This year, I am switching over to cam lock fittings on my hoses, pumps and tanks. They are great connectors; quick, easy to use, pretty much idiot proof. There are a few practical considerations though. Each connection must have a female "cam lock" fitting and a male "adaptor" fitting. On fixed units such as tanks, you can install either a cam lock or an adaptor on the drain fitting. Whichever one you use, whatever you connect to it (hose, pump, RO) must have the opposite fitting attached.

All my cam lock fittings are the same size, and I want to be able to use hoses and pumps interchangeably between all units. So I tried to work up a plumbing diagram which would give me the most flexibility. I could use cam locks on both ends of all hoses and adaptors on the tanks and pumps. But there are many situations where I connect my pump directly to the tank fitting, so two adaptors are not going to connect together. Also, are the hoses on the RO treated as a hose, or is the RO a pump?. So I modified my diagram to use cam locks on the inlets to all units, and adaptors on the outlets. This is better, but there still are situations where two similar fittings can't join together. In those cases, my option is to make an adaptor from two cam locks or two adaptors (similar fittings on either end of the adaptor). Another option is to have dedicated hoses and pumps for specific operations, but then you lose some flexibility.

I'm curious about how others have used these fitting and what your best practices are.