I always appreaciate when folks bring testing results/photos to the forums and share it with fellow members. I think it's what these forums are all about. Just one test result is worth 1000 opinions IMHO....

Testing and photos are the glue of the forums in helping other people, opinions and brand loyalty is a waste of bandwidth.

Great work!!, cheers to science!..

[Navanod]

Thank you Martin. You're too kind.

I've merely provided some shots of the amount of flux dirt centrifuged from a month's old liter of PC ICE. Nothing really as great and useful as yours and the other expert's work.
Was hoping to be able to provide some useful tips and such, but all I can suggest is to use 70% alcohol (will switch to 99% industrial ethanol if my next loop still fogs after all these cleaning) and to use a torchlight to verify that the clear water coming out is truely "clear"

[Navanod]

Did you ever consider the culprit is the "PC ICE" ???

Not for a moment. It worked fine in blackice and swiftech's rads.
Whats more, I had already flushed crap loads of the same stuff out using distilled water before actually running the rad in my loop with PC ICE.
The dirt is the same, so PC ICE is not "creating" any new kind of gunk

if PC ICE can clean this crap out totally, I'll gladly use it to flush the rad!!!

[Navanod]

Remove head from arse please. I got a new job, simple as that - you ain't THAT important to my life and posting habits d00d.

wow...just saw this post. And we thought you were MIA

Just to clarify, I'm not trying to start a flame thread or a customer ing corner for TC rads (but this topic seems to inevidently come to such an end. I whined abit too :p).

I had read your posts on this issue in the other thread and I know your stand on this issue. So no point whacking a dead horse.

I'm hoping more people would share detailed experiences of cleaning out the flux (keyword being "detailed")


By the way, if you do find it worth replying to, may I know what is the max temperature the rad can withstand?

I have 2 more of these rads (120.3 and 120.2) and would like to stick'em in an autoclave (steam sterilizer)

121 degrees celsius @ ~0.5 MPa

I'm planning to prefill the rad with distilled water, stick it in and use the liquid cycle (to prevent superheating the prefill).
From the sound it it, temperature plays a big part in cleaning out the flux residues. So why not take it beyond boiling?

Pressure should be no problem since the rads would not be capped. that leaves only temperature...kinda worried that I would melt other parts that cannot withstand >100 degrees boiling temp

On top of melting all that flux, I hope to be killing off all the tiny lifeforms in it as well

I don't know how all these extreme methods can be customized for home use, but I'm sure if I can prove that higher temp = faster and more effective cleaning at no risk of damaging the rad, folks will innovate

[Kibbler]

By the way, if you do find it worth replying to, may I know what is the max temperature the rad can withstand?

I have 2 more of these rads (120.3 and 120.2) and would like to stick'em in an autoclave (steam sterilizer)

121 degrees celsius @ ~0.5 MPa

I'm planning to prefill the rad with distilled water, stick it in and use the liquid cycle (to prevent superheating the prefill).
From the sound it it, temperature plays a big part in cleaning out the flux residues. So why not take it beyond boiling?

Pressure should be no problem since the rads would not be capped. that leaves only temperature...kinda worried that I would melt other parts that cannot withstand >100 degrees boiling temp

On top of melting all that flux, I hope to be killing off all the tiny lifeforms in it as well

I don't know how all these extreme methods can be customized for home use, but I'm sure if I can prove that higher temp = faster and more effective cleaning at no risk of damaging the rad, folks will innovate

Wow. IF an autoclave works, would an oven? The paint might peel, and you will want to make sure that the steam can escape easily. After that's done how will you pour out the dirty prefill? Sucka's gonna be hot.

[Navanod]

Wow. IF an autoclave works, would an oven? The paint might peel, and you will want to make sure that the steam can escape easily. After that's done how will you pour out the dirty prefill? Sucka's gonna be hot.

Yes, the paint is one of my primary worries now...might cook'em right off!

The stream is free to escape through the barb holes, so no worries. And I can always wait for it to cool (or just dunk it in cool water) before handling.

I'm also worried if I might choke the autoclave up as well if too much gunk and paint falls off the rad

Looks like I'll just have to be more "discreet"

[_G_]

I would be more concerned with the heat de-soldering the rad.

[Marci]

Max safe temp should be in region of 130 deg C... any hotter and de-soldering may become an issue.

[skinnee]

Glad to see you're still around Marci!!

[bluphysted]

Well, I've been silently reading this thread... not much to add, aside from the fact that my 120.3 is due to show up at my door any day now.

Being my first crack at WC, I'm a wee intimidated.

From what I gather (correct me where I'm wrong), I need to flush the rad 10-20 times with boiling hydrochloric acid, rattle it for a few days in an ultrasonic bath, a few more days in an autoclave, wave a chicken over my head a few times, then a light spritz of lambs blood for the sake of tradition.

I will flush my rad with straight up hot tap water once it gets here, demin final rinse, and report my experience.


(btw: I *do* have access to an adequately sized ultrasonic bath.. hopefully it doesn't come to that, but please mention if this is a bad idea or not)

[skinnee]

You forgot about sacrificing one of the small children in the neighborhood too! You'll need their wee little fingers to get into the G3/8 inlet/outlet.

[twwen2]

Well, I've been silently reading this thread... not much to add, aside from the fact that my 120.3 is due to show up at my door any day now.

Being my first crack at WC, I'm a wee intimidated.

From what I gather (correct me where I'm wrong), I need to flush the rad 10-20 times with boiling hydrochloric acid, rattle it for a few days in an ultrasonic bath, a few more days in an autoclave, wave a chicken over my head a few times, then a light spritz of lambs blood for the sake of tradition.

I will flush my rad with straight up hot tap water once it gets here, demin final rinse, and report my experience.


(btw: I *do* have access to an adequately sized ultrasonic bath.. hopefully it doesn't come to that, but please mention if this is a bad idea or not)

Haha that's great.

Nah just use boiling water and flush with distilled. It's worked for the majority for years. It worked for me...

[sirheck]

Well, I've been silently reading this thread... not much to add, aside from the fact that my 120.3 is due to show up at my door any day now.

Being my first crack at WC, I'm a wee intimidated.

From what I gather (correct me where I'm wrong), I need to flush the rad 10-20 times with boiling hydrochloric acid, rattle it for a few days in an ultrasonic bath, a few more days in an autoclave, wave a chicken over my head a few times, then a light spritz of lambs blood for the sake of tradition.

I will flush my rad with straight up hot tap water once it gets here, demin final rinse, and report my experience.


(btw: I *do* have access to an adequately sized ultrasonic bath.. hopefully it doesn't come to that, but please mention if this is a bad idea or not)

HA-HA
Yeah i ran tap water through mine for about a minute or two then slapped it
togehter, that was 6 months ago.
Just added my NB to my loop 2 days ago and when draining everything
looked clear.

I even used condensed water from my home a/c.

[anzial]

Hey, is it still necessary to flush the PA120.3? Is tap water enough, or do I need something more serious (like boiling water or vinegar solution)?

[BlueAqua]

Just run the hottest tap water you can through it. I did about a 2 minute flush with hot tap water through my Thermochill. That seemed to do the trick.

Once that is done just flush it with some distilled water a few times.