Really good looking hose clamps are so hard to find.

N

nlancaster

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Feb 24, 2005
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A few years ago I saw this crazy mod over at bit-tech.net, Orac3 by Peter Dickison (G gnome). And he had these beautiful hose clamps. At the time I was not water cooling but thought those clamps looked really good. So a few years go by and I am doing water cooling, first project, and latest project. And I got to thinking about those hose clamps again. I like the Koolance compression fittings I have been using but they are used by many people. I don't really care for the bitspower and feser compression fittings, I don't like the patterns they use. So I went looking for the fitting Peter used. Yes, They are a little spendy but they sure look good. Also you could have them reanodized to your color, or possibly even powder coated with the rest of case to match. And I finally tracked down a company that has them, and thought I would share them with everyone here.

The come in 2 different designs.

Spanner Locks, required to purchase special tools to install.
Hex Locks, normal hexagonal bolt style. It is recommend to buy AN fitting tools, they are aluminum tools, to not damage the finish on the aluminum clamps.

Manufacturer - Pi-Thon Design Inc.
Reseller that has them - Wildpony motorsports.com, Linked to all the Pi-Thon products on their page.

Fittings for 3/8 inch OD
Fittings for 1/2 inch OD
Fittings for 3/4 inch OD
 
Yeah, "Hose End" finishers are very nice looking, but at around 12-15$ each, they really break the bank.
 
The new bitspower gold plated compression fittings look pretty sweet
 
Yep those clamps from evil-98 are far supperior to anything else I have seen that screws on like that. I still think the clamps on Orac3 are better looking :D
 
I hate worm clamps!!! they are so ugly, and the plastic snap clamps are even worse!!
Those clamps that evil-98 is making are brilliant. They are pretty to look at, can come in almost any color you want, and shouldn't be to expensive if mass produced. The only potential issue I see with them is the limited clamping range. If the tubing and fitting they are going on are not within a certian small range the clamps will not work. But it looks like evil-98 too that into consideration and I wish him the best.
 
by mass produced i mean, 10s of thousands of them. CNC production of a part like that can be completly automated with no Human input most of the day. They even have machines that can load parts that are not symetric. I am taking some classes in CNC machine and I even know how, if I had the machines, I would build those clamps.

Step1: Cut a few thousand blanks out of Aluminium, Steel, CarbonFiber, whatever. Out of a single 4x8 sheet of material you could get several thousand of them. If they take less then one square inch you could get 4096 of them.

Step2: Load them into the hopper of the milling machine.

Step3: Take them out of the finished hopper and load them into a tumble de-burring machine. This will take any burrs left from machineing off and with the right medium polish them up nicely. May have to run them thru multiple machines with different medium.

Step4: Send them out for finishing, anodizing, clearcoating, powdercoating. Whatever. Special order colors would obviously cost alot more, Or ship them unfinished for enduser to do with as he pleases.

If you were to make ten thousand or more at a time the cost would probably get down to a few dollars each. Still alot more then the worm drive clamp, but probably less then a compression fitting from Koolance, Feser, or anyone else. You of course would have to come up with the cash to get them made, that is probably the biggest hurdle to this. That is how Koolance gets thier fittings down to only $11.99 a pair.
 
Well if you pay $6 a clamp...let's say you use14 clamps. That's
$84 in clamps just because you want it to look good. I mean how
many people are going to be looking inside your computer any
ways? :D. If anything get some colored tubing, as I hear clear
tubing tends to cloud.
 
I like the looks of these Compression fittings, but how do you actually work them? I know you have to have special wrenches and all to tighten them down, but do these slide over your barb with the tube in between?
 
yes that is correct.

1. Slide them over the tube,

2. Put the tube on the barb.

3. Slide the compresion fittings down over the barb and tighten them up.

I am waiting on 2 of them to give them a try before buying a ton of them.
 
nlancaster said:
yes that is correct.

1. Slide them over the tube,

2. Put the tube on the barb.

3. Slide the compresion fittings down over the barb and tighten them up.

I am waiting on 2 of them to give them a try before buying a ton of them.
Click to expand...

Let me know how they work out for you, I'm quite interested in these
 
CaptainSoble said:
Well if you pay $6 a clamp...let's say you use14 clamps. That's
$84 in clamps just because you want it to look good. I mean how
many people are going to be looking inside your computer any
ways? :D.
Click to expand...

*Raises hand :p

Yea, I have $120 just in fittings currently. If Evil pulls off the double clamp for the D-Tek block he showed off, I'm on board plus I'll buy a few clamps to sponsor his effort. :D
 
Well for compression fittings I suppose it can be worth it, though I personally would rather use the $120
for something else. For fancy worm clamps, that's another story. You can always try painting the worm
clamps at the hardware store black.
 
Well, at $9 a pair for Koolance compression fittings, that would be $63 for 14 total fittings. Personally I like the looks and the safety of my compression fittings.
 
Koolance Compression fittings do nothing for me... Rather blah..blah...blahh IMO

Try BitsPower Shining Silver / Black Sparkle Compression Fittings.... Much sexier...:)

B]
 
RedRaider said:
Koolance Compression fittings do nothing for me... Rather blah..blah...blahh IMO

Try BitsPower Shining Silver / Black Sparkle Compression Fittings.... Much sexier...:)

B]
Click to expand...

I don't know, Something about Screw Down Compression fittings don't appeal to me
 
Compression fittings cost more but the make connecting and disconnecting tubes a lot easier.
 
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