[Amps] Distilled water in a dummy load ?

[Joe Subich, W4TV]

> For the amount of brief testing I do, and sometimes with low duty 
> cycles, sometimes high  duty cycles,   distilled water just might be 
> easier to  work with  vs xfmr oil.
The issue would be time/duty cycle.  Distilled water has a lower
specific heat (1 BTU/F/lb vs. ~1800 BTU/F/lb) and lower boiling
point (212 F vs ~570 F).  Water would heat and boil much more
quickly than transformer oil (even if one used vapor point - ~150 F
for some oils - instead of boiling point).

73,

    ... Joe, W4TV


On 2021-02-13 12:08 PM, Jim Thomson wrote:
> Is it possible to use  distilled water in a hb  dummy load ?
> DL  consist of  4 x  200 ohm globars, wired in parallel..in an 8 gallon container.
> I welded  4 x 3 inch OD  thick wall Alum pipes together, 2 stacked above 2.
> One resistor resides  dead center in each alum pipe.   Each resistor is a
> new  globar  type  SP,  12 inches long  x 1 inch in diameter.
> 
> For the amount of brief testing I do, and sometimes with low duty cycles, sometimes
> high  duty cycles,   distilled water just might be  easier to  work with  vs xfmr oil.
> 
> To be used from  160-10m,  no higher freqs.
> 
> What I am worried about is the  dielectric constant of distilled  water.   That appears
> to be a lot higher than that of  xfmr  oil.   It could  add a bunch more stray  C  to the mix,
> esp with each resistor inside its own  alum pipe..and pipes welded.
> 
> On paper,  distilled water  should be  able to extract heat a lot  better  than xfmr oil.
> 
> Jim   VE7RF
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