Tubing for Water Cooling?

[TKDGOD150]

Hey y'all, I know i'm building my own watercooling kit and i know all the risks and stuff.But i was wondering if the tube could be inter-changed. Like useing 1/2" tubing with 3/8" tubing. With something happen with the currents or not? any response would be helpful/nice. thanks

[FLG]

With adapters, yes you can. There will be a decrease in flow but it may or may not be noticable temp wise. Just dont do something drastic like using 1/2 to 1/4, 1/2 to 3/8 is fine. Remember if it says ID thats in inner diameter and thats what counts.

[TKDGOD150]

thanks a lot! yea, i'll mostly be useing only 1/2 and 3/8 tubing

[David M]

TK,
A fluid will flow as fast as the smallest restriction.... regardless. Whether your running a 2 1/2 inch fire hose or a 3/8 vinyl hose through a 3/8 restriction the flow will still be the same given the same pressure. This is analogous to volts vs amps ironicly where volts is pressure and diameter is amps.

I read of one guys build (not on PCMechanic) who converted his liquid cooling system from 3/8 to 1/2. The coolant blocks over the CPU and graphics cards remained 3/8. He used 3/8 to 1/2 adapters to connect the larger 1/2 inch tubing to the blocks and pump. What happened is he saw no improvement in cooling and with the larger bend radius of 1/2 tubing, he could not get his case door closed! It looked like a green octopus trying to escape from a cage. I wish I could remember where on the internet saw it.

I bet if you go to the Koolance, Zalman or even the Thermaltake website, you can get ideas on how to build a 1/2 inch system from scratch using all 1/2 inch components.

David M

[TKDGOD150]

lol, thanks. I got a slight question, whats the main difference between useing a reservior or a fill/bleed port. I know u can use one or the other, and i seem to like the looks of the reservior better. How would u fill/bleed a system using a reservior. (http://www.frozencpu.com/ex-res-39.html ) like this one?