Pure-Sil Biocidal coolant

[iandh]

Not to discredit this or anything, but wouldn't it be much much cheaper if online retailers (ie Petra's) simply advertised and shipped known brands of distilled water that are more than fine for watercooling purposes? I for one know that distilled water available here in California (ie where Petra's is located), has pretty high purity, is greatly inexpensive, and perfectly suitable for wc needs with a silver coil. Your effort and constant innovation of available products are commendable, but I'm just curious towards this more expensive approach.

I already did mention above "I'm not claiming this is superior to plain old distilled water". It isn't. It is certified as very pure water with silver ions... that is all it is, and that is all I am advertising it as.

Feser, for example, sells plain distilled for almost $10 a liter, with the only justification being "conductance less than 0.5µS". The "double distilled" pitch is nice and all, but I've tested $1 a gallon store bought distilled (Arrowhead brand) as low as 0.3µS, which is better than what Feser specs their water which costs $40 a gallon.

I find it pretty hard to justify that more expensive approach, but people still seem to buy the stuff.

The three different batches of arrowhead I've tested have varied anywhere from 0.3µS to 0.8µS. That's pretty impressive, but OTOH some of the other brands I tested were downright unimpressive. As I mentioned in the OP, if you think that buying distilled water means you are getting pure water, you are mistaken. It means you probably are getting pure water. After talking to the person who sold me my equipment, and my own personal experiences water shopping, I will never put water into my loop again without either knowing it is pure through its certification, or by testing it myself. Here is a excellent, inexpensive test meter:

http://www.hannainst.com/usa/prods2....dCode=HI 98308

It can be found online for as low as $60 shipped, but I recommend purchasing calibration solution which will bring the price closer to $70-75. I use this meter for spot checking and a higher accuracy one that I borrow from work is used for initial certification of my water quality and confirmation of my personal meter's accuracy.

The main purpose of this coolant is as an option for those that don't readily have distilled available to them, and secondarily for those that don't want to worry about whether the distilled they are buying is actually pure or not. It also acts as a biocide, so if one were to buy this coolant it wouldn't be necessary to buy one of my silver coils. If you subtract that from the cost, it ends up about the same as the distilled products already available.

The addition of silver ions not only gives the coolant biocidal properties; I've found that the coolant's pH moves closer to neutral after the ionization process... plain distilled/DI water typically has a slightly acidic pH.

Petra's could sell certified and repackaged distilled water, but to make it worthwhile they'd have to sell it for the same price as the Feser distilled, so why make a product that is already easily available? They'd be better off selling water test meters on their site TBH. Plus, if they purchased and shipped store-bought distilled, even if they had certified it for purity, and marked it up enough to make it worthwhile to bother with, they would then be criticized for making profit from "no work" and marking up something that anyone could go buy.

The bottom line is, there are all kind of coolants on the market that are dripping wet with snake oil. At least mine is represented for exactly what it is. I don't even claim that it does anything special other than its biocidal properties, and possibly the more neutral pH. Everyone already knows that they can somewhat reliably source decent quality distilled from supermarkets for dirt cheap; and anyone who chooses to buy my product does so with that already in mind.

edit: Also keep in mind that some people like just being able to pop a couple bottles of coolant into their online shopping cart and not have to worry about going out and finding distilled. It's a convenience item as well as a specialty item, much like the killcoils. Taken from a cost justification of my killcoils in another thread, a 20 mile round trip to the market costs me about $22 total in gas and wear and tear on my truck. All of a sudden that $1 gallon of distilled costs $23 a gallon. Obviously that doesn't count if you pick up the water while you are already out on a grocery trip, but OTOH most people don't go grocery shopping in the middle of setting up their WC loops. There's just too many angles one can look at this to really nail it down.


Please don't think I took offense to your comment; I didn't. I'm just trying to explain to you where this product fits in, and offer you some alternate viewpoints.