Co2 water coloring

[Meatball]

I'm considering adding some food coloring to the water supply to be circulated through my tube. Any reason why this would be unhealthy for the tube?

..or me?

 

[Cyparagon]

No. I did that once - but it faded within a week.

 

[chipdouglas]

What purpose does it serve: Looks or functionality?


michael

 

[Pontiacg5]

I ran antifreeze in my tube for a while, can't for the life of me remember exactly why but I did.

You could dribble a little by the inlet on your pump and watch it get sucked around, that would be pretty cool and it would show you just how well your pump works!

 

[Meatball]

I'd like to do it for show. Even though I change the water out all the time, I think it might look a little less gross if the liquid were a nice swimming pool blue instead.

So the antifreeze didn't leave any residue inside your tube?

 

[Arayan]

So the antifreeze didn't leave any residue inside your tube?

It could...might be better to use ethanol (30-40%) or denatured alcohol so it's also colored

 

[james1095]

It won't hurt anything as long as you rinse the tube out so nothing dries and stains. Even that won't hurt the functionality but it won't look good either. A mixture of distilled water and antifreeze is good if you have a closed system that stays full in the event that the laser is stored in an unheated space where it has the potential to freeze. I've seen pics of a few argon and CO2 tubes that had water freeze in the cooling jacket, the ice expands with predictable results.

 

[Gryphon]

^ ive seen what water freezing inside a water bottle does, i surely don't want to think about what happens to a laser

 

[Things]

^ Need I say more?

 

[millirad]

Impressive pic of a destroyed tube! Maybe it could be super-glued back together? :tinfoil:

 

[Things]

Gotta give the credit to GooeyGus for that one

 

[heruursciences]

Aww man that one made me queasy.. I've seen that with a nice coherent medical laser before. Not pretty...