So the provided cooling radiator is copper?   That's a surprise.

Because water carries 50% more heat than ethylene glycol, the basic ingredient in most antifreeze coolant,  I want to use distilled water (~.68 cents/gallon in Walmart) and perhaps rig up a PVC water filter with the guts from a quality water filter advertising removal of metal ions.

Beta-amyloid, the stuff implicated in causing Alzheimers Disease, is linked to two copper and a zinc molecule(s).  So, with copper piping in most  homes built last century, many are struggling to get the copper out of their water.  Copper removing filters are available.

So no difficulty seeing air bubbles thru the clear tubing while getting the air out? 

Mine was suppose to arrive today but I screwed up and used my PO Box as a UPS shipping address.  It's out for delivery but will head back to the office after customer hours so am told I can't get it until tomorrow.

Was thinking of distilled water with food coloring but if the clear tubing stains that won't work well.

May I ask if you were using tap water, distilled water or coolent?

My C1 should arrive tomorrow so I have to ask.  The present stock design allows the C1 including pump to be run from 8 PCI-E 8 pin power?  That's all 12vdc.

And alternative wiring schemes have been shown to produce an equal hashrate with a reduction of power at the wall?  Anyone have any numbers on this last?  Or are the alternative wiring schemes for fan noise reduction?

Not all the supplies had the 1 turn trimpot swapped for a 25 turn.  I took the time to change out some today.  I found another supply with a damaged MOV but besides the MOV having a major crack, and fortunately I had purchased a number when end of summer one went completely bad as neighborhood AC shut down, there was a blown 35v cap.  Having a dead unit for parts came in handy as I didn't have that value on hand otherwise.  I knew the adjusted voltage output rose and fell with AC rise and fall, I just didn't expect that an internal voltage limit expectation would be violated.  That or it was just a cheap cap that blew when stressed with a higher than normal voltage.  Interestingly the S3 was running okay even tho that cap had been blown.

Ah yes.  Happy it works for you.   Personally I'd be hesitant with switching supplies.

How are you getting the 7vdc?

Back in the early '80's I was an engineering aide with North Hills Electronics.  There were two products lines with which I was tasked.  An uninterruptable power supply in prototype development and line conditioners which were an existing product line of various sizes.  The line conditioners at their most simple were multi-output transformers with circuitry to shift between outputs to maintain the line out in a best window.

My C1 might arrive on Monday, day after tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to laying eyes on one of these machines.

I note these cheap supplies aren't a good choice.  When the AC voltage rose a metal oxide varistor on the input voltage of one supply burned up.  No way to compensate for that kind of failure as the MOV sees the incoming voltage.  Also, another supply saw the bridge burn up.  So, I now add heatsinks to all the supplies bridge diodes.  Finally, I change out the 1 turn mismarked trim pot for a 25 turn so as to get the voltages as even as possible before applying a load.  I want the supplies at the 50% load so I need two per S3.

I also add a 6 amp line filter to the AC input.

I use cheap power supplies the output of which vary with line voltage fluctuations.  When the summer heat abated and AC's were shut down in the evening, my AC would jump to 125VAC or more and my one of my miner's  power supplies would go over 13vdc causing a shutdown.  The cheap power supplies have an output adjustment.  Lowering the voltage the miner was back up and running.  The next day was hot and AC's went back on in the neighborhood.  The AC went back to 120-122VAC.  The adjusted power supplies output dropped and the miner shut down for low voltage.  I readjusted and all was well.

For a lark, I'd suggest measuring your power supply output at home while the miner is running then again at your friend's home.

+1

So, the water block required modifications made to the PCB?  Is it a case of physical interference or repositioned mounting holes so as not to tap into fluid channels? 

Has anyone tried this?  Could feedback response time be a problem?  Constantly running the pump at a set speed that would be less a problem but slow that fluid down and this could warm up quickly. 

I suspect I will absolutely need an outdoor pre-cooler once it gets warm this spring.  I have a thermostat circuit I use for a DIY egg incubator.  Less difficult controlling a 12vdc pump to put water onto an outdoor pre-cooler that will have air passing over it.  The system isn't pressurized so the sensor can be mounted in the water outflow of the pre-cooler.  I lived in Tuson back in the early 1970's and the place had a cooler on the roof.  A large box-like enclosure with the 4 sides having material much like air conditioning filter material.  Water would pass down thru the material and in the center air was sucked into the home.  It's very dry in Arizona so it worked there without the home becoming too humid.  Running water over an outdoor pre-cooler wouldn't raise the humidity of the home here.  Georgia is much more humid than Arizona.

So do the fans on the cooler have a controller board that vary those fan rates?

It's been a warm winter the single polar vortex-like drop notwithstanding.    Outside in the shade right now this Dec. 26 is 55.6°.  If I go to an outdoor pre-cooler for summer heat, perhaps dripping water on the pre-cooler will help.

Maybe putting a de-ionizing sink water filter in the circuit of having a copper radiator and running pure distilled water.

Ethylene Glycol has a heat carrying capacity only half of pure water.  It's also used as a desiccant (from the Wiki).   We aren't talking about sufficient heat to vaporize water in the miner heatsink so perhaps the Ethylene Glycol alone will be good enough.  Reduced heat carrying capacity would mean that some ASICs will be running hotter at the output.

Not having a C1 yet I wonder if the pump speed varies or simply runs continually.  I've read some posts about running the cooler fans from an unused fan connector on a C1 hashing board.

Pure water would carry the most heat away so if the pump runs constantly at a set volume per minute and if the fans are made to run relative to the mid-hashing board heat sensor, pure water means less fan usage, better hash rates, generally lower temps if the pump runs constantly.

Listening to my two S3+'s and two S3's in an unheated room with windows open, it gets very quiet at sub-65°F.

I would think even with connecting a copper radiator to an aluminum heatsink if one used distilled water it would be okay for a while.  As the water accepted ions it would start to become conductive.  One might find a Kleinschmidt tester from a WWII submarine and periodically test the fluid's conductivity and simply replace when it rises.  I wonder how auto antifreeze mixed 50/50 with distilled water tests for conductivity.  I think it's the use of tap water with its potentially high conductivity even mixed with auto antifreeze that might be damaging.  The lubricating properties of auto antifreeze is attractive for its pump life extension.  Down here in the south it's necessary to run 50% distilled water with the antifreeze in mid-summer as water has a better heat carrying capability then antifreeze.  Still, if one were adding an outdoor cooler in addition to the stock radiator perhaps pure auto antifreeze would be sufficient.  

Most newer auto radiators are aluminum core clamped to plastic tops and bottoms.  The plastic cracks in an accident but that could be repaired with epoxy as in our use the system isn't pressurized - leave the radiator cap loose outside.  A typical electric heater in a home might be 1200 watts.  A C1 putting out 850 watts is unreasonable indoors in the summer.  Putting the stock radiator facing out a window is an option but you'll be sucking in an equal amount of hot air from outside.  Putting the stock radiator completely outside will only cool to the outside ambient.  If instead one adds an outside car radiator to pre-cool, then with the stock radiator inside it would only need to cool down fluid that's at outside ambient and since the stock radiator will be inside it will drop the temp to whatever one has the room cooled to.  This leave most of the heat outside.

Have a contact email address?

Well maybe not.  Pricing aluminum stock online I see a piece 1/2"x6"x12" costs $79.99. 

If the freon is being used in the standard pump system of a C1, without it converting to gas and getting compressed back to liquid, I don't see it getting any cooler than the ambient at the radiator.  If it doesn't get colder than that ambient then there won't be condensation.