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Flush new radiator

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Well ok, I ended up connecting the rads to a garden hose and flushing them this way, because I couldn't get the air out of the tubing leading to the pump and didn't want to risk damaging it. On the second rad, I've only used water so far (tap, will rinse it with distilled in the end) but on the first one I used balsamic vinegar (quite a lot maybe 1:3 vinegar:water for one shake+drain) and I'm not sure if that is what caused this, it appeared the morning after the first rinse. What is it, how to clean it and should I be worried?

 

Copper Chloride, it's what happens when bare copper oxidizes, probably just some water splashed onto the bare copper ends that aren't painted nothing to really worry about if you want to get ride of it some isopropyl alcohol and a small brush should remove all of it.

Greetings! So I'm ready to finally start building the actual loop and I need to flush the radiator. I've read all sorts of suggestions ranging from "simply fill 50% of it, shake well, drain, repeat" to something as elaborate (and possibly dangerous) as this. I already filled with relatively hot tap water and balsamic vinegar, shook and drain. Next I thought of taking the pump that will be used for the loop anyway, connecting the inlet to tubing and letting the tubing run down to a (clean) bucket full of distilled water; then connecting the outlet to the radiator, connect the second radiator to this one (it shouldn't be a problem to flush them in one go?) and the end final tubing connected to the outlet of the (second) radiator will be covered with some sort of a mesh cloth (like gauze bandage from the pharmacy), secure it with a compression fitting and let it run back into the bucket; let that circulate for an hour or two, regularly stopping to clean the filter until there is no more residue. Of course making sure to fill the tubing connected to the pump so that the pump is full of water before starting. Would something like this work?

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http://lifehacker.com/5940236/a-beginners-guide-to-water-cooling-your-computer

To clean your rad,

  1. Heat up distilled water
  2. Fill up rad with warm water
  3. Shake it for 30 secs
  4. Dump water into bowl
  5. Repeat until there is no gunk left

For everything else, just rinse it out with distilled water

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use distilled water when rinsing your parts!!!! also you only need to rinse your radiator.

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I was about to use distilled water in the end (to clear residue from tap water) but I thought it wouldn't be a problem to use tap water at first to remove the debris. Fair enough, I'll give that a go, thanks!

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I was about to use distilled water in the end (to clear residue from tap water) but I thought it wouldn't be a problem to use tap water at first to remove the debris. Fair enough, I'll give that a go, thanks!

I personally hook it up to the tap for 10 mins to run water through it both directions to flush out any particular or debris before a final rinse with distilled. One thing if you choose to use vinegar, use regular white vinegar not balsamic vinegar xD
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I personally hook it up to the tap for 10 mins to run water through it both directions to flush out any particular or debris before a final rinse with distilled. One thing if you choose to use vinegar, use regular white vinegar not balsamic vinegar xD

I can't really hook it to the tap, the tap is much wider than 1/2" so I can't use the tubing directly... Why not balsamic - what difference does it make?

Btw I did something really stupid - I left the radiator (with the ports open) to dry and next time I checked there were lots of ants getting ready to attack it :-| I hope none got inside, I filled it again, shook it, emptied it, washed it well on the outside to get rid of them but... I will build the loop I mentioned with the bucket, add some vinegar to the hot distilled water, then drain it and add pure cold distilled water. But seriously, why not balsamic?

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I can't really hook it to the tap, the tap is much wider than 1/2" so I can't use the tubing directly... Why not balsamic - what difference does it make?

Btw I did something really stupid - I left the radiator (with the ports open) to dry and next time I checked there were lots of ants getting ready to attack it :-| I hope none got inside, I filled it again, shook it, emptied it, washed it well on the outside to get rid of them but... I will build the loop I mentioned with the bucket, add some vinegar to the hot distilled water, then drain it and add pure cold distilled water. But seriously, why not balsamic?

Lol never heard of ants going into a rad before that's new, but balsamic vingear has coloring and additives to make it tasty in food terms but not exactly ideal to be putting through rads, white vingear is doesn't have all of that.

As long as it's getting all flushed at the end of the day it shouldn't cause any problems.

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Lol never heard of ants going into a rad before that's new, but balsamic vingear has coloring and additives to make it tasty in food terms but not exactly ideal to be putting through rads, white vingear is doesn't have all of that.

As long as it's getting all flushed at the end of the day it shouldn't cause any problems.

Ok, thanks!!

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I'm a little partial to doing something like what I've outlined here: http://www.kennethballard.com/?p=896 The beauty of that setup is you can just let it sit and run for however long you need -- though you should run it for at least 30 minutes per radiator.

For my build I did a "1-gallon purge" by using the pump to push a gallon of distilled water straight through the radiator and down the drain (details: http://www.kennethballard.com/?p=1463) before hooking it into the filter to get whatever else might be in there. Again, leave it for a length of time (at least 20 minutes per radiator).

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I'm a little partial to doing something like what I've outlined here: http://www.kennethballard.com/?p=896 The beauty of that setup is you can just let it sit and run for however long you need -- though you should run it for at least 30 minutes per radiator.

For my build I did a "1-gallon purge" by using the pump to push a gallon of distilled water straight through the radiator and down the drain (details: http://www.kennethballard.com/?p=1463) before hooking it into the filter to get whatever else might be in there. Again, leave it for a length of time (at least 20 minutes per radiator).

Thank for the links, but isn't that essentially what I had in mind just with a proper filter rather than mesh. I can't really get such a filter (don't know where and it's too late now, I have to begin now so I can finish with everything this weekend) and I had a busy day and honestly forgot to buy the mesh cloth today (as well as white vinegar), so I will just fill up a bucket with hot tap water, let it run with the out water going into the sink (yeah, I know it's a waste of water...), refilling the bucket when needed and after about 30 mins, flushing for 1-2 mins with distilled water. Can't do better than that :-/

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Well ok, I ended up connecting the rads to a garden hose and flushing them this way, because I couldn't get the air out of the tubing leading to the pump and didn't want to risk damaging it. On the second rad, I've only used water so far (tap, will rinse it with distilled in the end) but on the first one I used balsamic vinegar (quite a lot maybe 1:3 vinegar:water for one shake+drain) and I'm not sure if that is what caused this, it appeared the morning after the first rinse. What is it, how to clean it and should I be worried?

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Well ok, I ended up connecting the rads to a garden hose and flushing them this way, because I couldn't get the air out of the tubing leading to the pump and didn't want to risk damaging it. On the second rad, I've only used water so far (tap, will rinse it with distilled in the end) but on the first one I used balsamic vinegar (quite a lot maybe 1:3 vinegar:water for one shake+drain) and I'm not sure if that is what caused this, it appeared the morning after the first rinse. What is it, how to clean it and should I be worried?

 

Copper Chloride, it's what happens when bare copper oxidizes, probably just some water splashed onto the bare copper ends that aren't painted nothing to really worry about if you want to get ride of it some isopropyl alcohol and a small brush should remove all of it.

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Copper Chloride, it's what happens when bare copper oxidizes, probably just some water splashed onto the bare copper ends that aren't painted nothing to really worry about if you want to get ride of it some isopropyl alcohol and a small brush should remove all of it.

Great, thank you!!

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