How much tubing for water cooling

They are cheap, easy to come by, and can be shaped and bent in every household. There are tools available which can make acrylic and PETG bending really easy, but we will not elaborate on that subject now, we will leave that for another article as hard tube bending is considered to be a more advanced loop building method.

The other, less common hard tubes can be made out of copper, brass, borosilicate glass and nowadays even carbon tubes are coming into fashion. The potential problem with these materials is that bending them is not possible or bending requires special tools. Hard tubes offer a clean and well-organized look.

Brass and copper tubes can be nickel-plated to achieve a more sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing look. The existence of pre-bent tubes and rising popularity distro plates, building with hard tubes have never been easier. As a matter of fact, a lot of the newcomers to custom loop liquid cooling have built their first loop using distro plates and hard tubing.

We are more than happy to give you a hot tip that EK is working on bringing pre-bent tubes to the product portfolio. We also promise that we will cover distro plates in more detail with one of our upcoming blog posts. Regarding the fittings, there is one more detail you need to know. It is very important to know that choosing thicker tubes and bigger fittings will not result in greater flow. Meaning, even if you choose thicker tubes, at the end of the tube the fitting will narrow the flow diameter down to mm.

Water blocks and other parts can be restrictive also, so by using the thicker tube, before and after the water block, you will have no benefits in flow rate. If a greater flow rate is required, a more powerful pump is to be chosen. As we said at the start, this subject is very broad, there are many choices, but we hope that we managed to cover the basics.

In one of the future articles, we will cover the subject of angled adapters and other special connectors , such as T-Splitters and Ball Valves! We would most certainly like to invite you to comment on this article, whether you see it on the EK blog page or on the EK Water Blocks Facebook page. Feel free to fill us in if you feel that we left out some details. How to read tube and fitting measurements? Select the fittings type.

Select the tubing type. Choose your preffered fittings to connect soft or hard tubing with other components of your custom liquid cooling loop. Including reddit. Great guide, thank you for creating it. Its easy just use a ball valve with a barb fittings on a soft tube. Connect the ball valve to the outlet of a pump and whenever you want to drain the loop just turn the valve and your loop is empty!!!!! I am using 12mm ID barbed fittings. In the past I use to just get some stuff from the local hardware store and just took a fitting with me to see what tubing fit over the barbs.

This time I want to do it correctly. I am working on a custom water build for a core P5. I am using hard tubes and these are my current parts, but I need help with the fittings. Please help. Thank you P. S I think that I should go with compression fittings.

Hey man, i was just like you trying to search everywhere to find the right tubing but it all comes down to simple knowledge of the diameter of the tube that you are using. First try to plan out your loop using your imagination and this is where you can get creative, try different bends to see which loop suits your pc the best, if you find it difficult to imagine try drawing it with the specific measurements to stay as accurate as possible. If you have plotted out your loop properly then try seeing where you need more fittings.

Third and most importantly one cannot guess the exact fittings one needs as it all comes down to practicality. Try buying Or more if necessary fittings at first if you are cooling only the cpu and Or more if necessary if you are cooling the cpu and gpu and it is the same thing for the motherboard waterblock too. Once try putting your fittings together and then you can make out the exact number of fittings required. PETG is often marketed as beginner-friendly, largely thanks to it being easier to heat and bend initially.

It's also very simple to cut with basic tools and is very much shatter-resistant for all those times you swing a hammer at your PC components. That said, I personally prefer working with acrylic, largely for the reasons above. Being clearer, acrylic can have an appearance closer to that of glass when lit well, and it's also less prone to being scratched in the packaging or when you're working with it.

The catch is that you have to be more careful when bending it, as you need to heat it evenly to a higher temperature. You also don't want to work it too quickly, else you'll run the risk of microfractures appearing in tight bends. One point that does crop up from time to time is the event of a failure inside your loop. Whilst very uncommon, pump or fan control failures can lead to soaring fluid temperatures and pressures inside the loop. Under these conditions, PETG can deform, which can either result in an ugly bulge or, worse, a leak.

I've built rigs with both PETG and acrylic, and I feel comfortable with either, so I wouldn't let this worst-case scenario alter things too much, because there's no guarantee that an acrylic loop would always keep it safe either.

Another eternal argument is the use of angled fittings and adapters versus bending the tubing itself. This is purely preference; some love one and hate the other, others like a mix, and so on. My advice here would be to see which rigs you think you like the style of the most and choose what works for you. In some ways it's 'easier' working with lots of angled adapters, but the reality is you have to plan further in advance and invest a lot into those decisions.

Size really doesn't matter from a performance perspective; this again comes down to personal preference. Some prefer the smaller 12mm tubes and others like big 16mm ones.

Personally, I choose what works best for the rig I'm building. Countering those advantages are the brittleness of the material and the difficulty of bending it. Pre-bent pieces of glass tubing are available. Carbon fiber — A very uncommon material used in PC water cooling, carbon fiber tubing is strong and lightweight, but always opaque and cannot be bent or formed. Cutters — Fine-toothed hand saws and angle guides are available for cutting most rigid tubing materials with the exception of glass.

Simple tools are often then best solution. Rotary tubing cutters will make short work of metal tubing and can be used on acrylic and PETG as well, though care must be taken to avoid cracking it with excess pressure.

Rotary cutters are excellent at cutting metal tubing. Special glass-tubing cutters are made for this difficult material also. A reamer is made with two angled cutting faces to remove this burr from both. Bending Tools — This is an entire category of tools in itself, but it can be broken down into three areas: bending cord, heat guns and mandrels. Bending cords - Made of silicone for its flexibility and heat resistance. They can be solid or hollow, but all are made for a specific tubing inside diameter.

These are inserted into your tubing prior to heating and bending and help the tube hold its shape and avoid kinks.

Bending cord is essential for bending acrylic or PETG tubing. Heat guns - Simple handheld electrical heaters that blow very hot air are called heat guns. Mandrels — While technically a mandrel is cylindrical, in PC water cooling the term is used to describe a form used to bend rigid tubing, regardless of shape.

Mandrels come in many different shapes, providing forms to bend your tubing into many different angles and even full degree loops and spirals. Some are fixed and provide a single form for bending, while others are adjustable and can be used to make nearly any shape or form with your tubing.

A set of aluminum bending mandrels from Monsoon. Most mandrels are designed with a curved surface to support your tubing and are designed to fit a specific outside diameter.

Lubricant - A lubricant of some kind is typically needed to insert a bending cord into a piece of tubing prior to bending. While some household oils or soaps can be used, lubricants are made specifically for this purpose. Different options for lubricant used for inserting bending cord into rigid tube. PETG tubing inserts — While the lower melting point of PETG makes it slightly easier to bend than acrylic, it can also result in reformation in high-temperature water loops.

This is typically seen at the spot where the tube enters a fitting. PETG inserts support the inside diameter of the tube at the fitting to prevent collapse. Material and size alone make up dozens of options for you the builder. Like many other facets of PC water cooling, tubing selection can be intimidating. We hope this guide helps you in your selection of the perfect tubing for your next custom PC build.

Water Cooling Components - Tubing. Posted: July 26, Tags: petg tubing , pc water cooling , flexible tubing , acrylic tubing. Author: Shane McAnally.

Size Flexible tube comes in a wide range of sizes. Tools Sharp tubing cutters are essential for clean ends on soft tubing. Accessories Anti-kink coils help thinner-walled flexible tube hold its shape. Tools Cutters — Fine-toothed hand saws and angle guides are available for cutting most rigid tubing materials with the exception of glass. Recent Posts. November October September August July June May