Hi all,
I have a Leakshield installed in my system which has been working well with a few of the quirks normally encountered, but has just started exhibiting some quite strange behavior in the last few days.
I have a MORA 3 external radiator which has a dual pump block running two D5 NEXT pumps. Attached above these is an ULTITUBE 150 with the LEAKSHIELD mounted to the top. I only run the two D5's at a constant 50% to achieve a quieter performance with a bit increased flow. These run constantly at this speed so I know it doesn't overwhelm the LEAKSHIELD's capabilities. The external rad connects through EPDM tubing via quick disconnects to the PC that has a pass through block to connect the internal to external flow. I am using clear DP Ultra so I believe everything here to be compatible.
This system has worked without any issues for around 8 months. There is some strangeness related to temperature where the pressure obviously drops as the system warms up or goes into a higher power state like gaming or simulations. This is expected but its strange that the LEAKSHIELD has always just alarmed at this rather than re-establishing the pressure set point. I usually mitigate this by putting the LEAKSHIELD in TEST mode at 450 mbar negative pressure (minimum allowable is 390 mbar according to LEAKSHIELD for my setup) where it cranks up the pressure. Once it reaches 450 mbar the pump deactivates and it settles around 435 mbar after this. It will hold here without any further issues once established at the maximum temperature set point. The pressure obviously will rise once the system cools but no issues here.
Every once and a while, the above procedure won't work exactly how described. Some times there will be a quick jump in pressure to 450 mbar when I initiate the TEST mode but it does not actually establish any additional pressure over the alarm level. In these cases, I usually quick set to RELEASE mode followed by SHIELD again which performs the same "re-baseline" of the pressure but with the extra steps of pressure release, fill measure and establishing the SHIELD pressure. Odd and manual behavior but it still serves the purpose, just a minor annoyance.
Mid last week, this procedure stopped working in a strange way. When I would perform the RELEASE procedure, pressure would NOT seemingly release. I could hear the audible valve release but this was not accompanied with a drop in pressure OR the liquid level in the reservoir I would expect. There has been no system motion or any liquid on the membrane so I do not believe the membrane has been affected although this seems to be a typical response of a dirtied membrane.However, sometimes doing this would still let me re-establish the higher negative pressure even though a full release hadn't occurred. Even stranger, if I perform the release sometimes and let the system sit idle for a while, eventually pressure will slowly decay to zero indicating a full release. Again, more quirkiness but I found something that seemed to work.
A few days after this when I started up the system, it was fully released with no negative pressure established. This was odd but the system was unable to reach the set point when trying to establish negative pressure It would reach the alarm level or not quite and then it would just start alarming. Trying to establish negative pressure at a higher level to mitigate this with TEST mode would also fail. Whereas it would get to 450 mbar prior before settling at 435 mbar, now it would just stay stuck on 400 mbar and continuously operate. If TEST mode was swapped to SHIELD the pressure would drop to about 395 mbar but this would eventually slowly drop over a long period of time to the alarm level again.
Today, while still fighting this, I discovered that if I allow TEST mode to attempt to get to 450 mbar when it would get stuck at 400 mbar, it would stop working after about a minute. Once it stabilized at this 400 mbar the pump would then start up again at what sounds like a higher power or frequency and would be sort of oscillatory sounding. This was slowly able to bring the system up to 435 mbar at maximum but the pressure level would oscillate sort of rapidly (sort of like how the pump sounded) but with an overall long term upward trend. This is able to now establish and hold close to the higher pressure like previous methods but was now about 15 mbar lower level as it couldn't hit the full 450 mbar any longer.
I don't think that my system has any leaks.Prior to assembly I tested both the MORA and the PC with both the LEAKSHIELD test mode in steps (as I added fittings/tubes/blocks) and with a positive pressure bicycle pump style device which both would hold for over 4 hours. Before I filled the system I also performed a 24 hour leak test with the LEAKSHIELD of the completely assembled system and a 24 hour leak test with the pumps moving the water at 90% (both pumps) with a final 12 hour LEAKSHIELD leak test before running. It clearly has been holding pressure for 6 months and seemingly continues to hold and establish pressure but now does so in a strange manner (as well as the odd long term decay of pressure in RELEASE mode).
Any ideas what might be going on here and what steps I might need to take to troubleshoot (if necessary)?