Waterloop Drain point advice

R-TYPE · 7 Mar 2015 at 10:57

Hi all, any good advice for putting a drain point into a loop? Am assembling parts for a new system with a single loop, several rads, CPU and GPU. Have heard its good to design in a drain point from the beginning. What is the best way to do a drain point? Should it presumably be the lowest point? Which fitting is best used?

Thanks

R-TYPE · 8 Mar 2015 at 13:19

All thanks so much for the comprehensive and detailed response. What a great forum this is

Looks like I'll go with a 4-way fitting located near the bottom of the loop. Think my pump/res will be high in the loop so may just go for a drain point 'mid-tube' as it were low down in the system. Like the idea of using the 4th outlet of the 4-way as a temp sensor, that's quite clever.

Thinking about the drainage process has also got me questioning which way round I should mount the various rads, particularly the vertical 360 - presumably better to have the in/out ports on this at the bottom of the case as opposed to the top?

R-TYPE · 9 Mar 2015 at 22:57

Thanks guys, ordered my bits based on a mix of Murah and Bryan's setups.

R-TYPE · 10 Mar 2015 at 22:42

Cenedd said:
You might as well mount it how ever works best for routing your loop. If mounted vertically with the ports are at the bottom it'll be a pain in the backside to bleed the air out (unless it's one of the few rads with a bleed screw at the other end). If you mount it ports up, draining it will be difficult - although to be honest unless you need to change the fluid completely, you could just leave it filled and then top up afterwards rather than a total refill.

Yeah since my last post was thinking of mounting it midway up the rear of the case, will just rotate case 90 degrees when draining, and location probably works better with loop design. Case would need to be rotated anyway due to vertical 360 rad with ports located at the top (top location aids the bubble removal process apparently when filling the loop)

R-TYPE · 15 Mar 2015 at 02:41

Bryan Kortez said:
I am currently testing my setup, this is how I have my drain point setup.. Sorry for bad iPhone pic.

The fittings are as followed.

Pump > 5mm male/male > 4 way > 5mm male/male > valve > plug

The 4 way has a compression fitting that goes to the rest of the system and a temp sensor.

Hey Bryan, what temp sensor do you use and what controller/software have you hooked it up to?

R-TYPE · 17 Mar 2015 at 03:06

Those QDCs look pretty useful. Not just for assisting in draining the loop but also for being able to close off parts of the loop to remove sections of it. Like removing a radiator assembly without having to fully drain the system.

R-TYPE · 4 Apr 2015 at 18:14

whyscotty said:
Drain ports are essential IMHO

Especially if your rig is on the large side.

When you say drainports are essential on large rigs, is the plural intentional? Ie have you mounted more than one drain port?

Since the above posts, I have a series of QDC's about to arrive to make the loop I'm building into a 'modular' loop. Will have several QDCs separating rads and mobo, and one at the drain port 4-way fitting. (Loop will have dual D5 vario pumps to hopefully take care of the supposed increase in flow resistance due to QDCs)

R-TYPE · 29 Apr 2015 at 00:35

Now I've completed my build, this is how I did my drain point. I put in a quick disconnect off an XSPC 4 way fitting (the QDC is a female G1/4 fitting, which accepts a male compression QDC fitting). This is mounted at the lowest point of the loop, and incorporates a water temperature sensor from Bitspower.

This is mounted to a rotary extender to be able to swivel the port downwards when in use and upwards when being 'stowed'. Thanks to Bryan and Murah (and others) for their help and advice on this thread

With 5mm male to male fitting...

...to allow the rotary fitting...

...so the drainport can be rotated to point downwards...

Tube not shown connected obviously. Tube will have a male QDC compression fitting and a tap fitting. Bottom xspc 240rx rad has 4 ports which is very handy as I can run the waterloop in and out (2 ports) and the drain point (1 port) and an xspc temp sensor in the spare 4th port.

Koolance QuickDisconnects shown uncoupled and coupled (tubing not shown)

R-TYPE · 29 Apr 2015 at 11:54

Whoa, that ain't good news... I just installed 6 black QDCs in a new build. I was totally unaware of this apparent corrosion issue.

R-TYPE · 29 Apr 2015 at 20:43

AndoriAvalonia said:
I suspect that that Bitspower temp sensor will be fairly useless, or at best be severly lagged as it is mounted in a dead section with no flow past it. It will heat up eventually by conduction or it may get some small change of fluid from turbulence.

If it's of any use, I also have an aquaero inline sensor further up the loop directly in the flow and it reports near identical temps to the Bitspower. Mounted on the same rad as the Bitspower is an xspc sensor that reports about 1deg higher than the Bitspower and aquaero

R-TYPE · 4 May 2015 at 01:23

Was it a black QDC by any chance red eye...?

R-TYPE · 4 May 2015 at 10:34

Have heard bad things about koolance black QDCs. Paint comes off and they gunk up the fitting. Unfortunately I didn't know this until I installed 6 of the little blighters in my system. Will have to replace them in the mid to long term.