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Right angle turns?

B

bladeiai

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 26, 2004
Messages
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I'm planing on putting together a new setup and running watercooling for an i7 920 and eventually one of the next generation video cards with 3/8" ID tubing and a 2x120 rad of some kind.... anyways my real question is how bad would it be to have several 90 degree turns in the loop? This kind of thing:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8...ession_Fitting_BP-90R2CC2.html?tl=g30c101s746

or
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5...gree_Elbow_Delrin_Fitting.html?tl=g30c101s746

It would be for aesthetic purposes and I was just wondering if anyone has done this and what kind of performance hit (if any) it would cause.

Thanks in advance
 
Moderator : user to edit and correct this post if desired.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Keep them to a minimum. 90's decrease water flow. Use 45's if you can.
 
it all depends on what you want out of your water cooling setup. It also depends on the particular setup. Yes 90's will decrease flow some. If this is more of a general cooling solution then go all out, 90's, u-bends, whatever you want. Just make sure you have the pump to handle it. It's been a while since I've been hardcore into the WC scene and last I knew there was a debate as to which was better, high flow or low flow. This was a few generations of hardware ago though.

I've always dreamed of a seamless copper piped wc system. With the right fittings you could bend a single piece of copper pipe between each wc piece. Running the different sections of pipe next to each other to create a really clean smooth look. I've been dreming on this one for years and have never sat down to get all the pieces together. To me this wouldn't be about the ultimate cooling solution but would be more about the look of it. A setup like this would have all kinds of 90's in it because it just wouldn't look good with arcs running everywhere.
 
just use a little pipe bender and make it into 45 degrees whenever possible. if youre using copper pipes then it will be easy to make bends when you need. and yeah, when you do just a few 90s its not so bad. 5 is about the most you want. maybe try to get it to 3? :)
 
Also how are those koolance quick disconnect fittings as far as flow restriction?

these are what I am talking about btw: clickity
 
I don't have experience with water-cooling, but as far as general water flow decreasing at your 90 degree turns...

Yes, it decreases. Does that matter? In most water-cooler setups I highly doubt it. The key is that nothing is cooling your water (your water is being cooled passively). Therefore as long as water is running smoothly your probably ok.

If you can identify a remarkable difference between the water temperature throughout your tubing, I would push more fluid through it either by reducing the 90s or upgrading the pump. However, it there is minimal difference at any two different points in your system, your ok.

Oh yea, this is assumed that the temp of your cpu and the temp of your water does scale, if your cpu is getting hotter and your water is still about the same temp before it hits the heatsink, then you need to increase your flow.
 
I have the bitspower rotating 90 degree compression fittings in my rig. There are 5 of them. I don't have any data comparing the difference with and without, but I can say it doesn't decrease my performance drastically.

i7WC3Small.jpg


I used the 90 degree fittings to keep my loop neat looking. If I remove the radiator screws and the four cpu block screws the whole loop can be removed for maintainence.
 
It won't kill you but you can almost always avoid using so many. Got any pics or drawings of the setup?
 
If I remember correctly, each pump has a certain "magic" flow rate - ok magic to me but not to people like martin from XS - that will keep all your components happy. 90s/45s will decrease this flow rate but as long as you're around the optimal flow rate, everything should be unharmed.
 
wondergod said:
It won't kill you but you can almost always avoid using so many. Got any pics or drawings of the setup?
Click to expand...

Not sure if you will be able to make any sense of it but here you go:

LAYOUT.png


And just to clarify, I'm not saying I couldn't run the setup without the use of the right angle turns, I'm doing it for looks....
lol
 
Well, there's actually a bit of a trade-off between using 90s or not. Remember that there is friction loss within any length of tubing, and the longer the tubing the worse it is. Keeping your loops short is generally a good thing. If using a couple 90s will help keep your loop very short (like in Flexion's case) it might even be better for performance.

I should pull out my ol' fluid dynamics textbooks and see if I can provide some numbers. edit: turns out friction losses for this kind of tubing is pretty small by comparison. Each elbow will introduce as much loss as 12 diameters or more of tubing, and that's assuming a fairly gradual elbow. Those koolance blocks would be even worse. Maybe just stick to 90s for aesthetics and simplicity, then

Also, I'm hesitant about putting an elbow on the pump inlet. Elbows can introduce swirl, which might not be a good thing for pump performance... but I'm not entirely sure.
 
Last edited:
Kaldskryke said:
Well, there's actually a bit of a trade-off between using 90s or not. Remember that there is friction loss within any length of tubing, and the longer the tubing the worse it is. Keeping your loops short is generally a good thing. If using a couple 90s will help keep your loop very short (like in Flexion's case) it might even be better for performance.

I should pull out my ol' fluid dynamics textbooks and see if I can provide some numbers.

Also, I'm hesitant about putting an elbow on the pump inlet. Elbows can introduce swirl, which might not be a good thing for pump performance... but I'm not entirely sure.
Click to expand...

I actually had a right angle on the pump inlet on my last watercooling venture for several years without any apparent ill effect. (actually as I was thinking about it, it had 2 right angle turns before the res)

res1.jpg
 
I guess swirl matters less for pumps than it does for flow measurement devices, which is what I'm more familiar with.
 
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