(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best pipe fittings

I once owned an Equator brand countertop dishwasher, like this one, but an older version: http://equatorappliances.com/product-detail.php?product=equator-midea-cd-400-3203-w-dishwasher--countertop-6-place-setting-in-white-17-94&category_id=13

I was able to order an adapter kit with it, that allowed me to hook the input up to the sink faucet with a quick release attachment, and the drain line, I simply left in the sink when using the machine, to allow the dirty water to flow down the sink drain.

I do not quickly find an "all-in-one" kit, such I once purchased, but you can buy the parts individually. This attaches to the sink faucet:
https://www.amazon.com/Danco-36108E-Portable-Dishwasher-Aerator/dp/B005792KTS/ref=pd_sbs_60_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B005792KTS&pd_rd_r=BAX5YPZZH8CR53EKTJFK&pd_rd_w=5dxkh&pd_rd_wg=dj7OV&psc=1&refRID=BAX5YPZZH8CR53EKTJFK

This attaches to the dishwasher's water input hose: https://www.amazon.com/Dishwasher-Coupling-Thread-Nipple-Female/dp/B007DMYQBW/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1500924894&sr=8-8&keywords=dishwasher+faucet+adapter+kit

You hold the hose and push down on the white plastic flange to connect or release the hose from the skinny nipple fitting on the faucet. You can really make any dishwasher portable this way. I have done the same as well with a standard full-sized dishwasher, by building a plywood box on casters to hold it, and plumbing it this way.

If you do purchase any "countertop" or "mobile/portable" dishwasher, consider the size of your dinner plates first. I found that any plates larger in diameter than 10 inches/25.4 centimeters would not fit in this type of dishwasher.

Your experience may vary, but I hope this is of some assistance. Best of luck.

Without tools, the best you can really do is look for oiliness on the pipe. When you find a joint that feels oily (look for dark colours on the pipe, usually covered in very fine dust. Once you rub the dusty area with your fingers you'll feel the oiliness), spray/pour a small amount of washing up liquid over it and look for bubbles. If there's any refrigerant left in the system, you'll usually see bubbles appear (or over a longer period, foam). Of course if the gas has all escaped already - and we're only talking a couple of hundred grams here - then you won't see any bubbles.

Most domestic gear has no access fitting at all so even locating the leak can be difficult if there's no visual indication. You need to get pressure in there so you can leak test - this means adding a bullet piercing valve (like this).

Then you need to put something in via your bullet piercing valve to raise the system pressure. It's best to use dry nitrogen to leak test to save wasting refrigerant, but since you most likely don't have that on hand you could buy yourself some refrigerant (most likely R134a) and pressurise with that. That's a big no-no here (both disposable cylinders and dumping gas to atmosphere by charging a system with a known leak) but I'm guessing your in the US, and those sorts of laws seem remarkably lax so go for gold. It's not like you'll be ruining MY ozone layer too, right? ;)

You also need to regulate the pressure going in to the system. This is where you need gauges. Connect the yellow line to your bottle, connect the blue line loosely to your bullet piercing valve, purge from cylinder to piercing valve by opening the cylinder tap + gauges tap, and releasing some pressure via the loose fitting, then tighten the fitting and close your gauges tap. Open the bullet piercing valve. Open the gauges tap slowly and give it ~50psi of system pressure.

Then you can go for gold with your soap, or you can lash out and grab yourself some "proper" leak detection fluid (like this), or better yet an electronic leak detector (like this one).

Once you've found your leak, you want to release your nitrogen (or reclaim your refrigerant using a reclaim plant and a spare cylinder), then repair it using an oxy/acetalyne set, or since it's only tiny pipework you can get away with a MAPP gas set.

If it's a copper->copper joint, you're laughing - polish the pipework up with emery cloth, heat the pipe until it's just this side of glowing red, and feed the joint with brown tip silver solder.

If it's a copper->steel joint, then it's a bit more of a pain. You need blue tip silver solder and flux. Clean your joint with the emery cloth, give it a nice coating of flux on every surface you need solder to stick to, then heat it up until it's a fair way short of glowing red. Feed the blue tip solder in and STOP. Unlike brown tip (15% silver) you can't just keep feeding blue tip (45% silver) as it ruins the weld.

Now, since you put on a bullet piercing valve and they leak like a sieve in the long term, we need to replace that with a schrader access valve. Since it's most likely going to be in a straight through piece of pipe, you can save time and grab yourself a pre made access valve in 1/4" pipe. Cut away the hole left by the bullet piercing valve, polish the copper and cut the pipework with a ~10mm gap using a tube cutter. Then slip your access fitting assembly in there, and follow the copper->copper joint procedure.

Of course, now that we've done all that you need to change the liquid line filter drier too. I'd recommend a 1/4" solder in core drier in place of the original copper spun drier because... well, copper spun driers are terrible. Follow the pipe cutting procedure from the piercing valve instructions and the soldering instructions from the copper->copper joint instructions and that's done too. Remember - always try and mount the drier so it's outlet is LOWER than its inlet. This turns the drier into a small liquid receiver and helps ensure a good liquid seal over the capillary tube. Speaking of capillary tubes, if it was inserted straight into the original copper spun drier CUT the capillary, don't try and unsweat it. The chances of blocking it up are about 82.5634% (approximately) when you unsweat capillarys. You're much better off chopping it with a set of capillary tube cutters and ensuring a good clean capillary. The ~30mm of wasted capillary will affect performance, but almost certainly not to any sort of measurable degree.

Then give the system a good evacuation using a vacuum pump and ensure it reaches a good vacuum (sub-500 micron) with a digital vacuum gauge.

Then using a set of electronic scales, charge your freshly evacuated system (remembering to purge!) to the charge recommended by the manufacturer.

Voila! You have just fixed your chest freezer.

..... Alternatively, pay someone to do it for you and/or recycle the components and buy yourself a new one.

If you really, really want to do this, make sure you use an alcohol and food safe container. Some plastics will dissolve when exposed to the alcohol. For example, PET and PP are good choices. (There are others)

It's also important to make sure the valves are made of similarly safe materials, including any lubricants and plastics or rubbers used for seals.

The tank you linked in the post, and the valve they recommend with it, appear to be ok. Check any other tubing, adapters, nozzles, etc. that you use as well. Alcohol-safe, food-grade parts do exist for everything you want this to do, but not all parts that fit will be safe.

Whether or not something is alcohol-safe will not tell you if it is food grade. Many alcohol-safe parts are manufactured using lubricants and adhesives that are not safe for consumption, and may be on the inside of any of your valves, tubes, or tanks. You should treat them as separate requirements.

Note that your tank and valve are both listed as food-safe, and made of alcohol-resistant materials.

(P.S. I am not a chemical safety expert. My confirmations should not be seen as confirmation by a qualified professional.)

sure. which parts do you need more detail on?

so take an SCR controller. this one is nice as it has the digital display. that saves you with the bother of an ammeter or voltmeter. this will leave you with a dial control for increasing or decreasing power to your unit.

220 from your wall goes into the SCR. if you want it cheap get the power cord off of a craigslist (etc) free stove or dryer.

power out goes to your hot water tank element. they say that ultra low watt density is best. but low watt fold back ones are usually fine too.

your element screws into one of these . they are available from a number of suppliers.

to prepare the keggle, simply remove the spear, and then cut what is normally the bottom of the keg off (its quietest if you do this with the keg full. you might be able to find a disk to seal the ferrule up with, or even fill with water and then reinstall the spear, and do it upside down) now the sanke flange can be used as a 2" tri clamp ferrule. buy yourself a 2" TC clamp and gaskets

you'll need legs or a stand for the keggle. I'm sure you can figure that out.

now as that is you'll see that your hwt element sticks up the center of the keg from the bottom to about the middle of the keg. so. if you got yourself some 2" copper pipe - the same length as your element and hammer on an easy flange. for that basically you take a ballpeen hammer and work the ends down so that they are flat and 90° to the rest of the pipe. if that's a little thin for the TC clamp to attach to, you can put a hose clamp on it, and melt some solder in to beef it up. file it to shape and for smoothness. even better is if you can add a tee with at least a 1/2" but maybe as much as a 1" connection and then you get a bottom drain as well.

The living room fins can be bent back straight again but the baseboard cover is missing supports that hold the element up. I was doing it one by one with the pliers but there must be a easier way of doing it. I am wondering if it just worth it to remove the old covers and install new covers and element supports for the existing living room radiator element. It may also solve that creaking i hear from the element getting warm when the zone kicks on.

The kitchen is a different story. That one the fins have completely detached from half the length of the copper pipe and are free floating there. I am thinking about renting a grinder with a metal blade and just cutting off the remaining fins. Then I can install this: https://www.amazon.com/FABTEK-CLR-2-Hydronic-Baseboard-Additional/dp/B00GHUSRSY

​

That sounds like a pretty big canner that could probably support up to a 2" column. I'm assuming it's ss. There are many types and sizes of fittings you could use to adapt depending on the still type you want. Just to give you some ideas here's some fitting types you could use if you're thinking about either a column or a pot still: female npt lid adapter, male to male nipple - you can also find these in copper, female npt to copper tubing adapter, male npt to copper tubing adapter. Here's a plug. To sum up, figure out which type of still you want to build then use those types of fittings to get you started. That's just my two cents. Good luck!

I have 3 split tanks with Bettas and have had no problems. The key is to MAKE a divider that stays in place, they cannot see thru it, but the water has no problem getting thru. I have yet to see a divider anywhere that consistently stays in place and keeps them from seeing each other, so I made mine out of:
Install Bay 89-00-9031 ABS Plastic 12 X 12 X 1/8-Inch https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0007WTF02/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_tPQRCbGPGCXTH

I drilled small holes throughout for good water flow and trimmed the bottom edges to accommodate the silicone seals at the bottom and cut it to fit SNUG in the tank without needing anything to keep it in place. Works like a DREAM! No Betta stress, awesome water flow and super cheap. 1 tank, 1 heater, 1 filter...no problems😊

I have the same speakers. The cable looks to be about RG59. Your cable should say how many ohm's - that way we can confirm we have the same.

This is the what you need, but in 10 pack form. http://www.amazon.com/Paladin-Tools-9720-Compression-Connectors/dp/B0037HPSU0
This connector is quad though, preferable to have non-quad.

IMO, your best bet is to return the compression tool and use the solder connector. The connector you bought is made as a universal fit so should be OK. If you can't solder, find an electronic repair shop or even a computer shop. It's about 40 seconds of solder work, should be cheap.

If you are using thick wood for the top then you really shouldn't need to do the cross beams. Wood glue is actually stronger than wood, so you'd be more likely to break the wood along the middle of the board than along the joint. The one thing you want to be sure to do is flatten the edges of the board so that you have the best seam you can before glue up. Ideally you will barely even see it - no gap whatsoever. You should be able to just grab [threaded pipe flanges] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQGEOZD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_idsaAb3KZ779Swith). Just get your pipes threaded at a box store. That way you can actually remove them with ease if you so choose.

Honestly I feel like you'd be fine with even 1" thick wood and the above. The cross beams would only allow you to use longer screws. If you did want that then you could just cut a circular puck the shape of the flange and glue that where the legs will go, then screw into the now thicker sections. At the end of the day It's gonna depend on how "reclaimed" the wood is structurally.

I bought everything from Lowe's and it ended up being around $150. The flange footers were the most expensive at about $5 a piece but I found them on Amazon here for about $2.80 plus one-day free shipping (pending your location.) The plank was originally 16"x72" stain-grade pine in the lumber shelving aisle and I think it was $30. They kindly cut it into 3 pieces for me for free and then the stain was $8? The rest of the pipe pieces were under $5 each.

The bottom of that 90/eblow looks like a sharkbite type connection? All you have to do is pop the pipe out of the sharkbite-end of the 90/elbow, give the elbow a good turn, and then pop it back in. That simple. 5 minute job.

You will need a half-inch sharkbite disconnect clip. They're like $3 at home depot. almost always in stock.

Do you have one of those?https://www.amazon.com/SharkBite-U710A-U710-Disconnect-Clip/dp/B008MG06EO

​

how to use those sharkbite disconnect clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FDBaXBUPNg

​

good luck.

I'm currently on my parents property (I own part of the land). They have a house they live in. I pulled my camper near their house and get all of that from them.

• Power
  
  My camper has a 110v 30amp connector on the outside. My initial plan was to install a 40 amp breaker into my parents house and run it to a 30amp outlet on the outside of their house and then connect my camper to it, but the previous own gave me a 30amp to 15 amp so I could connect my camper to the conventional wall plug you see in houses. Fortunately my dad had a spare outlet near by in a shed that wasn't being used by anything else, so I was able to go to Home depot and get an extension cord to run to it. Doing it that way saved me a lot of time and money by not having to go the full 30 amp route.
  
  Because I did it that way I have to watch my power usage or I'll trip the breaker, as the camper is designed to operate at full 30 amps. After a while you learn what and what not all you can do at the same time. I have the option to run my refrigerator and water heater with electricity, but I opt to use propane for them (yep, refrigerator runs on propane). Doing that pretty much takes away the issue of drawing too much energy and I haven't tripped the breaker since.
  
  
• Water
  
  Simple enough, I just put a Y splitter on my parent's home's water spicket and ran a water hose from it to my camper (typical water hose connects right to it on the outside).
  
  First mistake was buying an heavy duty water hose. I wanted it to last, so I figured this was the best route. Problem was, they're not designed to transport potable water. The chemical smell from that water hose was atrocious for many weeks. Every time I would take a shower my house would reek of a chemical smell. The smell finally went away, and I cook with the water now, but I avoid from drinking a glass of water from the faucet. If I could go back in time I would have bought a RV water hose as they're designed for this.
  
  In freezing temps I let my sink just barely trickle water and this disallows the water hose from freezing. When I first moved in and winter set in I was close to installing a water hose heater that runs along the hose and keeps it warm, but letting the water flow does the trick and saved me the hassle!
  
  
• Sewage
  
  I ran plumbing from my camper and tapped into my parent's plumbing in their house , which leads to their septic tank.. I bought this adapter and connected it to my camper. Then went to Home Depot and bought all the plumbing and went from there. Google was my friend on how to do the proper job. My suggestion is to do you google research on how to properly run plumbing and don't cheap out on the plumbing. I went with long turn pipe bends to insure proper flow, even if it did cost an extra $8. In the end, and after a year, I have not had any plumbing issues. Do it right the first time!
  
  
• Internet
  
  I bought a long Cat6e ethernet cable from eBay and ran it from my parents modem to my PC in my camper.

I like the adjustability, a smarter man than I could figure out a DIY solution with adjustable pipe sleeves and some kind of controller sleeves sleeves.

I found tying the controllers together with a cord was enough of a stabilizer for my grip hand without getting in the way. Trying to find a clever way to pad the right controller so I can prop it against the HMD for maximum stability with the lease interference.

$60 RO/DI

I prefer to have a devoted tap for RO, rather than hooking it up to a pre-existing faucet. For this installation method, I tap a cold water line with a saddle valve. The linked kit provides plenty of tubing to run to the installation site. I mounted the RO/DI inside my bathroom sink cabinet. This allows me to fill my sprayer in the bathtub, so I don't have to worry about it flooding if I lose track of it. Doesn't hurt to install a backflush (consider that picture a 'blueprint'). THIS kit has the two 'Y's and 2 ball valves you'd need. One ball valve to control flow into the RO/DI (effectively your ON/OFF switch); 2 'Y's and a ball valve to plumb a backflush in at your flow restrictor.

$81 for the RO/DI and associated plumbing to build a devoted fill station. A single light costs more than that. Your water bill will go up, but you don't have to break the bank to have RO/DI water on tap in your home. It's easy. It's cheap. It has a host of benefits. I don't see why more people don't do it.

I've got the 'ON/OFF' ball valve right above my bathroom sink. When I need to make water, I run my waste line down the bathtub drain, put the clean line into my sprayer, and open the ball valve. Nice and simple. No hassles.

Edit: If you don't already have them, you'll want a drill and ~1/2" drill bit to run holes in your wall/bathroom cabinet for your water lines. Maybe brings you over $100, if you don't already have those tools.

Thanks. I took a caliper and the threads on the outside of the pipe fitting measured 1”. Does that help with knowing what size I need? 1” mpt (npt?) or 5/8”?

So maybe something like this?

Everflow Supplies CCMU0034-NL 3/4" Lead Free Copper Union Fitting with Sweat to Male Threaded Connects https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016Y9V89C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_kQ7jDb8RX98GG

And then a street 90 3/4 after that up to the current 3/4” copper

You're right, I was being a smartass.

Well, maybe you already have a tent. If not, maybe you can find an ugly one on Craigslist or a garage sale or something. I think an 8' by 8' would be good because I think they sell pvc in 8' lengths, but it's easy to cut so whatever.

Build a square base out of the pvc using these elbows:

https://www.amazon.com/FORMUFIT-F0343WE-WH-8-3-Way-Fitting-Furniture/dp/B00MNIYYQS/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1543270209&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=3way+pvc+elbow&dpPl=1&dpID=31szszUAnQL&ref=plSrch

Bend the tent poles into the top of the elbows and tie the poles together at the top where they criss cross and make an X. I think that would be strong enough to make a dome like blanket fort.

i would install a float valve if possible, they make them pretty small, works like a toilet tank, water gets below a specified level and then the valve opens refilling your tank to the top and starting all over again.

in the customer photos on that link a guy put one in his Keurig so he didn't have to refill that tank. looks great.

Takes a bit to get the hang of it, but these work like a charm. https://www.amazon.com/LDR-511-1110-11-Inch-Faucet/dp/B000I19AJI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474827213&sr=8-1&keywords=faucet+wrench

Other answers are correct. Cheaper options on Amazon esp if you have prime

http://www.amazon.com/LDR-511-1110-11-Inch-Faucet/dp/B000I19AJI/

they make a tool just for that

faucet / basin / sink wrench:

https://www.amazon.com/LDR-511-1110-11-Inch-Faucet/dp/B000I19AJI