3 ms·

I mean, you can still get Flourinert (!!) and you can pretend you have a Cray. But more seriously, would distilled water work? It should have minimal conductiv

I mean, you can still get Flourinert (!!) and you can pretend you have a Cray. But more seriously, would distilled water work? It should have minimal conductivity in theory. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40045180/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40045180/

MisterTea 2y ago
I think distilled water would begin to leach metals and whatnot from the PCB making it conductive again. Certainly would need to be continually monitored and watch for corrosion. Flourinert is super expensive, we use it at work for gross leak inspection and filing a single small tank is i think 3-4k USD.
- qwertox 2y ago
  Distilled water is pretty inexpensive, so flushing it once a month or so would probably work.
  - dan_can_code 2y ago
    I just had the funny thought of flushing my PC like a toilet.
mystified5016 2y ago
Distilled water is surprisingly corrosive. Water is actually a very good solvent, but most water you encounter is already so saturated with dissolved minerals and such that it seems mostly inert. Distilled water would work for a while, but will literally dissolve the metals on your board. Conductivity will of course creep up over time, but your main concern should be that the widget you're trying to cool is getting eaten by the coolant. As an example, you may have noticed that air conditioner condensate can damage concrete. The condensate is pretty pure water, and physics really wants it to be less pure. The water is so reactive that it can rip the minerals out of cement, leaving just the aggregate behind. If all that weren't bad enough, once you put a PCB in pure water and it starts leeching ions, you suddenly have an electrolysis bath with dissimilar metals. If you can't maintain the purity of the solution, you'll have a very bad time.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Air conditioner condensate is not pure water though, it contains dissolved CO2 from the atmosphere aka carbonic acid. All water in contact with atmospheric air does this. Same with other acid gases, but CO2 is the main one. See also acid rain.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- madaxe_again 2y ago
  Well, surely you just need a sacrificial anode - nice block of zinc or magnesium wired to earth that you replace once a year.
- Modified3019 2y ago
  As an aside about pure water being corrosive, ultrapure water is something else, as seen in the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector https://www.sciencenewslab.com/this-beautiful-golden-chamber-contains-water-so-pure-it-can-dissolve-metal/ https://www.sciencenewslab.com/this-beautiful-golden-chamber... >In order for the light from these shockwaves to reach the sensors, the water has to be cleaner than you can possibly imagine. Super-K is constantly filtering and re-purifying it, and even blasts it with UV light to kill off any bacteria. >Which actually makes it pretty creepy. >“Water that’s ultra-pure is waiting to dissolve stuff into it,” said Uchida. “Pure water is very, very nasty stuff. It has the features of an acid and an alkaline.” >“If you went for a soak in this ultra-pure Super-K water you would get quite a bit of exfoliation,” said Wascko. “Whether you want it or not.” >When Super-K needs maintenance, researchers need to go out on rubber dinghies (see above) to fix and replace the sensors. >Matthew Malek, of the University of Sheffield, and two others were doing maintenance from a dinghy back when he was a PhD student. >At the end of the day’s work, the gondola that normally takes the physicists in and out of the tank was broken, so he and two others had to sit tight for a while. They kicked back in their boats, shooting the breeze. >“What I didn’t realise, as we were laying back in these boats and talking is that a little bit of my hair, probably no more than three centimeters, was dipped in the water,” Malek told Business Insider. >As they were draining the water out of Super-K at the time, Malek didn’t worry about contaminating it. But when he awoke at 3 am the next morning, he had an awful realisation. >“I got up at 3 o’clock in the morning with the itchiest scalp I have ever had in my entire life,” he said. “Itchier than having chickenpox as a child. It was so itchy I just couldn’t sleep.” >He realised that the water had leeched his hair’s nutrients out through the tips, and that this nutrient deficiency had worked its way up to his scalp. He quickly jumped in the shower and spent half an hour vigorously conditioning his hair. >Another tale comes from Wascko, who heard that in 2000 when the tank had been fully drained, researchers found the outline of a wrench at the bottom of it. >“Apparently somebody had left a wrench there when they filled it in 1995,” he said. “When they drained it in 2000 the wrench had dissolved.”
simne 2y ago
> would distilled water work? Unfortunately, not, because water is very corrosive, and easy gather many non-inert substances just from air. This is very serious problem. I once talked with old support engineer from USSR, who have some experience with old water-cooled computers. And he said, it was just nightmare, all those pipes periodically leak (some because rot, others become fractured) and in many cases, if water reach pcb, its broke. Really problem was solved on Cray-2 (and later models) by use Fluorinert, which was so inert that was safe to literally drop boards into liquid. Some persons even thinking, Soviets Elbrus was not successful just because USSR don't have companies like DuPont or 3M to produce something similar to Fluorinert.
- simne 2y ago
  Exists sea grade of electronics, which are covered by thick coating layer, but it is also non-ideal solution, could become fractured, and you cannot make coating on dip switches or on connectors.
- wbl 2y ago
  Fluorinert was absolutely something the USSR could produce. You need fluoromers and fluorine chemistry for nuclear technology.
  - simne 2y ago
    > Fluorinert was absolutely something the USSR could produce May be. But in fact - not produced. And Soviet Elbrus computers used water cooling with extreme problems. - I'm 100% sure, if it was possible for Elbrus designers to use Fluorinert, it would be used, but it was impossible, so not used.

MisterTea 2y ago

I think distilled water would begin to leach metals and whatnot from the PCB making it conductive again. Certainly would need to be continually monitored and watch for corrosion. Flourinert is super expensive, we use it at work for gross leak inspection and filing a single small tank is i think 3-4k USD.

qwertox 2y ago
Distilled water is pretty inexpensive, so flushing it once a month or so would probably work.
- dan_can_code 2y ago
  I just had the funny thought of flushing my PC like a toilet.

mystified5016 2y ago

Distilled water is surprisingly corrosive. Water is actually a very good solvent, but most water you encounter is already so saturated with dissolved minerals and such that it seems mostly inert. Distilled water would work for a while, but will literally dissolve the metals on your board. Conductivity will of course creep up over time, but your main concern should be that the widget you're trying to cool is getting eaten by the coolant. As an example, you may have noticed that air conditioner condensate can damage concrete. The condensate is pretty pure water, and physics really wants it to be less pure. The water is so reactive that it can rip the minerals out of cement, leaving just the aggregate behind. If all that weren't bad enough, once you put a PCB in pure water and it starts leeching ions, you suddenly have an electrolysis bath with dissimilar metals. If you can't maintain the purity of the solution, you'll have a very bad time.

HPsquared 2y ago
Air conditioner condensate is not pure water though, it contains dissolved CO2 from the atmosphere aka carbonic acid. All water in contact with atmospheric air does this. Same with other acid gases, but CO2 is the main one. See also acid rain.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
madaxe_again 2y ago
Well, surely you just need a sacrificial anode - nice block of zinc or magnesium wired to earth that you replace once a year.
Modified3019 2y ago
As an aside about pure water being corrosive, ultrapure water is something else, as seen in the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector https://www.sciencenewslab.com/this-beautiful-golden-chamber-contains-water-so-pure-it-can-dissolve-metal/ https://www.sciencenewslab.com/this-beautiful-golden-chamber... >In order for the light from these shockwaves to reach the sensors, the water has to be cleaner than you can possibly imagine. Super-K is constantly filtering and re-purifying it, and even blasts it with UV light to kill off any bacteria. >Which actually makes it pretty creepy. >“Water that’s ultra-pure is waiting to dissolve stuff into it,” said Uchida. “Pure water is very, very nasty stuff. It has the features of an acid and an alkaline.” >“If you went for a soak in this ultra-pure Super-K water you would get quite a bit of exfoliation,” said Wascko. “Whether you want it or not.” >When Super-K needs maintenance, researchers need to go out on rubber dinghies (see above) to fix and replace the sensors. >Matthew Malek, of the University of Sheffield, and two others were doing maintenance from a dinghy back when he was a PhD student. >At the end of the day’s work, the gondola that normally takes the physicists in and out of the tank was broken, so he and two others had to sit tight for a while. They kicked back in their boats, shooting the breeze. >“What I didn’t realise, as we were laying back in these boats and talking is that a little bit of my hair, probably no more than three centimeters, was dipped in the water,” Malek told Business Insider. >As they were draining the water out of Super-K at the time, Malek didn’t worry about contaminating it. But when he awoke at 3 am the next morning, he had an awful realisation. >“I got up at 3 o’clock in the morning with the itchiest scalp I have ever had in my entire life,” he said. “Itchier than having chickenpox as a child. It was so itchy I just couldn’t sleep.” >He realised that the water had leeched his hair’s nutrients out through the tips, and that this nutrient deficiency had worked its way up to his scalp. He quickly jumped in the shower and spent half an hour vigorously conditioning his hair. >Another tale comes from Wascko, who heard that in 2000 when the tank had been fully drained, researchers found the outline of a wrench at the bottom of it. >“Apparently somebody had left a wrench there when they filled it in 1995,” he said. “When they drained it in 2000 the wrench had dissolved.”

simne 2y ago

> would distilled water work? Unfortunately, not, because water is very corrosive, and easy gather many non-inert substances just from air. This is very serious problem. I once talked with old support engineer from USSR, who have some experience with old water-cooled computers. And he said, it was just nightmare, all those pipes periodically leak (some because rot, others become fractured) and in many cases, if water reach pcb, its broke. Really problem was solved on Cray-2 (and later models) by use Fluorinert, which was so inert that was safe to literally drop boards into liquid. Some persons even thinking, Soviets Elbrus was not successful just because USSR don't have companies like DuPont or 3M to produce something similar to Fluorinert.

simne 2y ago
Exists sea grade of electronics, which are covered by thick coating layer, but it is also non-ideal solution, could become fractured, and you cannot make coating on dip switches or on connectors.
wbl 2y ago
Fluorinert was absolutely something the USSR could produce. You need fluoromers and fluorine chemistry for nuclear technology.
- simne 2y ago
  > Fluorinert was absolutely something the USSR could produce May be. But in fact - not produced. And Soviet Elbrus computers used water cooling with extreme problems. - I'm 100% sure, if it was possible for Elbrus designers to use Fluorinert, it would be used, but it was impossible, so not used.