Monsoon Rotary Angled and Lightport Fittings review

The quality of these fittings is phenomenal. The satin paint finish on our black samples looked superb and stood up to a fair amount of bashing including using mole grips to fasten them to our waterblock. The rotary part is firm - a good sign as most of the loose ones we've used have ended up leaking. However, this does mean that tightening them up all the way will be tricky with your fingers alone.



As with most of Monsoon's fittings, you'll need to fit your choice of o-ring - our black fittings came with red and black options. The inside of the rotary fittings does feature a slight bend rather than a straight 90 degree corner - while angled fittings do reduce pressure and flow rate somewhat, the difference you'll see in absolute temperatures when everything is up and running isn't worth worrying about.



Monsoon has also seen fit to bore a twin G1/4in thread on the other side of its 90 degree rotary fittings and has come up with yet another piece of awesomeness. Its new Lightport fittings allow you to insert a temperature probe or even an LED insert directly into the fitting. Monsoon's LED modules include enclosures that are colour-matched to its compression fittings. It supplied us with red LEDs, which come braided and in a choice of colours. You can swap the LED between G1/4in screw mounts depending on which colour you need, and as the end section is made of two parts - a G1/4in plug with a lens and an end cap that secures the LED to the plug - you can swap LEDs without draining the loop or removing the plug.



It's a fascinating prospect, although to illuminate your whole loop would obviously need you to only use these 90 degree Lightport fittings. Testing showed the LED to be fairly bright, but sadly the Mayhem's red pastel coolant we were using proved to be too opaque to allow any light to show through.



We tried using a lighter colour and watered it down, which did allow a slight glow at the top, but the best results will likely be seen on a long exposure photograph. White LEDs would probably be the best option too, as would using a red dye rather than pastel coolant. Unfortunately, we didn't have any of this to hand.

Conclusion

Of the half a dozen rotary fittings we used, including two Lightport fittings, none exhibited the slightest hint of a leak. Given the frequency of leaks in some of the poorer fittings we've used, we'd feel safe in recommending Monsoon's rotary fittings given the quality of the samples we've received - defects seem very unlikely given their construction and materials used.

The level of customisation is very extensive too and whatever your colour scheme, it's unlikely you'll be left wanting. The Lightports were a little disappointing but this is most likely due to the coolant we used and our choice of lighting colour, although we'd suggest you avoid pastel coolants as they simply drown out the light. Other than that we can't wait to see what enthusiasts out there come up with.