Stainless steel fittings; where to buy in Australia??

[LRAT]

Hi,

I'm in the development stage of building my own HERMS-system. I've already made up my bench from steel and I've already got my four 105-liters kettles.
I want to make up a central pipe system with solenoid valves to transfer the fluids in between the kettles.
I will be using two pumps.
The solenoid valves will be controlled by an ESP32. Basically, every step of the brewing cycle will be programmed. So, if I want to say do the mashing then all necessary solenoid valves will be opened by one push on the keyboard.

The hardest part for me is to find where to buy the materials from. I had a look at stainless steel fittings from Swagelok but that would cost me an arm and a leg. Most of these fittings are like $60.00 a piece!

So basically I am looking for a supplier that can deliver a good quality and at an affordable price components.
I am looking to build everything in 1/2" BSP.
The components I'm after are:

18x SS solenoid valves 12 or 24V DC, NC, duty cycle of at least 5 hours and be able to transfer fluids up to 100°C
SS fittings (T's, elbows and pipe compression unions)
SS Camlock couplings and quick release couplings
SS pipe 12mm or 1/2"

I live NE of Melbourne but I 'm happy to shop interstate or overseas.
Any suggestions or recommendations?
If SS is still too expensive I'm keeping my options open to build everything out of copper or brass, but ideally I would prefer SS.
Photos will follow once I start building.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Cheers,

Luc

 

[citizensnips]

China. Either through eBay or AliExpress.

 

[fdsaasdf]

http://stores.ebay.com.au/2014online/ is usually pretty good, they are generally delivered within a couple of weeks. I have bought all of my stainless fittings from ebay and most other sellers seem to end up on a slower boat.

 

[TwoCrows]

https://www.geordi.com.au/

These guys are located in
131 Herald St,
Cheltenham,
Vic3192, Australia

 

[moonhead]

Looking at the prices on eBay for the Chinese stuff, you might as well go to Keg Land, seems very close in price, and only take a few day to ship, unlike the 6 week wait for the stuff direct from China.

That said, I have found the Keg Land camlock fitting to be of fairly poor quality, they don't really mate up well with other cam lock fittings, I've needed to mark all the ones I got from Keg Land to make sure I only use them in certain circumstance (ie, not needing to quickly get it hooked up). Mind you, the rest of their SS fittings have been just fine, so, just be wary of what your getting (same could be said for everything, sight unseen, I suppose).

 

[altone]

If you are looking for local I'd agree with @TwoCrows Geordi steel have been around for decades and have good gear at good prices.

I can't comment on Keglands fittings but the Chinese stuff varies in quality and 316SS doesn't always mean 316SS

 

[fdsaasdf]

Agree Kegland's prices are great and if I was building my 1V rig today I'd be seeking to use them for a lot of common fittings. The reason I didn't recommend them initially is the lack of availability of many of their advertised products to this point. Hopefully this will improve as their production/importing ramps up.

 

[pirateagenda]

Solenoid valves on the hot side seems like an overly complicated and unnecessary way to do a very simple task if you ask me. You could count the times you need to open and class a ball valve on two hands during the brewing process. Not to mention a solenoid is open or close and doesn't give you the opportunity to choke the pump if the wort needs slowing down at any time.