Clearflex60 Tubing... a Tygon substitute?
 

Greetings

I recently purchased a 100' box of Clearflex60 clear PVC tubing from a company called Fabco Plastics, in Maple, Ontario. Their sales rep says it is equal to Tygon R-3603 Lab tubing. However, at $1.55CAD per foot, it is approximately one third of the price of Tygon. I am going to be using this tubing in lieu of Tygon in my next watercooling project due to it being far more economical. I will, however, only need 20 odd feet of the stuff from a 100' box, and as such will be selling the rest. If you are interested, check out my thread in the FS/FT forum, or e-mail me directly.

You can find more info about Clearflex60 tubing at the following web address:

http://www.fabcoplastics.com/catalog/section7/7-009.pdf

how is the memory, chem resistance, and stretch?

being that it is pvc.. i dunno if its like tygon at all

Firstly, it is Nalgene tubing, which is a specific formulation of PVC, just as Tygon is a specific formulation of something-or-other (for the life of me, I cannot find the chemical makeup of Tygon listed anywhere). I think it is fairly obvious that these (Nalgene, Tygon) are competing products made by different companies. If you read the published specs, in terms of chemical resistance and physical properties, it is equal to Tygon. Specifically, the stretch (% elongation) is identical for both (450), and so is the shore hardness (55) and operating pressure (30 psi at 73F for Clearflex60 vs 25 psi at 73F for Tygon). Chemical resistance is a bit trickier, but both claim to be non-aging and resistant to many chemicals. If you want to verify this for yourself, take a look at the following urls:

http://www.fabcoplastics.com/catalog/section7/7-008.pdf
http://www.flextubing.com/SelectionGuide.htm
http://www.tygon.com/pdfs/tygr3603.pdf

I cannot comment on memory, since the stuff has not arrived yet. However, unless someone can point out something I am missing, Clearflex60 is a good substitute, especially considering the price of Tygon. I will let you know what my impression is when I get the stuff in a couple of weeks.

I received shipment of the some 1/2"x3/4" tubing earlier this week and wanted to post my impression for anyone else who was thinking of using Nalgene tubing as a Tygon substitute. Firstly, it is very clear, better than the cheap PVC I bought at Home Depot for testing. It does have a slight memory, but it's no problem to "re-train" the tubing to a new shape, and is really quite easy to work with in general. It can take some pretty sharp turns (the minimum bend radius I've been able to get is 1 1/2"... though I bet I can get less with a bit of heat). Also, I am able to use this stuff without hose clamps on both 1/2" and 5/8" nominal barbs without leaks on an extended leak test that I ran... using both brass and PVC fittings. All in all, I can say I am very satisfied with this tubing, especially when you consider that I paid a lot less for it that I would have for Tygon.