Copper Tubing is HARD
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,013 words · ~10 min read
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we've done a lot of liquid cooling over the years ranging from super jank diy to
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aios to all the way up to subzero
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chiller units but there are still some things that
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we've never messed with until now
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going full hard mode with copper
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rather than plastic tubing it's a lot of work and the learning
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curve looks a little something like this but boy oh boy is the end result ever
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shiny Corsair's vengeance RGB pro series
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overclocked memory utilizes dynamic multi-zone RGB lighting to light up your
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rig check it out at the link below
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so the first question is why
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why would we do something like this i mean it's good to try new things but
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aside from that is there any reason to
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use metal tubing copper or otherwise
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truthfully other than looks no
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so if you're only worried about cooling performance it's probably best to stay
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with inexpensive soft plastic tubing because as i demonstrated during
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scrapyard wars 2 even a massive coil of
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copper tubing doesn't dissipate much heat so
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the relatively small runs in your case won't make a measurable difference
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so then with that out of the way let's get started the case dictates a lot of
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the other components that you might choose for a build like this so that
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came first we chose the refreshed lialee
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pc011 dubbed the dynamic for its
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all-white interior tempered glass side and front panels and its spacious trunk
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which makes it perfect for hiding tubing and cables next up is the actual gaming
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bits for once here we're actually going to take a step back from insanity and
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just build a respectable color coordinated high-end gaming machine that
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is without an extreme edition CPU and titan graphics card so we opted for
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Intel's 8700k one of the best processors for gaming made it to an ASUS z370a
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prime the whitest board in their lineup for this chip RAM then was an easy pick
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as the best looking light RAM on the market imo is Corsair's vengeance RGB in
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white of course for our graphics card we would have loved to use the latest gtx
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rtx excuse me rtx 2080 ti
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but water blocks weren't quite available yet when we started this build so we
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went with the next best thing a 1080 ti which is still a very powerful card and
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significantly more affordable which meh if you told me a year ago i'd be calling
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a 1080 ti more affordable
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anywho for storage we opted for a 512
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gig samsung 960 pro as our boot drive with a couple of iron wolf pros and the
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pc-011's rear butt flap for storage
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which brings us to water cooling where things get a little more unusual
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now one of the manufacturers that we featured in our cheap aliexpress water
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cooling video barrow actually makes some really cool case
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specific water distribution slash
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reservoir blocks and they happened to have one for the pco11
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so that one was an easy buy then for the rest of the system we
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requisitioned a bunch of goodies from our friends over at ek going for mostly
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their standard affair stuff including their previous flagship supremacy evo
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CPU block a full cover 1080ti GPU block
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a couple of their slim 360 millimeter radiators and then a metric boatload of
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fittings now sadly while we were able to use
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their straight 16 millimeter hard-line fittings these are the same ones that
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you need for plastic tubing by the way they still don't have 90 degree fittings
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so we needed to paint our own with everything dry fitted the next step was
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sanding the fittings and radiators with a sanding block for optimal paint
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adhesion oh and before you guys head to the comments below yes we masked off the
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radiator fins an extra layer of paint isn't going to destroy your rad but it's
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not ideal for thermals either now let's get back to the star of the show the
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copper tubing there are actually
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way more different types of copper tubing and pipe than i expected be it
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coiled straight soft hard or whatever
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combination of the four of them but you actually don't need to worry
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about any of that because we already went out and spent the money to figure
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out which one's best so that you don't have to initially we thought that coiled tubing
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would be our best bet this kind of copper is pre-annealed
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which means that in the factory the pipe was heated up red hot then cooled to
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soften the metal now for materials like steel if you
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quench the metal after heating it actually hardens it making it great for
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use in tools for example but with copper
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heating then immediately cooling it actually softens it making it perfect
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for bending or so we thought in practice even with a
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fancy patented straightening tool like this one from eastwood the tube never
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ends up all that straight and it's got little bumps and blemishes all over it
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so coiled tubing wouldn't work for the clean aesthetic
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that we wanted a better choice ended up being straight
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hard half inch diameter copper pipe which it's called half inch but it
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actually has a 5 8 inch outer diameter
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one really important note here though is that you'll want to use the slightly
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more expensive type k pipe its walls are
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a little bit thicker which makes it easier and cleaner to bend
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from here the process is actually pretty similar to regular hard-line tubing each
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run starts with roughly estimating the length of the run with a little bit of
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extra on each end and cutting the pipe with our pipe cutter the one that you're
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looking at now by the way will run from our CPU block to the barrow distribution
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block then because we do still need to anneal the copper before we can bend it
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our tube needs to be heated up for a minute or two we used a matte gas torch
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now it's really important here for the part that you intend to bend to get
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visibly hot and it should be noted that it actually
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doesn't have to all be that same hot color at the same time so once you see
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it starting to get red you can begin to work your way around
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once you're done you can quench the pipe in a bucket of water and then freak out
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a little over the gross discoloration that you'll be spending the next few
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hours dealing with with a piece of sandpaper and some polish now we didn't
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do it this way hindsight is 20 20 as they say but we'd recommend that you do
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the bulk of your sanding before you bend the pipes because it is a lot easier to
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sand and polish a straight pipe than a bent one
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as they say anywho now it's bending time
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since these are just single 90 degree bends thanks to our
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fancy pants distribution block we don't really need to mark out our bend and we
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can just kind of go for it i'd recommend for a bender that you get something with
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a fairly large radius like this one that we got on ebay for 50 bucks
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smaller radius benders can you know give you a tighter bend obviously but they
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can also cause some pretty severe crushing creating flat spots on your
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bends that will be very noticeable especially if you go for a smooth
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polished look on your pipes we ended up initially filling our pipes with sand to
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help them retain their shape during the bend but it turned out later that this
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wasn't necessary for us though if you're having issues it might be worth a try
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the process was honestly pretty rinse and repeat from here so
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um i guess let's watch a fancy time lapse then of Jake bending and fitting the
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pipes
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one more pro tip here by the way if you already sanded your pipes and you want
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to keep them as scratch free as possible we'd recommend putting some grease on
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the mating surfaces of the bender at this point all the painted parts were
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dry and we could get into installation of the finished parts
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first was our CPU block with a white painted hold down plate and RGB shroud
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then we installed our GPU back plate our nicely painted white radiators and the
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custom 3d printed pump top for our ddc pump we actually didn't have the
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appropriate o-ring for mounting to the distribution block so this was fun we
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ended up making use of some high-temp silicone which worked surprisingly well
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wow looking good all done right no
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because we were dumb and didn't pre-sand it it all has to come out again for
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sanding and then polishing and i won't bore you with every detail but the basic
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process for us involved sanding each pipe with a fairly rough 400 grit
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sandpaper then polishing with some brasso this gave us a pleasing brushed
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finish that we really liked because the high shine polish style tubing didn't
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really fit the look we were going for or the time frame that we were going for
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for this build by the way we'd recommend sealing the tubes with something like
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brass lacquer when you're done as the polish doesn't do much for preventing
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tarnish now for final assembly we mounted our tubes again ran our sexy
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cablemod pro cable kit made it to our supremely reasonable rm750x power supply
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and hoped for the best pga lights on now that's good yeah
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there we go once the RAM issues were resolved it
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actually did end up working and the fill went pretty smooth with only one small
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leak Jake forgot to put the o-ring back on one of the CPU fittings bringing us
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finally to the moment you've been waiting for that sweet sweet minute of jaw-dropping
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b-roll of what may be our most beautiful system yet
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and that's how you water cool with copper pipe we're probably never going
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to do it again but if you want to go for it then you know what i say
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fill your boots have some fun tear your hair out a little yeah
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everyone's got their everyday grooming routines showering brushing their teeth
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and of course shaving and no matter what your routine is dollar shave club has
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or brush it with toothpaste no that's more for that's more for your mouth it
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doesn't matter the point is with dollar shave club you can look feel and smell
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your best your starter set will include their executive razor and trial size
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versions of their shave butter body wash and one wipe charlie's butt wipes after
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your first box replacement cartridges are sent for just a few bucks a month
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and this five dollar offer is available at dollarshaveclub.com
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Linus that's dollarshaveclub.com Linus we're going to have that linked below
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so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but
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like think think before thumbsing it down you
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know how much work this was for Jake
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but if you liked the video hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking
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out where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also link down
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there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally join