Ok, I was finally able to get my loop back together with the Aquanaut.
Here's a write-up of the data (and the
raw data for all you nerds) but the TL;DR is:
There is no significant difference in performance between the Aquanaut and Apogee Drive II. I'd consider this to be
awesome news for the SFF world, granted that to-date, the ADII was the only viable option for space-constrained loops with any amount of flow restriction.
However, the main reason I wasn't able to perform these tests earlier is because I had to rebuild the loop and disassemble the block a number of times to figure out how best to clear air from the impeller. For whatever reason, I was plagued with a captive bubble in the impeller or cold-plate throughout three nights of fiddling. Ultimately,
orienting the entire machine with the outlet port of the Aquanaut "up" ended up being the most reliable means to clear the air.
The ADII did not exhibit this problem, likely due to the simpler cold-plate/chamber design.
Thanks to
@Nouvolo for the opportunity to try this out! Very happy to see this come to market, but sorry I couldn't get this comparison ready, sooner! ?
Edit: Fixed Google document permissions. Sigh.