Hi, Guys,
As you may have inferred from previous posts, I am building a rather complex cooling loop with hard tubing.
It will contain four radiators, two cooling blocks (both CPU and GPU), a reservoir with separate fill port, drain port, and pressure test port, an Apogee II drive and (obviously) a lot of bends and/or fittings! I bought 16 1/4G to 16mm compression fittings and began planning the rest of the piping and nearly had another heart attack when I computed the cost of all the compression fittings. And then I had an idea (lonely little thing sitting there all by itself!):
If I use 5/8 copper tubing I can use copper sweat elbows! $3 each instead of $20-$40!!!!
But I HATE sweat soldering....so what to do? AHA! Idea #2 (company for that first lonely idea): dry fit the loop and use cyanoacrylate glue aka super glue, crazy glue, etc. But would it work? So I made a test piece of 5/8-in copper tubing, a cap, a couple copper elbows and a pressure test fitting. I used a micro applicator and thin CA and it wicked right in. I pressurized the test piece to 50 PSIG and monitored it for 48 hours.
The result: NO loss of pressure.
But: copper tarnishes...and no UV effects. So I ordered 5/8-in PETG tubing from Primochill and started to repeat the test with the new tubing.
DISASTER!!!
The 5/8-in tubing from Primochill is NOT 5/8-in....it is 16mm and will not fit into the copper elbows....it even says so on the site if you bore down through the specs...so what to do? Idea #3 (pretty soon all those ideas rattling around will make a maraca!!! Copper fittings are pretty much just not available locally in 16mm BUT copper can be swaged (size increased) to fit 16mm....or the PETG tubing sanded down....PETG does not sand well!
Anyway, I bought a swaging set of drill bits and dilated some fittings and repeated my pressure test.
The result: NO pressure loss.....so I am now headed down the PETG tubing, Copper sweat elbow, UV route and expect to save $200++ ...and get to keep nifty new tools besides!!
Your comments are more than welcome....especially if anyone has tried this and had it fail!!
TIA,
Larry
As you may have inferred from previous posts, I am building a rather complex cooling loop with hard tubing.
It will contain four radiators, two cooling blocks (both CPU and GPU), a reservoir with separate fill port, drain port, and pressure test port, an Apogee II drive and (obviously) a lot of bends and/or fittings! I bought 16 1/4G to 16mm compression fittings and began planning the rest of the piping and nearly had another heart attack when I computed the cost of all the compression fittings. And then I had an idea (lonely little thing sitting there all by itself!):
If I use 5/8 copper tubing I can use copper sweat elbows! $3 each instead of $20-$40!!!!
But I HATE sweat soldering....so what to do? AHA! Idea #2 (company for that first lonely idea): dry fit the loop and use cyanoacrylate glue aka super glue, crazy glue, etc. But would it work? So I made a test piece of 5/8-in copper tubing, a cap, a couple copper elbows and a pressure test fitting. I used a micro applicator and thin CA and it wicked right in. I pressurized the test piece to 50 PSIG and monitored it for 48 hours.
The result: NO loss of pressure.
But: copper tarnishes...and no UV effects. So I ordered 5/8-in PETG tubing from Primochill and started to repeat the test with the new tubing.
DISASTER!!!
The 5/8-in tubing from Primochill is NOT 5/8-in....it is 16mm and will not fit into the copper elbows....it even says so on the site if you bore down through the specs...so what to do? Idea #3 (pretty soon all those ideas rattling around will make a maraca!!! Copper fittings are pretty much just not available locally in 16mm BUT copper can be swaged (size increased) to fit 16mm....or the PETG tubing sanded down....PETG does not sand well!
Anyway, I bought a swaging set of drill bits and dilated some fittings and repeated my pressure test.
The result: NO pressure loss.....so I am now headed down the PETG tubing, Copper sweat elbow, UV route and expect to save $200++ ...and get to keep nifty new tools besides!!
Your comments are more than welcome....especially if anyone has tried this and had it fail!!
TIA,
Larry
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