How to dye water cooling tubing *Experiment*IKIKUINTHENUTZ - Overclock.net

IKIKUINTHENUTZ · 09-19-09

Did a project here and thought it would be nice to share it with everyone.

IKIKUINTHENUTZ with another great project! Experiment!

Fast summery of how the idea come to be:
Couldn't find the color tubing I wanted because I searched 2 weeks for it and asking people like Cyberdruid or companies like Saint Goblin (Tygon) who said they don't carry it, don't know,or never seen it. I was looking for Transparent black water cooling tubing. The tubing is for my IKIKUINTHENUTZized Navig Tech Station. http://www.overclock.net/case-mod-wo...enutzized.html

I found something called Rit Liquid Dye while doing my laundry. I read the information and figure WHY NOT!

Materials used for this project:

A pot you will never use again
Rit Dye Concentrated
Water
Non Iodine Salt
A metal tong/strainer
A stove
Tygon R3603 1/2in. ID 5/8in. OD Laboratory Tubing cut into pieces

Directions are straight forward. What I did here is testing out with Black dye to see the results much easier.

Water in the pot with one cap of the dye. Do not put a lot of the dye in the water, the stuff is extremely dense. Sorry no measurements, I will assume I put 6 cups of water and one cap of the dye.

Put tablespoon of salt to help activate the dye and increase required temperatures to boil.

Heat it up on high until rolling boil

Once it starts rolling boil, turn off the stove and move the pot else where on to a cooler surface. Use a strainer or clamp to carry the tube in place and simply dip and stir it in while it is hot. Do not let the tube fall to the bottom or pinch the tubing while it is hot or it will make the tube warp into a different shape.

Now depending how long you leave it in the dye, your results will vary and you need to experiment on cut pieces so you know how long to leave in the tube to get your desired color before doing large pieces.

Once you think it's ready, remove it and simply flush it with tap water in a sink.

Here are some examples all next to the non dyed tubing

Now I inserted my Bitspower barbs to help you see the transparency. Each one of these represent how long I left it in the dye.

No Dip, MFG original

7 seconds

15 seconds

30 seconds

30 seconds with a re dip after flushing of 20 seconds

The last image was the tube a bit warped because I accidentally pinched it when it was real hot with the tongs.

Maybe everyone here can experiment with different Rit Dye colors, different brands of tubing, and with different results to share. Try it out if you want tubing in the color you want that you can't find.

MAKE SURE THE TUBING YOU USE HAVE HIGH HEAT TOLERANCE LIKE TYGON LABS OR YOU WILL HAVE A MESS TO CLEAN UP

Also to note that I haven't testing the tubing to see if the dye leeches out. However I will note that washing it with soap and water will not remove the dye.

*CyberDruid* · 09-19-09

Man that is so cool. Talk about DIY.

Now you need to see how the tinting holds up to prolonged water flow through the tube.

oliveryo · 09-20-09

i would want to know if pt nuke will disolve the dye

honk_honk · 09-20-09

If everything stays, I get get some colored tygon tubing then.
No more colorless tygon and distilled for me.

IKIKUINTHENUTZ · 09-20-09

Now I did decide to google up a bit on dying plastics with rit + heat and next thing you know I ran into this very fun keyboard mod on OCN
http://www.overclock.net/computer-pe...ion-guide.html

After reading a bit, these 2 post caught my interest on the subject matter
http://www.overclock.net/6842819-post23.html
http://www.overclock.net/6842834-post25.html

I decided to do a cross section on the 30 second tube

Dye did not penetrate inside because not enough time had lapse.

Is anyone here willing to run a complete loop for days with dyed watertubing + distilled water? I don't have water blocks to do this

we need to see if the dye bleeds out

Darkknight512 · 09-20-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by IKIKUINTHENUTZ

Now I did decide to google up a bit on dying plastics with rit + heat and next thing you know I ran into this very fun keyboard mod on OCN
http://www.overclock.net/computer-pe...ion-guide.html

After reading a bit, these 2 post caught my interest on the subject matter
http://www.overclock.net/6842819-post23.html
http://www.overclock.net/6842834-post25.html

I decided to do a cross section on the 30 second tube

Dye did not penetrate inside because not enough time had lapse.

Is anyone here willing to run a complete loop for days with dyed watertubing + distilled water? I don't have water blocks to do this

we need to see if the dye bleeds out

Maybe half fill a small section, plug it up and shake it like mad and see if anything comes off.

**radodrill** · 09-20-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by IKIKUINTHENUTZ

Is anyone here willing to run a complete loop for days with dyed watertubing + distilled water? I don't have water blocks to do this

we need to see if the dye bleeds out

all you'd really need is a pump, res, and the tubing; no blocks necessary

*CyberDruid* · 09-20-09

I'll get some RIT and give it a try.

HAFenvy · 09-21-09

Another thing you could do if you are concerned about dye bleed, plug the ends of the tubing before you put it in the mix so only the outer layer is dyed to the color density of your liking. Might take longer but at least the outside dry layer won't be subjected to erosion or bleeding over time withe coolant and additives attacking it

IKIKUINTHENUTZ · 09-21-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by radodrill

all you'd really need is a pump, res, and the tubing; no blocks necessary

I still would like to see if it stains copper with micro pins and if the dye gets filtered out

Quote:

Originally Posted by HAFenvy

Another thing you could do if you are concerned about dye bleed, plug the ends of the tubing before you put it in the mix so only the outer layer is dyed to the color density of your liking. Might take longer but at least the outside dry layer won't be subjected to erosion or bleeding over time withe coolant and additives attacking it

Vapor from XS has a good response to this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vapor

Two concerns with using plugs (one with sand, one without).

Concern one, no sand, just air: The air would want to expand considerably if it heats up and would increase internal pressure and might pop off of a plug (and all the problems that would cause) or just burst through the weakened tubing (bigger problem, lol). Considering how poor of a thermal conductor tubing is and how brief the exposure to the boiling water is, that might not be an issue though.

Concern two, using sand to occupy the space: the weakened/softened tubing might take the form of sand (especially if the grains are large) and would create bumps on the interior walls--leading to significantly increased turbulence (and therefore a likely increase in restriction). Yeah, it would take tubing from "non-factor" to "minimal factor" in overall loop flowrates, but still

:

Filling the entire tube with water and sealing the ends might be the way to go :yepp: Or use extremely fine grained sand

EDIT: Concern three: it wouldn't be very easy to do a long length of tubing, would it? You might need to coil it tight enough so it can fit in the pot and contain it with string or something that wouldn't interfere with the dye (and then remove the string upon removal so it doesn't leave an indent on the softened tubing).

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...2&postcount=16

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberDruid

I'll get some RIT and give it a try.

Pm sent to you

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*How to dye water cooling tubing ExperimentIKIKUINTHENUTZ*

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