• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Water Pressures and Tubing?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

dem1an

Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2001
Location
Suwanee
I've seen people use polypropylene, silicone and reinforced PVC tubing. what kind of pressures are we talking in a typcial water cooled system? i can't imagine it's too high. are we just overkilling here? i'm cosidering some good old clear vinyl....60psi at 73F. silicone is just way too expensive. what are you guys using?
 
i found some cheap braided reinforced pvc @ $0.52 ...225 psi. talk about over kill. =) maybe i'll try to roll over it with my chair.
 
dem1an (Apr 18, 2001 01:33 a.m.):
I've seen people use polypropylene, silicone and reinforced PVC tubing. what kind of pressures are we talking in a typcial water cooled system? i can't imagine it's too high. are we just overkilling here? i'm cosidering some good old clear vinyl....60psi at 73F. silicone is just way too expensive. what are you guys using?

If you use a pond pump you'd be pressed to get much over a couple psi which all tubing can handle. If you use a fuel pump (efi) than you have the potential for about 50 psi but your water block and rad would have to be really restrictive for that to happen. I'm using a volcano ii core for the water block, a heater core, and an old fuel pump from my car. The pressure in my lines is next to nothing.
 
Forgot to add I'm just using cheap clear tubing from lowe's.
 
Check out the two pictures I attached. I DO NOT recommend the braided stuff !!...unless you are definately using hose-clamps. This sytle tubing is usually too stift to be used with 'barbed' sytle fittings.....the tubing will not 'conform' with the barbs very-well, if at all. And you know what that means..."Ah sh*t, where's all the water coming from ??"

The second pic is the what I use, which is the regular clear vinyl stuff from Home Depot....nice and flexible and it 'conforms' onto the barbs nice and tight...so no leaks !!
 
if you can blow through the completed system without the pump all most anything will work if it is hard to blow you are looking at as much as your pump is rated to because some thing is kinked
 
has anyone tried using pushfits instead of barbs? They are good becuse with barbs, flow is restricted cos it goes on the outside, with these, they go round the outside of them with not restriction in flow. They don't leak either!
 
I use 3/8" tubing also. One thing you should definitely look for is tubing with a good wall thickness. I bought thinwall tubing and it flattened or kinked on the bends I have to make. Check out this pic of my rig and notice the rear outlet hose. As for pressure...I dont think you have to worry much as long as your connections are tight. What we do is relatively low pressure.

FIC AZ11E KT133
AXIA t-bird 1k @ 1300Mhz
104 x 12.5
256Mb PC133
Dangerden maze-2
Swiftech rad 6110 w/ Eheim inline pump
Promise Fastrack 66 (hacked Ultra 66) w/ 4 Quantum15G 7200, striped
Winfast GTS 2 32mb
Soundblaster live value
Ricoh Cdrw/Dvd
 
res0r9lm said:
vinyl tubing gets hard after awhile and is prone to leaking.
silcone is better in that respect.

I agree, why fool around? Get the good silicone stuff. Yea,
it costs a bit more, but how much is your rig and peace
of mind worth? :cool:
 
Back