Can I make soft tubing more rigid/shaped?

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I'm new to water cooling but making decent progress with very cheap parts so far.

I'm enjoying how quiet the system is with water cooling. The noname pump is running at 1000 RPM and is virtually silent and the fans are configured to be very quiet too.

I'm using Mayhem's 10/13 soft tubing.

Can I use hard tubing tools to shape pieces of the soft tubing so I can use longer shaped lengths without kinking?

I also have a long straight piece just under 20cm, is there anything I can do to it to make it more rigid?

Pic:

pSg95ff.jpg
 
Short answer: no
Long answer: no, but if your motivation is purely aesthetic then consider changing your loop order, changing some components and/or mixing hard and soft tube.

Part of the reason, I think, that horizontal run looks as scruffy as it does is because you're trying to do something soft tube just can't do. Plus there's this huge chasm of space that accentuates the issue. Make more use of what soft tube can do, and that's sweeping arcs. The CPUs runs are beautiful. And anything you want to be dead straight use hard tube. 12mm OD acrylic (honestly, not that PETG rubbish) will be incredibly close visually once you're plumbed in, the fluid is in and the lights are on.
 
Thank you.

I will try to create robust soft tubing routing or go acrylic as you have recommended.

I hope to add a water cooled graphics card to make better use of the space in the case but I'm finding it difficult to justify a budget for something decent.

An M2 SSD (max temp ~50c) is on the backside of the motherboard close to the area where the motherboard chipset runs hot so I will try to come up with more robust soft tubing routing with the addition of a chipset water block and it might also lower the M2 SSD temp.
 
Leave it as it is until you get the water-cooled GPU. That will make the run from front to back a supported run so you won't get sagging.
 
I would keep as it is.
As you add the GPU to the loop, the flow indicator connected straight to the GPU and a nice curved tube would replace the run from the front rad to the rear rad, which would be then front rad/flow indicator/GPU.
ZMT is more robust, but as they don't come flat, curves are naturally present, unless you minimize it keeping the natural curves opposite to the bottom of the case, as the weight of the coolant + mavity would force in opposite direction and give you a almost straight line.
Or for now, using some extension, you could fit the flow indicator either to the front rad or to the rear rad, and the tube connecting both be a curved line like the rest of your build.
 
Thank you.

I attempted to add a water block to the chipset yesterday but the mount holes of the blocks I randomly bought previously didn't work in the small space.

I fitted a slightly thicker thermal pad on the chipset heatsink and because the M2 heatsink I had been using could only fit on part of the SSD, I added a thick thermal pad to use the case to cool the other part of the M2 SSD.

Thermal pad pic:

rVQSfir.jpg


The SSD temp has dropped to cold metal ambient temp at idle and the max temp isn't a concern anymore. Highest temp seen under load testing was 44c but most of the time it's in the low 30s.

When I get the chance, I will add thermal pads to case cool other motherboard hot spots and hopefully it will result in slightly lower load temps and quicker recovery from load to idle temps.

I've had some practice rebuilding the setup and this time I confidently rebuilt with a much less wonky res/pump setup. I also tried slightly twisting the tubing for the straight tubes.

New pic:

K8vSHi9.jpg


Recently I bought a set of 14mm hard fittings (couldn't resist at a very low price) and they look very similar to my 10/13 compression fittings.

I have some decent used water cooling parts arriving in a few days so a rebuild will happen again soon.
 
I mistakenly refilled the loop regardless that the 240mm rad was full of diluted coolant. :o

I had drained the Mayhem's UV green coolant as best I could without tilting the case to the extreme then refilled using distilled water to flush it and while disassembling I screwed in plugs to prevent residual leaks.

The UV green is significantly more transparent than before:

zSRdqXp.png


I'll be draining it again soon, but would the diluted coolant still have enough additives to prevent problems in the future? :confused:

My original intention was to go with this blue/green setup, the green coolant was because the pump has a green impeller, but so far I like it better with the all green setup.

Grim5 said:
Only way to get more aesthetic with soft is to use lots and lots of fittings
Click to expand...
Thank you. I considered reducing the tubing length by adding QDCs between the flow meter but I'm not sure I'd like the look of it.

I'm slowly coming to the realisation that an optimal cooling setup with soft tubing for the Fractal Nano S case is likely to be 140mm intake fans and another 120mm intake fan on the bottom and moving the 240mm rad and 120mm fans to the top of the case.

Making it look good will likely result in a robust soft tubing setup but now I'm also invested in a hard tubing setup so most likely I'll switch and I could add a radiator on the front again.

I've also decided to budget £800 for a water cooled graphics card setup although I am not in a rush so it might take a while.

Also I added a blue pressure valve (it's screwed into the pump top in the pic above) to clear the pump of trapped air. I'm not sure if it's also pressure related but the pump had been emitting a slight hum even at low RPM and with noticeable vibrations but now the hum and vibrations are gone and I was able to increase the pump speed from 1000 RPM to 1500 RPM.
 
str said:
Thank you.

Do you have an updated link for the water cooling sticky link in your sig? Currently it says the requested page could not be found.
Click to expand...

wow! forgot I even had that as I'm set to not display user signatures :)

I've edited to point to what I consider the FAQ on these forums
 
liamstears said:
That UV green really pops, if I were you I would consider the move to hard tubing and get a watercooled gpu
Click to expand...

I managed to get a 980 TI for a low price because it needed fixing and I was also kindly sent a water block for it for the price of postage. Also got other items from the MM and I'm really happy with the progress:
JIlUKh9.jpg


I learned a lot getting to this stage. I already have an idea for a much better loop setup and I have everything I need to switch to acrylic tubing but not sure I'm confident enough to use it yet. :D
 
now that's what I'm talking about. You don't need the pair of fittings for the rad > pump put though, should be enough space to do a nice sweep between the two that will echo the pump > GPU and rad > CPU arcs.

Just missing a flat box res like an EK or Phanteks across the back now, should be slim enough to slot in behind the GPU.
 
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