Acrylic Tube Watercooling

Greebo · 25 Jul 2015 at 14:09

Been out of the pc loop for 3 years and I see everbody has gone Acrylic tubing now.

Is there a ocuk idiots guide to doing this?

Rights and wrongs?

I would imagine its a nightmare with rigid tube to connect stuff or am i making a mountain out of a molehill?

Only reason i am asking is i am buying a new case so will have to redo my watercooling so now would be the time to swap over

mods1965 · 25 Jul 2015 at 15:02

I have had my PC water cooled for coming up to a year now and seeing all the great hardline builds, I have decided to attempt this around Oct and have been collecting information as I go. This is what I have discovered so far:
Tubes - Take your time, plan out as much as possible and expect not to get bends right straight away. Have spare tube, more then you would with flexible tubing if you are a beginner. You can get acrylic and PETG tubes and people say PETG is easier to bend, so good for beginners. However, people on this forum have stated that they see no difference between using the two really, so for that reason, I am going to use acrylic.
You have to chamfer the tube edge, so as not to damage the O ring, or glue on a collar.
Compression fittings for hardline only.
Get a heat gun from B&Q to heat the pipe.
Get a solid silicone cord to fit inside the tube to stop kinks and imperfections in the bend, but make sure the OD of the cord matches the ID of the tube, and be prepared to sand the cord to fit.
When it comes to bending, look at Primochill on YouTube for some great guides to making bends. Overclockers stocks tools to help with this and I am considering either to manually bend or use one of a number of bending tools you will find in Watercooling>Acrylic Tubing & Fittings>Tools.
Please can others pipe in if I have missed anything so far!

Greebo · 25 Jul 2015 at 15:12

Sounds just as bad as plumbing! And when I did my house i cheated and went with plastic push fittings instead of all the hassle of copper lol

I am so tempted as i love the neat tidy look of it but I know mine will end up looking nothing like all the nice cases i see

Tonester0011 · 25 Jul 2015 at 15:27

My loop wasn't exactly a difficult loop but was pretty simple.
I wouldn't hesitate to use acrylic again, i would suggest buying the Monsoon bending kit though, saved a lot of hassle with everything you need in the box.

One thing i did find, was making sure you slightly over bend the tube as when it cools it'll bend out ever so slightly, other than that it's easy.

(I will add....i did flood my entire case due to a poor fitting

)

spikerules · 25 Jul 2015 at 15:34

Tonester0011 said:
My loop wasn't exactly a difficult loop but was pretty simple.
I wouldn't hesitate to use acrylic again, i would suggest buying the Monsoon bending kit though, saved a lot of hassle with everything you need in the box.

One thing i did find, was making sure you slightly over bend the tube as when it cools it'll bend out ever so slightly, other than that it's easy.

(I will add....i did flood my entire case due to a poor fitting )

I bought the bending kit and although VERY useful it wasn't the best quality in my opinion. You have to screw the equipment down too for best results. I completely shredded the acrylic holder with a saw... very thin line to saw into and if it isn't screwed down it moves around. I ended but with a wider gap than I started with because of the wobble

If you want the list of equipment I used Greebo I can let you know and list it. I had some options listed in my topic I started here called "First FULL Watercool build - hobby". I ended up changing my mind on a lot of things and also went a different route on some items purely because OCuk didn't have the items in stock.

Here's a pic. Not complete yet. As you know this is the system I was talking about in the 5930k temp thread you commented on!

Tonester0011 · 25 Jul 2015 at 15:39

spikerules said:
I bought the bending kit and although VERY useful it wasn't the best quality in my opinion. You have to screw the equipment down too for best results. I completely shredded the acrylic holder with a saw... very thin line to saw into and if it isn't screwed down it moves around. I ended but with a wider gap than I started with because of the wobble

That's probably the only problem with it tbh, was the need to drill them inplace. I used a vice to hold the tube cutting thingy, worked fairly well.

Overall, i rate the set highly

spikerules · 25 Jul 2015 at 15:41

Tonester0011 said:
That's probably the only problem with it tbh, was the need to drill them inplace. I used a vice to hold the tube cutting thingy, worked fairly well.

Overall, i rate the set highly

Yup I didn't have the equipment nor the workbench to be able to screw them down. My kit came in a little flight case, but was missing the screws for connecting the rulers together, so we came up with makeshift screws using the screws that were supposed to be used for screwing down the mandrels instead!

mods1965 said:
Take your time, plan out as much as possible and expect not to get bends right straight away.

Good advice. I managed to waste around 2 tubes, but also another 2-3 I would say had bits that I couldn't use from them because of the spare part sizes I needed weren't long enough for what I needed... if that makes sense?

BTW I don't want to steel this thread, but for anyone that has completed an Acrylic build like myself I would be interested in your temps over at "whats a good custom water temp for 5930k?" topic! TA!

Greebo · 25 Jul 2015 at 19:34

Spkierules - that looks amazing!

Im embarassed to show pics on my current watercooling.

Its practical but it aint pretty!

spikerules · 25 Jul 2015 at 20:49

Greebo said:
Spkierules - that looks amazing!

Im embarassed to show pics on my current watercooling.

Its practical but it aint pretty!

Thanks Greebo! It took about a week solid from 8am to 4pm getting it right. Had a friend help me cut the acrylic. He was basically there for support and to hold those damn Monsoon mandrels in place! I probably would have taken much longer without him

I designed and measured myself, which if you knew me would be a real shocker. Not the best at maths so quite proud of myself lol. Some angles aren't the best. For instance the acrylic at the flow meter going from the res Q block to the rad are not quite at right angles or straight! I wanted everything to be at right angles, but soon realised that wasn't going to happen

I also wish I'd known about the 900D basement add on you can buy. I would have inplimented that into the loop if I had known! Oh well.

Oh and sometimes practicality wins out. Acrylic build are mainly for show over temps or so I hear, which is why I'm worried so much about the temps in my build being sufficient

Greebo · 25 Jul 2015 at 21:24

flow should be similar You do loose about 0.1C to 0.2C for every 90 bend over normal flexi tubing so perhaps you losse 2 to 3C in total max.

Ouch to the time involved. Not sure I have that patience. I can build a whole system with flexi pipe in an evening!

spikerules · 25 Jul 2015 at 21:39

Greebo said:
flow should be similar You do loose about 0.1C to 0.2C for every 90 bend over normal flexi tubing so perhaps you losse 2 to 3C in total max.

Ouch to the time involved. Not sure I have that patience. I can build a whole system with flexi pipe in an evening!

Don't you have tubing size/diameter and length to take consideration too? The Acrylic I use in my system is 13/10mm.

As for time taken... I would never go back to flexi tubing after Acrylic. It's just so damn neat! Also my planning was rushed and it was my first time doing Acrylic! I think with more time planning and another few builds, it would be much quicker than a weeks worth of work... I'd hope anyways

Greebo · 25 Jul 2015 at 21:56

my flexi pipe is 7/16th i think so about 13mm,

Length of pipe makes minimal difference. Those 90 degree bends do though

spikerules · 25 Jul 2015 at 22:00

Fair enough! I stand corrected

tipes · 26 Jul 2015 at 11:05

Greebo said:
my flexi pipe is 7/16th i think so about 13mm,

Length of pipe makes minimal difference. Those 90 degree bends do though

That is one of the things putting me off making the effort to go acrylic - that said, it does however make for a much nicer, and more aesthetic looking loop.

I think I will give acrylic another go soon - waiting on some fittings first though - extra bend fittings Lol.

Mark

spikerules · 26 Jul 2015 at 13:25

tipes said:
That is one of the things putting me off making the effort to go acrylic - that said, it does however make for a much nicer, and more aesthetic looking loop.

I think I will give acrylic another go soon - waiting on some fittings first though - extra bend fittings Lol.

Mark

I would rather have the 2-3c decrease in temps and a tidy build than the hose mess that can occur with non acrylic builds!

Greebo · 26 Jul 2015 at 13:29

Much easier to mess around with your loop with flexi pipe though esp if moving things around.

spikerules · 26 Jul 2015 at 13:32

Yes it is much easier for sure! It's all down to what you'd prefer I guess. A tidy case or ease of use

I went for tidy as the first thing you see when you walk into my study is the side panel and I don't want to be greeted by a mess of hoses and wires!

That is why I am seriously contemplating cutting down my own white acrylic for the basement. I want to hide those cables and the top of the rad!

mods1965 · 26 Jul 2015 at 13:42

If bends effect the cooling, I assume this applies to bends created via fittings as well as heating?

Brian18741 · 26 Jul 2015 at 13:46

Greebo said:
Much easier to mess around with your loop with flexi pipe though esp if moving things around.

Definitely. There's a huge amount of work involved in changing the loop or component. Soft tubing is a lot more forgiving in that regard. There is no comparison however in terms of aesthetics. Acrylic, when done right, looks infinitely better. So I guess it's a function over style argument.

Datass · 26 Jul 2015 at 14:02

My tip would to be buy everything from the same company to ensure compatibility, there's small tolerance differences in tubing that can cause headaches and buy a bunch more tubing than you need.