First hard line setup

sabrewolf732

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 6, 2004
Messages
4,778
Hi.

I've done a few watercooling loops in my history, I just started getting into pcs again the past year and a half after a 7 or 8 year hiatus.

Specs:

Ryzen 1600
MSI B350 Tomahawk Arctic
Geil pc3200
MSI Seahawk 1080ti
Seasonic 750w PSU
lots of thermaltake riing fans
HWLabs Nemesis GTS 420mm
SC600 pump
EKWB Supremacy MX
Thermaltake view 31

New parts weeee

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it's a BIT TIGHT. Thermaltake says a 360mm rad is the largest rad to fit up front. Let's see about that.
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some grinder work and we're good to go!

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Filling her up

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good to go!

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In regards to temps, I was previously running the cpu on a modified swiftech 140mm AIO and the gpu was on a mcp655 with a black ice pro II. GPU temp has come down approx 15-17C (previously loading at 65ish C) and CPU was ~72ish at load and now loads at 62ish c.
 
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Looks sharp.

I've struggled with my comfort level with hardline tubing, as they seem to pull out of the fittings way too easily, whereas soft tubing is REALLY stuck in the compression fittings.

On the flip side, I've had my swiveling bends leak in my build. If you bend your hardline right, you don't need to worry about that problem.

How difficult was it to get the hardline bends right for a first timer?
 
I've struggled with my comfort level with hardline tubing, as they seem to pull out of the fittings way too easily, whereas soft tubing is REALLY stuck in the compression fittings.

I like Primochill Revolvers, you can't pull them off the tube. But they are for 1/2" OD tube only - not 12mm - so I use Primochill tubing, too. Also no need to dress the end of the tube with the Revolvers, they seal with an o-ring squeezing down on the tube.

I'll take some pics of my latest loop this evening if I get a chance, some pretty technical bends trying to stuff more rads in a case than it was designed for. Turned out sweet.
 
I like Primochill Revolvers, you can't pull them off the tube. But they are for 1/2" OD tube only - not 12mm - so I use Primochill tubing, too. Also no need to dress the end of the tube with the Revolvers, they seal with an o-ring squeezing down on the tube.

I'll take some pics of my latest loop this evening if I get a chance, some pretty technical bends trying to stuff more rads in a case than it was designed for. Turned out sweet.


Nice. What is the concern with mm dimension tubing?

At least with soft tubing almost everything you can find in the U.S. is inch based, whereas the Europeans use mm dimesnions.

Has this changes with hard tubes?
 
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Looks sharp.

I've struggled with my comfort level with hardline tubing, as they seem to pull out of the fittings way too easily, whereas soft tubing is REALLY stuck in the compression fittings.

On the flip side, I've had my swiveling bends leak in my build. If you bend your hardline right, you don't need to worry about that problem.

How difficult was it to get the hardline bends right for a first timer?

I was 50/50 on hard lines, but at this point I didn't really have anything else to upgrade (waiting for ryzen 3xxx).

I was concerned that I could pull out the tubing with a bit of effort, but after getting everything in there's no way to pull it out/tubing to fall out.

With the research I did everyone seemed to say to make sure you match fittings with tubing brand and to ensure you don't mix SAE with metric.

Bending had a bit of a learning curve and I didn't order enough tubing (I thought I ordered enough extra to mess around with but I was wrong) so make sure you order an extra $10 to $20 worth.

All in all it wasn't bad, I'd do it again but it was pretty time intensive.
 
Nice. What is the concern with mm dimension tubing?

At least with soft tubing almost everything you can find in the U.S. is inch based, whereas the Europeans use mm dimesnions.

Has this changes with hard tubes?

I was 50/50 on hard lines, but at this point I didn't really have anything else to upgrade (waiting for ryzen 3xxx).

I was concerned that I could pull out the tubing with a bit of effort, but after getting everything in there's no way to pull it out/tubing to fall out.

With the research I did everyone seemed to say to make sure you match fittings with tubing brand and to ensure you don't mix SAE with metric.

Bending had a bit of a learning curve and I didn't order enough tubing (I thought I ordered enough extra to mess around with but I was wrong) so make sure you order an extra $10 to $20 worth.

All in all it wasn't bad, I'd do it again but it was pretty time intensive.

With also with soft tubing you can stretch the tubing a bit to fit the fitting, so changing out different components isn't as difficult, not to mention its cheap and easy to replace. Some of the reasons I never used hard tubing in my custom watercooling builds before. But hard tubing definitely looks nicer in my opinion. The good thing is, once you get a bit of experience, it gets a lot easier for future builds.
 
With also with soft tubing you can stretch the tubing a bit to fit the fitting, so changing out different components isn't as difficult, not to mention its cheap and easy to replace. Some of the reasons I never used hard tubing in my custom watercooling builds before. But hard tubing definitely looks nicer in my opinion. The good thing is, once you get a bit of experience, it gets a lot easier for future builds.


How much leeway is there in the fit of hard tubes? Do they have to be dead nuts on, or of you are slightly off, will coming in at a couple degree angle kill the whole fit, and have you starting that length of hardtube over again?
 
How much leeway is there in the fit of hard tubes? Do they have to be dead nuts on, or of you are slightly off, will coming in at a couple degree angle kill the whole fit, and have you starting that length of hardtube over again?

I found that there is a touch of leeway, at least with petg.

I'd assume acrylic requires a higher degree of accuracy.
 
How much leeway is there in the fit of hard tubes? Do they have to be dead nuts on, or of you are slightly off, will coming in at a couple degree angle kill the whole fit, and have you starting that length of hardtube over again?

Depends on what you are actually using for the hard tubes, as well as the pressure being applied by the angle. Some materials are more resilient/easy to make adjustments than others. You don't necessarily have to be dead nuts with some of them, but with the angle and pressure, there is a chance the seal is not perfect and it can leak or lead to leaking later on. Just like with flexible tubing, you usually want to cut your runs of tube longer than you expect, and then cut them back to size, this helps a bit with the adjustment. Spending more time in advance to get the angles and measurements ahead of time goes a long way.
 
Nice. What is the concern with mm dimension tubing?

At least with soft tubing almost everything you can find in the U.S. is inch based, whereas the Europeans use mm dimesnions.

Has this changes with hard tubes?

No concerns with mm themselves, it's just that 1/2" is 12.7mm, where some tube is 12mm - it won't work with the Primochill fittings designed for 1/2".

You have to be pretty close, but the tubing is cheap and it's not hard to bend a tube that fits perfectly if you have the one that almost fit to go by. I recently swapped video cards in a hard tube build, had to make a new tube going to and from the video card. Draining the loop and refilling/bleeding it took a whole lot longer than bending two tubes, especially since I had the previous ones right there handy.

Started a new thread instead of hijacking this one further.

https://hardforum.com/threads/h-ardtube-loop.1979534/
 
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