Hard Tubes/Rigid Tube questions

[JaskarnSidhu]

Anyone use those Hard Tube/Rigid Tubes? I am intrigued by them and am thinking about giving them a shot. I would like to hear some feed back from those whom have used them in the past. I've never heard of them before or seen them but I really do like the concept. I am working on a project to make all copper tubes with fins so they can passively cool while connected between water blocks, rads, and reservoirs (We use them in the HVAC/Refrigeration world, just trying to find a way to adopt them for PC water cooling). Until then, I would like to give these a shot but am concerned about leaks and connectivity.

Aside from a hacksaw, would tube cutters (used to cut copper and stainless steel tubing/piping) work with this type of hard plastic? The tube cutters we use at work for copper we also use for pvc piping.

[alex5389]

I will be using them in my new fancy pedestrian build. I got them today. I decided not to go with primochill brand as i dont need uv reactive or colored acrylic so i ordered 2x 6' of 1/2'' od from mcmaster-carr. I'm really looking forward to using it and i think the final product will look great!

As for cutting i will be using a circular saw and an osculating sander.

[bungwirez]

I can't wait to get back to my C70. Its been awhile.

I've got about 30 feet of Primochill tubes just lying around waiting for me to melt them up.

[alex5389]

I can't wait to get back to my C70. Its been awhile.

I've got about 30 feet of Primochill tubes just lying around waiting for me to melt them up.

30 Bung? You piping into the basement or something? I took a look at your C70, and those acrylic spirals are wicked!

[bungwirez]

30 Bung? You piping into the basement or something? I took a look at your C70, and those acrylic spirals are wicked!

thankyou. I'm still trying, hence the need for lots of practice tubes.
I failed to beat BillOwen by actually adding spiral to a build... from his latest, FrozenCPU Testbench log...

[alex5389]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2193[/ATTACH]

Woah Nelly! Makes me think of all the possibilities!

Well I bought 12 feet for a mini itx build so i guess it is more or less equivalent(not that crazy), I anticipate there will be a learning curve..

[bungwirez]

Oh ya. like anything, watch a lot of vids and stuff. learn from others mistakes.

[Father Fuzzy]

for me bending a few tubes went well

it was trying to get the bending tube inserted thru the acrylic that was the tough part

early adopter of the primochill madness

[JaskarnSidhu]

I had no idea you could bend this type of tubing. Im assuming you'd have to heat them up a bit first and then bend them to achieve the bend you want?

[skorpien]

Yup. You use a heat gun and a bending tube. The tube is inserted inside the acrylic you want to bend and prevents the acrylic from collapsing and the heat gun heats up the acrylic enough to make it malleable. There are even rigid tube bending kits you can buy that include everything from jigs to heat gun, hacksaw and everything else you'd need.

[alex5389]

here is my first attempt


not the worst use of an hour...

[bungwirez]

OH! Really good. do you have a rimmer tool to clean up the edges?

http://mnpctech.com/pc-mod-tools/acrylic-tubing-reamer/

if you see mine, its all bubbles. I did it in about 3 minutes.

Moral: take you time FTW.

[JaskarnSidhu]

Oh those are the same reamers we us in the HVAC industry....i get those free from work. Nice!

[bungwirez]

ya, actually, Bill has them way way overpriced.

[alex5389]

mcmaster has some crazy heavy duty ones starting at 18.98 and going to 70.41 but they are for metal too. I made my peace to live without one when I was ordering the acrylic tubing from there, my dremal and some sandpaper will suffice.