Pondering swapping to hardline

[robbiec]

Hi All,

Hope you're all keeping well. Looking for some advice / opinions on fittings / hardline piping please. I'm currently running a near enough all AquaComputer cooling setup with Bitspower fittings and 10/16 tubing.

So Resevoir / Pump / Leakshield | 1st Rad | GPU | CPU | 2nd Rad and back to res

All nice and easy and to be fair has worked well for the last 15 months or so. I plan to add in a Flow sensor high flow NEXT as the semi virtual flow sensor in the D5 is not massively accurate.

So who makes the best hardline piping that does not discolour after a couple of months?, who makes the best fittings? and any recomendations for a pipe bending / trimming kit?

Thanks v much.

 

[Warchild]

There is no "best" pipes or "best" fittings etc anymore. Its all subjective. And it all comes down to your budget.

What I would say is that I always prefer Arcylic hardline over PETG. acrylic gives a clearer finish, and isnt susceptible to deforming like PETG might. That said Acrylic is more brittle. And your case has to get real toasty to get PETG to deform.

fittings wise its all cosmetic these days. They all perform the same. Barrow are the cheapest I believe and are like Bitspower but less stiff. EK have their Torque series and are their premium line of fittings, Monsoon are costly, but have some wild designs..

Pipe bending, Barrow kits are really cheap I used them alot and bolted them to wood. I still think Monsoon did the best "ultimate" pipe bending kits though, with/without the heatgun.

 

[robbiec]

There is no "best" pipes or "best" fittings etc anymore. Its all subjective. And it all comes down to your budget.

What I would say is that I always prefer Arcylic hardline over PETG. acrylic gives a clearer finish, and isnt susceptible to deforming like PETG might. That said Acrylic is more brittle. And your case has to get real toasty to get PETG to deform.

fittings wise its all cosmetic these days. They all perform the same. Barrow are the cheapest I believe and are like Bitspower but less stiff. EK have their Torque series and are their premium line of fittings, Monsoon are costly, but have some wild designs..

Pipe bending, Barrow kits are really cheap I used them alot and bolted them to wood. I still think Monsoon did the best "ultimate" pipe bending kits though, with/without the heatgun.

Thanks very much for your thoughts. I'm edging towards Alphacool for the various bits and bobs - they have a nice kit that looks reassuringly expensive

 

[Surfie]

I realise that I am late to this party, so hopefully the advice is not stale yet.


Speaking as someone who has done hard line (glass, PETG and Acrylic), as well as Soft tubing, there are some pros and cons that I have noticed to each approach. Glass was probably the least flexible use case, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless their tube runs are perfectly straight point to point (which is pretty rare, but can be easily attained with the right distro plate and fittings).

Having used a hardline tube for the last 5 or 6 years, I am finding myself being more attracted to the soft tubing that I started my water cooling journey with. Let me explain;

For me, hard line tubing is and will always be about the looks (as most watercooling is). It *can* look amazing. No question. But it also can take an *ungodly* amount of time to make it look that good. Depending on how good you are doing the turns in the tubing and measuring your lengths (I am fine with tube bending but god awful at measurements), then it can also be a money sink because of the ease of which you can cut a tube too short (making it almost unusable in many cases).

Because of all this, and the associated costs, i'm finding myself more and more drawn back to softline. It is just better for my own personal use case.


Don't get me wrong; BOTH are great, and perform a similar job in terms of results, and while one arguably looks better than the other, they both are very similar at the end of the day. It just comes down to what you want, and how much time/money you have to achieve your desired result.

 

[robbiec]

I realise that I am late to this party, so hopefully the advice is not stale yet.

Not at all - I suspect that you have nailed most of my concerns in one go and I also suspect that it is an itch that I need to scratch myself to find out

 

[Surfie]

Don't get me wrong. Both tubing styles definitely have their place, and if i'm honest, hardline may just have an edge because of the lack of plasticizer (which ultimately means more maintenance for soft tubing).


It all comes down to what you are trying to achieve.

 

[robbiec]

Had a play with some Alphacool stuff but my mind was still in soft pipe mode so after a few attempts I gave up. Where I'm falling down is the final finish of the pipe end after cutting, my reaming technique isn't up to snuff! ��

 

[Warchild]

Had a play with some Alphacool stuff but my mind was still in soft pipe mode so after a few attempts I gave up. Where I'm falling down is the final finish of the pipe end after cutting, my reaming technique isn't up to snuff! ��

just buy the ream tool for a couple of quid.

Its not even needed. Just some wet n dry paper, spit on the paper and sand it at 45 degrees while rotating the tube.

 

[robbiec]

I have that ream tool what type of sandpaper? Is there a grit level that you would suggest?

 

[Warchild]

I have that ream tool what type of sandpaper? Is there a grit level that you would suggest?

bog standard wet n dry. I don't know how you are failing to use that tool though. Its the most simple tool in watercooling.

You only need to apply light pressure, not press down hard like you are excavating a tooth.