Powder Coating copper tubing for water cooled system

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rozz

rozz

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Sep 18, 2010
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I am in the process of building a mini-itx water cooled PC and was wondering the difficulty of powder coating my copper tubing to get a gold color.

Would the powder coat effect the compression fitting? Are there any ill-effects that would incur with my loop? Is there any long term disadvantage of using copper for water cooling.

Any info would be helpful.

thanks!
 
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rubix_1011
Soft copper will have to be what you use unless you have the ability to mandrel bend rigid copper, and in that sense, it can be very difficult given that copper is still inherently quite soft by comparison to other metals and copper tubing is typically small diameter compared to most tubing that is mandrel bent.

I've thought about using soft copper tubing in builds several times, just haven't done it simply because of cost per foot. Granted, it's a matter of perspective since I used soft 50' of copper in my brewing supplies in the last year.

It's on my list, though. I did a lot of research on it a couple years ago...I've been looking to see if I can find URLs that I've bookmarked...no luck yet.
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4Ryan6

4Ryan6

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My only solid answer is to the last question, that copper would not be a problem seeing as how a copper core radiator is copper


My additional concerns:

The only standard water cooling fittings that would even possibly work with copper tubing are the hard acrylic compression fittings, so, are they even OD sized properly to fit normal home copper tubing supply line?

There are 2 types of copper water supply line tubing, the hard copper straight and the soft copper coil, to my knowledge the only one that is bendable is the soft copper and the soft copper does not properly seal in a traditional plumbing style compression fitting without a brass reinforcement insert, so, how well will the traditional water cooling hard acrylic fittings even seal to soft copper?

If the powder coat is an issue you could always tape off each end of the tubing and not have the powder coat on the actual connection area, you'll have to pre-bend the copper tubing and plug the ends of the tubing before powder coating anyway to keep the powder coating out of the inside of the pipe.

The powder coating process uses a electrically grounded process to attract the colorant particles and it will go on and into the tubing if you do not plug each end before the spraying.
 
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rozz

rozz

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Thanks for the reply.

I thought the soft tubing is really the only kind you can use. Anyone here know what specific copper tubing needs to be use with compression fittings?
 
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rubix_1011

rubix_1011

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I would say go the route of polishing the copper and then sealing it with an acrylic spray to preserve it in that state. I'm thinking along the lines of either chemically cleansing the copper or polishing it against a buffing wheel with polishing compound. It won't exactly be 'gold' but the copper will be very bright and reddish-gold.
 
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rozz

rozz

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Unfortunately, polished copper just cant cut it. I tried that look in the case and it has to be gold to match the other parts. I cant find any gold acrylic piping nor goldish dye/liquid and i do not want to use black tubing as i want to somewhat avoid the look of others.

I was reading online and even Geforce's Garage has powder coated their copper, so i was curious if anyone else has done it.

as far as type of tubing, i want to use the clean bending without 90 degree fittings, so i'm thinking i have to use soft copper, but is it best to use a double o-ring fitting, or a compression with it. Someone here has to have some experience with copper. :)
 
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rubix_1011

rubix_1011

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Jan 12, 2007
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Soft copper will have to be what you use unless you have the ability to mandrel bend rigid copper, and in that sense, it can be very difficult given that copper is still inherently quite soft by comparison to other metals and copper tubing is typically small diameter compared to most tubing that is mandrel bent.

I've thought about using soft copper tubing in builds several times, just haven't done it simply because of cost per foot. Granted, it's a matter of perspective since I used soft 50' of copper in my brewing supplies in the last year.

It's on my list, though. I did a lot of research on it a couple years ago...I've been looking to see if I can find URLs that I've bookmarked...no luck yet.
 
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