Glowing UV tube!

[da_guy2]

Hey i have a cool idea of somthing i wanna try but before i go out and spend $30 or $40 on material i wanna know if you think i'll work.

OK what i wanna do is make a glowing tube of sorts. i'm gonna do this by attaching a clear plastic tube to the end of a UV led. Then i'll fill the tube with water laced with uv reactie dye (for liquide cooling systems). Then when i turn the the LED on the water should act as a fiberoptic tube keeping the light inside and causing the dye in the water to glow.

Now i just wanna know if you think this will work.I know this works without the dye, and red led's, but what i dont know is how opaque is this dye is and how bright the UV leds are? How far will the UV light propogate in it? Any thoughts?

David

[daniel_dynasty]

well.. if you can buy 2 4'' or 6'' UV BLACK lights. and then put the dye in the middle

[mtb856]

Isn't that what thorilan has in his case? Take a look at this pic
http://www.icnet.ne.jp/~ak2jxg00/Pic1/RYU%20complete/UV902.jpg

[Cerberus2k7]

From what I can understand, that is a similar concept, but thorilan used a UV CCFL, I think da_guy2 wants to use a single LED. I think that would look cool. I saw a res with a blue LED in it that looked pretty cool. But I think it was only at the top. I'm not sure how well the water would allow the light to travel especially if its your res because its going to be constantly in motion. As you can see from the above pic, even that whole UV CCFL isnt giving much of a refraction with the water so I don't know how effective it would be with just one LED.

[Komitet]

A cheaper and easier way would be to take an acrylic rod, put an led on the bottom, and a strip of white vinyl up the side, covering about 1/4 of the rod around, when looking at the rod with the vinyl on the back side the entire rod will glow the color of the LED you put on it, I have one here, I'll get a pic when I get some batteries.

[Smirabi]

komitet has the best suggestion so far, i'd go with his. another problem with a tube of water and a light idea is that the tube could leak, and that could be bad. why not use a uv ccfl? is this just an attempt to be creative or are you trying to accomplish something?

whatever you do, get us some pics if it's interesting.

good luck, mod on

[DeViL_909]

Or you could just get a acrylic rod and spray clear UV paint on it and drill a hole in the bottom for the LED. When you light up the LED it will travel the entire rod and cause the UV paint to glow. You can use either the clear or color paint, either will work. I have done it before in my dorm room. Sorry no pics, but it was a bad ass party....

[Tabrin]

I'm not sure how well the water would allow the light to travel especially if its your res because its going to be constantly in motion.

Um, so how's water moving faster than the speed of light? :P

If anything, the surface of the water and refraction with different angles would give the top of the res (if it's not filled to the top) a watery, wavey pattern. Would look interesting with a translucent/etched window on the top, set into the top of the case, methinks. *ponderponder* Might do that in my new case, but I doubt it.

DeViL_909's idea will work, I have seen that done before as well. It would be a lot easier than filling a tube with water and cheaper than getting a res. It just wouldn't have water in it.

[DeViL_909]

As a side note: Spraying a clear acrylic Rod with clear UV paint, will result in a frost effect on the acrylic Rod. This goes for any clear surface that you spray it on. If you get creative, you can use it to frost windows, creat designs, etc... Hope this helps.

[da_guy2]

just a few problems. first i want it to be flexible second i dont want too much leekage (ie no ccft), finaly i dont wanan use el wire.

[mtb856]

Take the tube, put a bloop of hot glue on one end and stick the led in there before it dries... as long as a portion of the led is sticking out of the glue, the tube will glow and it won't leak.

[DeViL_909]

Ok you have got me confused now. You want to have a flexible tube to put UV dye in and make it glow? Is that it cuase so far you have not made it clear what you are trying to do. Why not just water cool the comp and use UV dye? You could always buy a small pump and use small gage clear tubing and have it lit with UV Leds. If the tubes can be done with a rigid tube, I would definatly use the acrylic rods. Just drill a whole in the bottom and place the LED in the hole.

[Smirabi]

if you really want a flexible, waterfilled tube to glow a given color under UV light (which is i think what you do want) then as devil said, a small diameter flexible tube would be the starting point. after that, i've got a wicked cool idea. i wouldnt use jsut water to fill it because if you cap it, the pressure from beinding it might cause a leak somewhere. so instead of just water and capping it, use these things that are crystals when they are dry but get all squishy like when wet (http://www.watersorb.com/prices.htm). i bet if you filled the tube with that, and added water mixed with dye, it wouldnt leak becuase the crystals would absorb all the water and the crystals might even give off a cool effect because the dye may not permeate through the entire crystal. and after that's all set up, you could put some led's at the ends or put a ccfl near it so that it is both flexing and glowing (what you want, right?)

that's just my ideas.

good luck, mod on