Camlock Fittings

[earachemyeye69]

Anyone have issues with them? The one on my recirculation arm unlocks when mashing. (Brewzilla) I have to use tie-wraps to keep it locked.

 

[sibelman]

Self-unlocking... I've had this happen once ever. Thousands of reliable connections. The one failure harmed my trust for sure, but it hasn't recurred... yet! It does seem some camlock connections are super tight, others quite (too!) easy to close. They may be mil-spec but there seems to be some variation.

 

[earachemyeye69]

I’ll have to fix it one of these days. For now ties work just an inconvenience.

 

[Golddiggie]

Mil-spec isn't exactly known for high tolerances. Where +/- .010" is considered "close enough" you can have one part high on the + side and the other low on the - side, giving you the highest deviation. IIRC, there can even be higher ranges for 'tolerance' levels.

I ditched the cam-locks when getting too many of them to actually fully lock happened. Eventually changed over to TC fittings. Those have been a LOT more reliable and easier to setup (for me).

 

[DuncB]

Does it unlock when you rotate the sparge arm? Mine have been reliable on robobrew and guten 70. Have others on my hop missile and coolossus and work fine.
I thought military spec just meant it was difficult for soldiers to break it!

 

[sibelman]

Rotating definitely tends to cause camlocks to unlock. Spontaneous unlock is another matter.

For me, camlocks have worked well with extremely rare exception.

I've adapted to tri-clamps for my boil kettle element, and all my fermenter fittings. They're rock solid for sure and super cleanable, but considerably more work to use, definitely requiring both hands to connect.

Dunno whether OP could switch to TC or QD for the troublesome connection.

 

[DuncB]

FWIW the Guten has a piece of silicone tube 1/2 inch internal on the camlock instead of a solid recirc arm, I find it a bit more convenient as it can be bent out of the way and doesn't get scaldingly hot.

 

[earachemyeye69]

Does it unlock when you rotate the sparge arm? Mine have been reliable on robobrew and guten 70. Have others on my hop missile and coolossus and work fine.
I thought military spec just meant it was difficult for soldiers to break it!

Yeah, rotate/ bump/ look at it and it unlocks.

 

[Bobby_M]

Try a replacement gasket.