Best 1/2" ID 5/8" OD tubing?

guitarslingerchris

guitarslingerchris

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Just put together my new setup only to find out that the Tygon R-3603 tubing is complete crap for making bends.

I had to route tubing a completely different way than I had planned and luckily, no not lucky at all, my radiator apparently has a leak so I have to wait on another one and I am going to order more tubing at the same time.

What is my best option for 1/2" ID 5/8" OD tubing to make the bend from cpu block to chipset?
 
Preformed tubing - hard to find but it is out there.
Anti-kink coil/spring - will likely result in a larger loop of tubing than you really want.

Not really any good options with the size tubing you are specifying, to look really nice you likely need less than a 6in dia bend and its going to be very difficult with that large size tubing unless you can find the pre-formed / pre-bend stuff.



The pre formed stuff is going to be your best bet, frozen pc does not appear to carry it, someone here should know where to find it.


myself, I like the "home engineered look". I would use 3/8 copper water pipe (1/2 OD) , small straight section with a 90 deg street elbow soldered on each end made exactly to the length I needed, buffed and polished to a new penny shine and sprayed with clear finish and attach to the blocks with a very short sections of tubing and tubing to pipe with polished PEX copper crimp bands. This would take me at least 8 hours of intensive labor to get looking like I wanted after building at least 2 prototypes I was not happy with. Paying myself $5 an hour I would invest over $100 of time for a $20 part not to mention the cost of the crimping tool for the PEX bands. But I need that PEX crimp tool for another project and I find it easier to justify buying the $40 tool for a computer related use than the un-needed wet bar I want to install but cant because I need the tool.

Since I cant install the wet bar I will look some more for the pre-formed tubing, at least as long as I can still make the trip from the fridge, for ice, back to the computer. It is not a sure thing that I can make it back.

edits>
maybe this ? http://www.xoxide.com/swiftech-coolsleeves-625-blue.html
 
How does WC tubing respond to low heat? Could you maybe heat some water on the stove and get the tubing up to about 150 degrees F and see if it will be more pliable, then hold it in the bent position as it cools. i am bettingthat something similar to this is all the pre-formed tubing is.
 
I used ClearFlex 60 Tubing 1/2" ID with the anti-kink coil spring. I was intentionally very conservative with the bends ... meaning large bends as I had the room. Although coming down off the reservoir into the pump I had to make a couple of bends a little tighter than 2" radius. And the coil spring is doing what it is supposed to be doing ... no flattening at all.

I used 8' of tubing in the system and just one length of the coil spring. To make it look a little nicer it would have been good to use 2 for 100% coverage ... but that is just form over function.

There really is very little chance of this tubing collapsing. I wasn't sure what I was getting into with the new i7 & how warm things would be getting. They only get "warm" ... not "hot".

I used to have a system with 1/4" tubing and it developed a couple of issues over the years. It was 7+ years old. But, the 1/4" could certainly be dressed up more neatly.
 
You could also use smaller tubing just on that section. Drop to a 7/16" or 3/8" ID for the tight bend. The extra flow resistance on that short of a run would be negligible.
 
I didn't think of pre-formed tubing. Is there a good way to make it? I know that back in school a friend of mine had help forming copper tubing by filling it with sand and then heating the tube and bending it to shape. I would assume trying the same with sand and Tygon would result in very sandy tubing but what could I fill it with that wouldn't stick?

flogge said:
You could also use smaller tubing just on that section. Drop to a 7/16" or 3/8" ID for the tight bend. The extra flow resistance on that short of a run would be negligible.
Click to expand...

I would think that dropping the ID to that size at any point would affect it nearly as much as a large section that small.
 
The water would have to move 70% faster in a 3/8" ID tube than what it flows in a .5" ID tube. This section is maybe 8" of tubing out of a 48-60" loop. guesstimate in the rest of the fittings, blocks, and rads and I'd say it might slow down your flow by 5-8% max. Not enough to reduce performance drastically.

Do you have any tubing pieces left over to attempt pre-forming with heat? That grade is rated for operation up to ~165 degreed F. If you heat it up near there with hot water and then hold it in the bent position while it cools it might have some memory. Can't hurt to try it out.
 
I do have several feet of tubing left that I will be experimenting with and if I don't get good results I'll buy some cheap PVC stuff and try it as well.
 
If you had some anti-kink coil you would be able to make very tight bends without the tubing ever collapsing, which is what it is intended for. Of course shipping from almost any place will cost more than a length of the stuff, but it will get the job done.
 
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