So I’m interested in custom water cooling and I’ve been researching parts. One thing that jumped out at me immediately is that all the fittings are in BSPP G1/4". I have a special hatred for any thread standard that is “nominal”. An 1/8" NPT requiring a 3/8" hole is a special kind of deranged. BUT THE BRITISH??? Not metric, not NPT, not even AN? No the industry standardized on British Standard Pipe???
Anyway, wondering if anyone has any insight into why? Like PC water cooling really took off in the last 20 years. Why not metric?
The reason NPT and BSP have nominal sizes that don’t match their thread od is because the nominal size is meant to denote the id of the pipe that can commonly connect to the thread, very useful for fluid transport applications.
I don’t think tapered threads like NPT or BSPT should have a place in computer water cooling because of the high torques required to seal fittings, it only makes sense to use these for much larger applications.
as to why imperial threads are used over metric, I suppose it it because there aren’t exactly common metric pipe threads, kobelco or komatsu threads aren’t exactly common. Also I’m assuming water cooling became prevalent in America first so even less reason to try and make up a metric standard.
Water cooling didn’t start from scratch. The early adopters had to use fish tank and gardening stuff.
Water cooling started not in the metric world, but the Bastion of Britishness, the US of A (oh the irony ) where the Imperial system was (and still is) king.
Companies supplying fittings are mostly not in the metric world and those that are, are forced to use dimensions from the leading US brands, if they stand a chance to get their stuff sold. Customers expect their (expensive) parts to just work, therefore metric parts won’t fit and will not be sold. Which is the key to this exercise.
Pretty sure it comes down to the fact that the biggest market for custom water cooling was the US which predominantly uses the Imperial measurement system. I’m guessing a lot companies have tooled to Imperial and don’t see the point in retooling.
On top of that a lot of plumbing standards were made by the US and UK.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s pretty much irrelevant what they standardized on for PC watercooling, because nobody is going out and buying PC watercooling hardware from the local hardware store anyway. Even if they did have them in sizes this small, which they don’t (around here at least).
…and just as the British carried on the impeccable pedigree of the proto-imperial system of the ancient Roman empire, it is up to the Americans to carry on the imperial system now that Brittan has fallen to the global monoculture!
In all seriousness I’m honestly surprised a metric pipe thread was never standardized. ISO literally says to go use BSP, I suppose that answers why computer water fittings are BSP.
To everyone saying water cooling is American thus it uses imperial, that’s not correct because we have our own pipe threading standard here called National Pipe Thread. This standard is different from the British standard by 1 thread per inch and is thus completely incompatible.
I think you may have the answer then. BSP is ISO, and I suppose that makes at least some sense if you’re going to pick a thread standard at random.
Oh it’s completely irrelevant, no argument. I was just wondering if there was some weird history to it that I wasn’t aware of.
Also I have an idea of making a car themed water cooling loop using AN hardware (I have the best AN tube flaring tool already) and want some G1/4" to AN fittings. If it was literally any NPT or metric size I could get an adapter to AN, but not freaking G1/4".
This reminds me that ORB (o-ring boss) fittings exist, I started using these instead of AN fittings for all my oil lines because the AN fittings were too bulky to fit.
ORB fittings would have made more sense to standardize PC water cooling components on.
) where the Imperial system was (and still is) king.