Chillus Convolutus, Chillzilla copper CFCs

[Deadalus]

Probably about a decade too late but I am posting about adding connections other than tubing to copper counterflow chillers that appear almost exactly the same as mine pictured. Since I bought it used, I am not exactly sure what brand it is. These either come with the fittings attached for the wort line or as bare copper tubing. The difference in price between the two is often around $40 lately. I couldn't fathom why the fittings aren't simply attached since there is brazing work aready done. I finally figured it out. Ready? It's because they are metric. The inner copper tubing is 15mm copper. Guess what, that's the outer diameter as that's how metric copper is sized and sold. In the US, copper pipe us nominally sold by the inner diameter. 1/2" copper happens to be 5/8" which is 15.875mm. US 1/2" sized fittings don't play well at all with 15mm, not the SS compression fittings, not the copper compression fittings, not copper sweat fittings. I've read multiple threads and reviews where people had issues. I tried each of those fitting types mentioned. The technique that I saw a person use that worked for me was swaging a 1/2" piece of copper to fit the 15mm, then soldering on the 1/2" NPT adapters. A SS 15mm by 1/2" NPT compression exists but it was $33. Otherwise I didn't have any luck finding a suitable copper adapter. I think the SS models are also 15mm OD. I bought a swaging tool off of Amazon for $16 and it did the job. I happened to have enough acetylene left in my tank to do the soldering. Maybe in the UK a metric to Imperial copper adapter exists as they switched back in the 1970s but I stopped looking and used the swaging tool.