What fittings did you realize you needed for your setup after it was too late?

Bageland2000

Bageland2000

Limp Gawd
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Jan 19, 2013
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I'm doing my first watercooling build in about five years. I'm doing soft tubing, and I have compression fittings, a bunch of 45, 90, snake, and 180 degree fittings, a four-way splitter w/ male-to-male fitting with a valve for a drain port, and a few plugs.

I'm wondering if anyone has a fitting type or two that they recommend buying just in case. I wave my setup planned out pretty well, but I don't want to get left without a key component because I forgot to consider something...
 
For either soft or hard, I find a few extenders, M-M and M-F (12 to 24mm), often save my ass when the tolerances between parts is just outside of my planned spec.
 
Bageland2000 said:
I'm doing my first watercooling build in about five years. I'm doing soft tubing, and I have compression fittings, a bunch of 45, 90, snake, and 180 degree fittings, a four-way splitter w/ male-to-male fitting with a valve for a drain port, and a few plugs.

I'm wondering if anyone has a fitting type or two that they recommend buying just in case. I wave my setup planned out pretty well, but I don't want to get left without a key component because I forgot to consider something...
Click to expand...

Plan like a mofo and always buy a couple extra of everything. If you get one of those lovely "I want to put a 45* here.... oh shit it hits the fan (no pun intended) moments, then you're not waiting 4 days and paying another $6 shipping
 
Have an easy way to drain it. Especially if you have any coolant dyes. Practice a drain before final setup, if you think it’s a pain, plan differently. Does your rez have a drain port? Is your rez accessible to purge? If not, build out a drain line of some kind. If you have a dye of any kind you’ll probably do this quarterly.

I’ve always just used barbs and clamps. Only other thing I suggest is having more tubing than you think you need.
 
ill find out in a week or so when i finally switch my loop to hardline. im pretty sure i bought more than enough of everything but it seems like theres always that one fitting you didnt get enough of!
measure twice cut once right!? lets see how much tubing i waste doing this haha
 
Extenders of multiple lengths, male/female adapters, and always get double righties if you can afford it.
 
It's Always good to get a couple more 45 and 90 degree swivels than you think you'll need.

Generally try to minimize the number of 90 degree bends, as they contribute significantly to flow restriction, but often it is difficult to avoid at least one or two. Some brands (like Bitspower) sell larger radius dual swivel 90 degree bends that have less of an impact to flow.

If you live near a Microcenter, they actually carry Bitspower stuff in the store, which is great, as you can buy extras and return what you didn't use.
 
I am in the middle of a build right now and was short on a rotary fitting and 90 degree fittings. Luckily TitanRig or whatever on Amazon has them in stock so I only have to wait till Sunday to keep going.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It's Always good to get a couple more 45 and 90 degree swivels than you think you'll need.

Generally try to minimize the number of 90 degree bends, as they contribute significantly to flow restriction, but often it is difficult to avoid at least one or two. Some brands (like Bitspower) sell larger radius dual swivel 90 degree bends that have less of an impact to flow.

If you live near a Microcenter, they actually carry Bitspower stuff in the store, which is great, as you can buy extras and return what you didn't use.
Click to expand...

+1 microcenter is a great place to actually look at and figure out what all those fancy schmancy fittings are!
 
Extenders, swivels, 90s.. I've definitely made a few emergency trips to Microcenter when doing custom loops.
 
First thing I would do is draw it all out on paper. At each connection to a component, make sure you have a fitting listed. If you do QDCs, make sure you have a fitting identified on each end of each QDC. It also helps to keep certain things in mind, like how standard 90 and 45 connectors are not long enough to clear a fan, so you'll need an extension for them if you plan to do that.

One thing I like to do is always buy one extra QDC with a barbed fitting (compression optional) for each end. I just this to make filling, purging, flushing, and dumping coolant super simple. To fill, I just connect one end of the QDC to the pump inlet and the tube sticking out of that half into my coolant bottle. When I need to purge a section of the system, I have one half connected to an exit with its tube going into an empty container while the other half of the QDC is connected somewhere higher in the system with its tube simply connected to atmosphere. Having that extra QDC makes all of this super simple.

Then again, I also go for massive overkill when it comes to QDCs so it's very easy for me to make these adhoc patches, purges, and vents.
 
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