Maxxxpert Mono Radiator
Materials: Copper Tubing and Aluminum Fins
Dimensions: 145x120x102mm
Hose Connections: Unfinished 10mm copper tubing
Innovatek bundles a radiator from fellow competitor Maxxpert, who also has their own line of heatsinks and watercooling gear. The radiator is quite compact, about the size of three stacked 120mm fans, and should fit almost any case. Made with copper tubing and aluminum fins, the radiator matches well with the rest of the kit. However, the hose connections on the radiator are unfinished, although tubing can be pushed onto them without much fuss. To better performance a shroud could be fashioned to create space between the radiator and fan, thus removing some of the dead spot from the fan. Innovatek has their own line of heatercore style radiators for sale; these would give better performance and looks to boot but cost a small fortune themselves.
The bundled fan is a YSTech model puts out a healthy 92CFM at 39dB. Noise levels are quite suitable because of the lower pitch a larger fan created at the full twelve volts. Using the supplied fan power adapter, the fan is actually receives seven volts by using the old differential voltage trick that so many people use. At seven volts, the fan is extremely quiet.
Tubing
Although ½ inch inner diameter tubing is the de facto standard these days with the more extreme people using even larger tubing, Innovatek includes eight millimeter inner diameter, ten millimeter outer diameter vinyl tubing. The tubing fits perfectly onto the supplied fittings, but has the proclivity to kink. Scott from HighSpeedPC graciously included some Tygon formulation R3603, known as currently the best tubing available for watercooling setups not only for its strength and ability to resist kinking even in the tightest bends, but also for its flexibility. I was able to force the 5/16 inch Tygon onto a ½ inch barb, which is quite a feat in itself.
The entire system uses eight millimeter compression fittings. Basically the nut is threaded onto the end of tubing, the tubing is than fitted onto a short barb and the nut tightened. Using the thin wall vinyl included in the kit, securing the fittings was quite simple. However using the thicker Tygon, installation was more difficult. Using Tygon allows for a tighter seal for each fitting (because of the added thickness) as well as flexibility in routing the tubing. Working with both, the upgrade fee seems quite worthwhile. If the extra tubing is too rich, using the included zipties along the kinks straightens them out, somewhat.
If you are looking at upgrading the standard barbs on the system, notice that fittings that thread correctly into the block are hard to find. The taps correspond to the ¼ BSPP standards whereas the closest American standard is ¼ NTP. Thread adapters are available at places such as McMaster Carr but they are expensive and impede flow. Using the ¼ NTP fittings have been a solution for many even though they only thread about three turns into the block. With some Teflon tape and a wrench, the fit is acceptable but not ideal.
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