I recently purchased an EK Y splitter to pop a drain in when I do my build later this month. Now looking at others builds I noticed no one uses this type of splitter and I am wondering whether to swap for the 'dice' type splitter. Has anyone used the Y type in their build? any opinions?
Using a Y type splitter for drain.
- Thread starter dazzlaa
- Start date
Man of Honour
I have a pair of 1/2" Y splitters in my loop to split the loop before my radiators and to rejoin after them. I have not noticed any downsides to using them and running the radiators in parallel instead of serious has given me a water temp drop of a couple of degrees. It's also much easier to bleed the rads as well. I use T pieces for my drains.
Thanks for the reply, think I was planning on doing things slightly different. Over the course of the day I have been trying to plan my best route and I believe that I should do things like this : My Pump/res combo lies at the lower right of my case, in front of my 360 rad. The outlet of my 360 rad will be at the top and will feed into the inlet of my Pump/res (EK Xres 140). At the inlet I plan to have the Y splitter set up there with one feed as a drain. Space is limited so I don't believe I could set this up on the slightly lower outet port. Hopefully this will work.
Man of Honour
My rads are in a box on a windowsill so I don't have any problem with space. I forget this sometimes when recommending things. 
From your description I think you would be better off with a T piece and a male to male adaptor coming off the res. The problem with Y fittings is that once you fit barbs/compression fittings to them they take up a lot of space. If you use a T piece you could have the main loop straight through the upper part of the T with the drain coming off the vertical part. These should do the trick:-
My basket at Overclockers UK:
If you added a tap to it you could have a removeable length of tubing for the drain. For this you would need a extra bit of tubing and these:-
My basket at Overclockers UK:
I just picked the cheapest barb I could find from the clearance section. The colour doesn't matter because it will only be fitted when you need to drain the loop.
On second thoughts, a pair of rotary male to male adaptors would be better just in case the fixed ones don't line everything up the way you want it. Just replace the 2x fixed ones above with these:-
My basket at Overclockers UK:
From your description I think you would be better off with a T piece and a male to male adaptor coming off the res. The problem with Y fittings is that once you fit barbs/compression fittings to them they take up a lot of space. If you use a T piece you could have the main loop straight through the upper part of the T with the drain coming off the vertical part. These should do the trick:-
My basket at Overclockers UK:
- 1 x XSPC G1/4" T Fitting (Black Chrome)= £4.49
- 1 x XSPC G1/4" 5mm Male to Male Fitting (Black Chrome)= £1.99
If you added a tap to it you could have a removeable length of tubing for the drain. For this you would need a extra bit of tubing and these:-
My basket at Overclockers UK:
- 1 x XSPC Ball Valve (Black Chrome)= £8.99
- 1 x Bitspower 1/4" Thread Stubby Barb Fitting for 1/2" ID Tubing Deluxe White= £1.99
- 1 x XSPC G1/4" 5mm Male to Male Fitting (Black Chrome)= £1.99
I just picked the cheapest barb I could find from the clearance section. The colour doesn't matter because it will only be fitted when you need to drain the loop.
On second thoughts, a pair of rotary male to male adaptors would be better just in case the fixed ones don't line everything up the way you want it. Just replace the 2x fixed ones above with these:-
My basket at Overclockers UK:
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Soldato
Not saying they're all bad but I very recently bought an XSPC ball valve as above and it's garbage. Doesn't stop liquid getting through at all.
Managed to manufacture a working product from what I had last night. So the idea is , 45 facing downwards for the drain, a 45 degree upwards with a bend going to the front radiator ports. All attached to the Pump/Res Inlet port.
Should do the trick!!?
Should do the trick!!?
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Man of Honour
Looks good to me.
Just wanted to chip in, I bought a black one for the same thing, the black paint was flaking off even in the packaging and the inside bore of the valve was all scored, I didn't think it would seal very good because it wasn't smooth inside like it should have been in my opinion. Needless to say it didn't make it into my loop. I ended up using one of the 4 way EK Dice type blocks and a EK fill port mounted to the rear of the case at the bottom.
To drain it I just put the case on its back, undo the fill port and it will drain out. Wanted a ball valve so I could control the flow, but it didn't look good as I say.
Man of Honour
I only picked the XSPC one because it was the cheapest on here. I use a pair of generic ones that cost me less than £3 each and they have been perfect.
Soldato
Have had to replace my XSPC Ball-valve as the entire thread piece came out when I unscrewed the fitting, then a very thin O-ring fell out, then the ball itself fell out! The replacement one from EK is much more expensive but appears to be vastly superior.