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How to dye water cooling tubing *Experiment*IKIKUINTHENUTZ

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IKIKUINTHENUTZ

Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2006
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.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=611198

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

img9338z.jpg


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
img9340f.jpg


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.
img9339g.jpg


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
img9347.jpg

img9341j.jpg


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
img9342s.jpg


7 seconds
img9343d.jpg


15 seconds
img9344i.jpg


30 seconds
img9345v.jpg


30 seconds with a re dip after flushing of 20 seconds
img9346l.jpg


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.
 
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Awesome man.

Suggestion, u can use something like sand inside the tube, cap both ends when you dip it in the hot dye water so that you dont get warping n whanot... u can also use this method to create pre bent sections of tube without kinks once they cool! (put sand in cap both ends, dip into hot water with or without die, then bring your tube out of the water bend it, and keep it bent till it cools)
 
I too like the semitransparent tubing.. has a nice "smoked" look. I do wonder about the dye leeching over time.
 
I love that color!

Thanks for the post, I'll just have to try that sometime wont I =D

Thanks IKIKUINTHENUTZ
 
Nice project :)

How would you go about dying longer sections though? I guess you would need to curl them up and I wonder if that would affect the dye consistency across the tube?

Have to play around and see.

BTW, I LOVE the custom paint and mods on the Navig station man. Very very cool.
 
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-peripherals/551389-keyboard-dye-customization-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
img9349v.jpg


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 :(
 
ive got plenty of spare crap I can run some on.

I dont think it will transfer the dye anywhere myself without similar heat and something to help leach it out :shrug:

best way to find out would be if I use say three times the amount of dye present for a tint then we can be sure.

im willing to kill some alu spares if it goes that way anyhow :D

Like that keyboard mod... bring back that 80`s alternate key colour idea #chuckles#

Edit. wont be able to start until round the end of oct though :-/

try boiling some dyed tube up with salt and stick a clear tube in to see if anything transfers... may give some idea if its possible to leach it back out. Then beyond that its stability over time in use conditions.
 
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I'd thought along the lines of spray on vinyl dye instead, wiping it back off after a couple of seconds.
Then all the dye is on the outside of the tubing only, and it's as simple as hanging the tubing from the garage rafters to do long pieces.
Haven't tried it yet though...

Then do it ;)

then share your results, The reason I did this is because only a tiny bit from a $5 product can treat up to like over 30ft of tubing (yes I'm exaggerating the numbers lol) because this stuff is seriously concentrated. also the fact that it was purchased long ago and left in the laundry area unused.
 
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Right now Vapor from XS is nice enough to offer testing of mixing Rit dyes
Cyberdruid of OCN is going to run a loop with the stuff to see if any bleeding happens

Also I found this on the net about their special effects dye
http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/dyelog/B1063361308/C765382484/E1035496870/

Dyers like to say that white dye is called water. Dye is transparent, so a white dye would have no effect on the color you place it on top of.

Removing dye from fabric is called discharging. Discharging agents include chlorine bleach and sodium hydrosulfite. (See What chemicals can be used to remove dye?.) Synthetic fabrics cannot be discharged, but often cotton can be. Does your duvet have a care label telling you not to bleach it? If not, you can choose between household bleach and Rit® brand Color Remover, which is sodium hydrosulfite. Sometimes one works better, sometimes the other does. Sometimes neither one has any effect. Just do not combine them; use only one at a time, and wash the duvet thoroughly in between the two products, if you decide to try both. Rit Color Remover may be less damaging to the fabric than chlorine bleach. You will need several packages. Be sure to follow the package directions carefully.

Rit® White-Wash is another product that contains sodium hydrosulfite; it also contains soda ash. I suspect it to be a less powerful formulation than Rit Color Remover, for removing color.

Rit's manufacturer, Phoenix Brands, also sells an optical whitener, called Rit® Whitener & Brightener, which can make a fabric treated with it look brighter. It does this by absorbing invisible ultraviolet light and changing it to white light. It will not change a cream colored fabric to white, but it may make a white one more attractive. Your best results would probably come from using two or three boxes of Rit Color Remover, washing that out, and then using Rit Whitener & Brightener.

Perhaps adding the Absorbing UV properties dye would make a UV effect and right now Vapor from XS is nice enough to do that also.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=234858&page=2
http://www.overclock.net/other-hardware-mods/577822-how-dye-water-cooling-tubing-experiment.html
 
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-peripherals/551389-keyboard-dye-customization-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
Thanks for the links. Think this is going to be another project for Winter (or Spring) break for me. Btw, would you happen to know if this would work with Acrylic? I would try it on Acrylic, but I'd have to go to Walmart to get it and the Walmart close by doesn't seem to have it.
 
Finally I Got Some Time to do this damn thing! Midterms sucks

Anyways I got a big update for all of ya

This post will be talking about these items shown here the topic will be Rit red, black, and whitener stuff
img9419m.jpg


Thanks to Snipedogg of XS this is what he shared
Good idea IKIKU as I have said before on these boards in regards to RIT dye, there is a lot of cool effects you can make with it - with specific respect to tubing I would think some kind of spiral patter using electrical tape and possibly a hot glue pattern would be very cool

Why not lets put this claim to the test shall we?

This image below is comprise of 4 things: Masterkleer tubing, DD T-line plugs, electrial tape, and water inside the tube.

img9420f.jpg

the purpose of the plugs is that so the dye will not go inside and the tape is for stopping the dye dying where I don't want it to be.

Repeat the steps in my first post and simply pull the unit out from your desired time and rinse it very well.
img9424.jpg


I removed one fitting, poured out the water inside, then started to remove the tape
img9426i.jpg


Whoa that came out very nice!
img9427r.jpg


the next thing I did was that I re seal the tube, tape up the whole process again but this time I put the tape directly over the dyed parts
img9420f.jpg


Repeat the process, remove the tape, fittings, etc Vollia!
img9430.jpg


now my next test involves regularly dying of 2 different cuts of Tygon tubing
one with red dye and the other with the red dye with the whiter stuff

After dying one tube I put the whitener into the same pot of red dye. the stuff smelled and acted like detergent.
img9435.jpg


Left one is the regular dye and right one is the dye with with the whitener. It Don't look that great and it was very cloudy.
img9437v.jpg


Under UV light, the one with the whitener barely shows some characteristics but it's not that great
img9438m.jpg
 
If you are worried about dye on the inside of the tubing, why not just cap the ends? You might have cut your pieces a bit longer to accommodate the temporary caps. Also, you might have to use something to hold all the tubing under the water since it will be buoyant when empty.
 
Why not cap the ends(prevent it form starting to die on the inside), don't leave it in too long so it dies all the way through, and then put sand on the inside of the tube before you cap it and you won't have to worry about it deforming unless you wanted to bend it and let it cool that way you get a bent piece of tubing that won't kink
 
Lol I didn't mean to imply you should post here. It's an old thread. Just to read it for tips and such. Any RIT dye should work. You will probably want to buy extra dye and tubing to experiment. Color changes based on amount of dye and length in the water so you will need to perfect it for the tubing to match.
 
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