Water cooling soft tubing.. which brand runs thin?

[glytch5]

So I have this thing that drives me nuts about soft tubing, and I have tried 4 or 5 different brands in 3/8 1/2 size soft tubing.

Using Primochill advanced LRT... but man the walls are so incredibly thick! So thick that none of my compression fittings save for my primochill fittings will actually screw onto that stuff. The matching brand fittings I can get a full quarter turn if i'm lucky. My other fittings... can't even grab on.

I have tried some tygon 2475 I believe, and that was still tight, but looking at the primochill side by side, it is considerably thinner walled. I have some cheap bxqinlenx stuff here... quite a bit thinner, but the material is unknown.

I also have some watts vinyl tubing here that is the thinner size but... its vinyl so...

question is what brand???? it appears mayhems stuff is the same as primochill... who else should I try? Who's tubing runs thinner?

 

[krells]

What fittings are you using? I have the Primochill Advanced LRT and had the EK Duraclear and no issues with compression fittings.

 

[glytch5]

I'm using the new primochill flex fittings ( can only get a quarter turn at most) and some touchaqua fittings.

 

[krells]

So the compression fittings don't tighten completely? It would seem odd that even the primochill fittings would be an issue with their own tubing. I am using EK fittings and they work fine. It does take a decent amount of force to tight fittings down onto a new tube.

 

[glytch5]

Yeah... they don't tighten hardly at all. I mean I probably could tighten them, but it would take so much force something would break.
I wonder if the pack of tube I got was just a lot thicker than normal. I am thinking of trying another pack... or perhaps trying an EK fittings. Too bad frozenCPU doesn't have any in stock for 3/8s 1/2 since they are down the road from me.

Have you ever used any tygon? Was it thinner walled? If I were to show you my tygon and some vinyl next to this primochill, you would think it was a different size... but its not. Tygon is much thinner.

 

[krells]

Well it is a compression fitting. As long as you don't cross thread the fitting you won't break anything. They really do dig into the tube when tightened. It crushes part of the tubing and the end on the barb flares out bit. They don't every regain their original shape after they have be used.

 

[glytch5]

I'm more afraid i'll over tighten the fitting into the piece that the barb is connected to... I am talking a loooot of torque here, not just real snug. It is very hard to tighten just the compression ring without affecting the radiator or block or whatever the fitting is screwed into. I'll have to try another batch of tubing... it sounds like i'm the only one that has this problem .

 

[krells]

Yea, maybe you just got unlucky and got a bad batch. The primochill tubing seems to be really popular and I have been happy with it so far. My original duraclear tubing ended up hazing after a few months and so far I haven't had that issue yet with the primochill.

 

[glytch5]

So... I was in frozenCPU today and I brought in a piece of my primoflex and explained everything to them.
One of the gentlemen there had the same problems years ago with a different brand of tube. We went through a box of fittings to try and find a match... I ended up getting the new version of XSPC fittings, the V2 or V3... they fit the tubing like a dream! Also I bought some more LRT... and yes, my tube was on the thick side.. this other batch works a lot better... but still my other non primochill fittings are in compatible with this stuff.

These XSPC fittings work great though. Even better than the primochill fittings. do.