18 Months

[Arne Saknussemm]

Just for interest...

After 18 months use....


Not terrible...not great.

Nickel plating is pretty damaged on cold plate (copper) but 100% on top of block (brass)...bare spots on coldplate were greenish (oxide) before clean up.

Jet plate perfect...stainless steel so no surprise there.

All copper in loop...distilled water changed every 3 months more or less.

Performance was great throughout time in loop.

Have a copper acetal block on there now...will open that soon enough...

[xeromist]

What did you use to clean the oxide?

[Silent Scone@ROG]

I've an all copper Supremacy here that was used for 3 years that looks in much better condition than that. It's all in the mix.

[Arne Saknussemm]

What did you use to clean the oxide?

salt and vinegar

EDIT: hang on...do you mean the light polish I gave it with a disk cutter

It's all in the mix.

There is no mix...just bad plating...you can see where the jet plate was the nickel has been mechanically stripped off... etc.

Top is well plated...

[Arne Saknussemm]

Maybe a couple of months less use...but pretty much same 18 months


Looks good to me...looks all together a better grade of copper?

I'd recommend Cu only block from now on then...no plating

[jhoffberger]

what do you use in the loop besides distilled water?

[Korth]

@jhoffberger - if anything was added/mixed then it's no longer distilled water, lol.

Looks like a sort of galvanic fretting to me. Dissimilar metal ions in solution (dissolved copper-nickel plating) which become more reactive and more acidic (and changes the pH of the coolant itself) when exposed to the block's "hot" sites.

On PC cooling, I use a very weak ethylene glycol mix with lots distilled water and a little bit of Chemtex Nalcool 2000 or No-Rosion or Bar's Leaks Anti-Rust 1311 - these additives are all corrosion-inhibiting chemical buffers which neutralize those aqueous metal ions and those gassed-out broken polymer fragments, the last one also contains a lubricant (for the pump and any other moving parts) but I've never seen this lube make any real difference.

https://www.knowyourparts.com/techni...l-and-protect/
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/466284.pdf

[Arne Saknussemm]

what do you use in the loop besides distilled water?

Nowt....pure distilled water and change it every 2-3 months...

I have a raystorm neo coper only block at the moment and it looks perfect too.

Problem was simply the bad EK plating...they have gone from a watercooling company to a fashion accessory company IMO

[Korth]

@Arne

You can use a TDS meter (or even a high-precision DMM) to determine if your pure distilled water is in fact still pure water after being immersed in the loop for a while. It's obviously contains corrosive ions if it's corroding your plates ... and a corrosion inhibitor additive will slow that down greatly. Poor-quality plating on one piece might be part of the mechanism, but contaminated water full of reactive ions is the other part of the mechanism. Probably not a problem most of the time, but it's never nice to find nasty surprises like that inside your blocks when you inspect them.

[Arne Saknussemm]

You can use a TDS meter (or even a high-precision DMM) to determine if your pure distilled water is in fact still pure water after being immersed in the loop for a while

I get a dropper and drip 2-3 drops in my eye every now and then...if I don't lose my cornea I call it good to go...

I had a supreme HF from the old EK that was plated and came away from the same loop pristine...as well as two HWBot edition plated GPU blocks that did the same...old skool EK seemed fine....I've had nothing but bother with plated Supremacy and Supremacy EVO blocks (not to mention screw problems on their coldplate after they decided to cut costs recessing) so I really don't think it's acid running in my loop...the copper doesn't even look the same to me between the all copper and the plated...

Current XSPC block is high quality and it's pristine...6 months so far