Fittings. Cam lock v tri clover

[H0U5ECAT]

As I slowly progress into my own all grain setup, I'm looking for advice on the particular fittings to connect it all together.

What's peoples advice, pros and cons, tips or any other random thoughts on these fittings?
What's you preferred supplier of any parts and availability?
How do the stand up in cleanliness?
Are parts easily replaced if needed?
Are the parts only available in metric or machined?

 

[Fat Bastard]

Tri-Clover any day of the week. Cheap enough from ebay china, and bugger all critical moving parts to worry about, If you wanted to go cheaper, I reckon I'd go for a hose barb and clamp over a camlock or any other style of fitting for that matter.

 

[klangers]

Tri clover is a sanitary fitting (capable of being cleaned-in-place) and you will find these on food/beverage/pharma plants. Camlocks are not and are typically found on fuel hoses.

Generally you'll find fittings in metric and imperial; although it depends on what you're attaching to.

There is no point using tri clover for hoses. It's designed to join stainless pipe/tube sections together eg for insertion of a process analyser or other instrument into a pipeline so it cane easily removed for cleaning.

 

[Crusty]

Tri clover for sure.
More expensive but the industry standard for sanitary fittings.
I've used camlocks in the past & they're handy for quick hose disconnects but not in the same class as Tri clover.

 

[Parks]

The other main benefit for me with tri-clover was not having the restriction of camlocks. You will find most camlocks, even half-inch only allow 8mm or so. The hose barbs are the worst.

I bought 19mm barbed tri-clover and am able to get 1/2" HD silicon tubing over the barb so there is no-where for hops to get stuck.

Camlocks are better for one-handed operation though.

 

[heyhey]

Yes the barbs suck. My camlocks on my hoses are male thread. There is enough stretch in the silicon hose to get them over the thread and secured with a hose clamp if needed (most mine don't even need a clamp to secure).

I'm in the process of getting all my vessels fitted with triclover. All other components after the vessels will be thread or camlock until I can afford tri clover elbows, spools and valves. I'll still probably keep the camlocks on the hoses as they're really easy to use compared to burning your fingers undoing the triclover clamps

 

[welly2]

I'm using camlocks in one place on my mini-rig and that's on my immersion chiller where I'm using to swap between the line from the tap to the immersion chiller and the line from my pond pump/cooler for my two-step cooling process. Works a treat for those but it's just water going through. I can't imagine I'd use them for anything else in my system.

 

[Fents]

Tri clover everytime for me.