How to dye water cooling tubing *Experiment*IKIKUINTHENUTZ

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.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=228794

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

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7259/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
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8763/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.
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/3233/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
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8277/img9347.jpg
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3370/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
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/1196/img9342s.jpg

7 seconds
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6969/img9343d.jpg

15 seconds
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9957/img9344i.jpg

30 seconds
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/97/img9345v.jpg

30 seconds with a re dip after flushing of 20 seconds
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/3581/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.

Awesome bit of researching there!! Don't suppose you know offhand if Rit produce UV reactive dyes at all??

Very cool! :up: Thanks for experimenting :yepp: :clap:

I particularly like the way 15 and 30 seconds look and 7 seconds doesn't look too bad either. I may have to look into trying this myself.

great, although may I suggest closing the ends so dye does not get on the inside and only on the outside? Wonder if it would have the same affect without the worry of the dye getting in your actual loop.

Excellent post.

Sub'd to make sure I don't loose it.

I can imagine doing some creative things playing with dye concentration in different areas.

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Awesome bit of researching there!! Don't suppose you know offhand if Rit produce UV reactive dyes at all??

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I wish :( Maybe I can find a UV additive and see what happens?

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great, although may I suggest closing the ends so dye does not get on the inside and only on the outside? Wonder if it would have the same affect without the worry of the dye getting in your actual loop.

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I got a interesting reply at OCF, maybe this would go well with the idea http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php...94&postcount=2

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I can imagine doing some creative things playing with dye concentration in different areas.

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Tee hee I got some ideas in my head, I just need to await my damn $1 dye from Xoxide Out of Business sale

Nice bit of research and a good idea.

Just be careful what it touches. That dye is not 100% permanent.

I've used rit in the past on clothing. I know, for a fact, that if you wash an item dyed with it, with other clothes, the dye will transfer and your laundry will be ruined. Even after quite a few washes alone (10 or so) it sill gets the other clothes.

It may stain your blocks and pump internals due to this fact too.

Just warning you, i don't mean to sound rude or anything.

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Originally Posted by nkresho

Nice bit of research and a good idea.

Just be careful what it touches. That dye is not 100% permanent.

I've used rit in the past on clothing. I know, for a fact, that if you wash an item dyed with it, with other clothes, the dye will transfer and your laundry will be ruined. Even after quite a few washes alone (10 or so) it sill gets the other clothes.

It may stain your blocks and pump internals due to this fact too.

Just warning you, i don't mean to sound rude or anything.

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I don't think clothes have the same chemical materials in a Tygon tubing which I think the characteristics may be different.

Interesting to say that because when you dyed your clothes, what method did you use? I do know the washer machine dye method sucks ass though and any cold water way. Plus I normally hand wash dyed clothing for fear of bleeding.

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
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9662/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 :(

As long as the stuff doesn't get inside, it's fine right?

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Originally Posted by Boogerlad

As long as the stuff doesn't get inside, it's fine right?

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We don't know until someone test the hypothesis out that the dye will bleed after running X amount of days in a warm water cooling setup and stain stuff.

Personally it sounds safe to me that if the tubing was dyed without the dye going inside the tube sealed up during the process with some sort of sealant, it wouldn't matter about bleeding.

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Originally Posted by IKIKUINTHENUTZ

I don't think clothes have the same chemical materials in a Tygon tubing which I think the characteristics may be different.

Interesting to say that because when you dyed your clothes, what method did you use? I do know the washer machine dye method sucks ass though and any cold water way. Plus I normally hand wash dyed clothing for fear of bleeding.

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I used a very similar method for some cotton jeans as well as a few cotton and cotton/poly tee shirts. I boiled a pot of water and put the clothes as I turned off the stove. I stirred to get all the bubbles out and let it sit until it was cooled off. After rinsing a few times, everything went to the laundrymat to get the extra dye out. A few washes later and they were good to go. Although the dye did eventually fade quite a bit. Moreso than regular store-bought colored clothes.

I do like your cross section idea though. If you can get a bit of color penetration you should be fine. Especially since you're leaning toward dying the outside.

I dyed a couple lacrosse heads with RIT...not sure what plastic they are, but there was no way to intentionally fade it and it never seemed to fade on its own after use and abuse, even after years. The scoop edge of the heads would scrape down after awhile (especially after playing on pavement/concrete), showing the white they originally were, but that's expected.

I'd be willing to try running it for awhile...but I have no extra pump at the time.

I'm really curious what Tygon Silver (my favorite tubing...LRT Pro being a very close second) would look like with the outside dyed :D

Definately an interesting test, but after knackering a load of tubing and a rad, not to count the hours spent cleaning my pump, blocks and res from using a dye bomb, will let others try this out.

But was wondering if these plugs would stop the dye from getting inside the tubes

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=23879

I find them great for when you want to make changes and don't want to drain your whole loop.

couldn't you just plug the ends of the tubes so no dye gets inside then there would be no transfer of dye to your loop ? might take longer to dye but seems like it would be worth it .

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Originally Posted by momomo6789

couldn't you just plug the ends of the tubes so no dye gets inside then there would be no transfer of dye to your loop ? might take longer to dye but seems like it would be worth it .

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The plugs would have to be either metal or a type of plastic that doesn't melt or shrink in boiling water.

Hell, add some sand inside too to prevent the tubing getting pinched or kinked during the process.

(I wonder if that's what viper john used to make his famous U bends lol)

as a side note, anyone know any UV dyes that used for clothing? I feel like trying that stuff out.

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 :p:

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).

Great thread, great job and great result. I liked 7 and 15 second ones alot. :)

Congrats. mate. :up:

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Originally Posted by Vapor

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).

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Just get a really big pot!!

Cool, I love the 'smoked' looking one.

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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 :p:

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).

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I might try it. You could get nylon caps for the ends and just clamp them on with worm drive clamps so they wouldn't pop off. If you make your tubing length a couple inches longer than needed, you could cut off the clamped section, plus that would give you a good cross section look at the dye penetration. You could also squeeze the tubing SLIGHTLY before capping to make a negative pressure, that way it would be "normal" after the expansion from the air being heated. Might take some trial and error to get it right though.

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

I actually refine my suggestion of plugging the ends. Get a good size loop of tubing like 10-15 feet and just leave the ends out of the water/dye.

Very neat idea! I liked the smoke look alot.. I normally go for black tubing but I like the look of this alot.

If I can track down some tygon around here. I'll run a loop with this stuff.. I think the best way to fill the tube would be to preboil some hot water and salt (high salt concentration than the ink solution). that'll prevent air bubbles from forming when its in the pot.

:rocker: this is awesome thread :yepp: :cool: :fact: :toast:

I bought some blue Rit today and am going to try it out on some generic clear and Tygon silver tubing. Hopefully I can get some (crappy) pics by the end of this week.

This better be worth the effort. I had to go into a Walmart for the stuff :p:.

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Originally Posted by faster3200

This better be worth the effort. I had to go into a Walmart for the stuff :p:.

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*Gasps*
HOW DARE YOU, ACE HARDWARE OR RITE AID SHOULD HAVE IT!
jk

:p:

posts your results, don't forget, this stuff is super dense, put too much and you would only get opaque effects. Hell I think I put too much...

I wonder if RIT White-Wash is a white dye? :idea:

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Originally Posted by Vapor

I wonder if RIT White-Wash is a white dye? :idea:

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http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/dyelog/...4/E1035496870/

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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.

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Whitener & Brightener looks interesting for adding a UV effect....

The other two, hard to say if they'll do anything to transparent plastic, probably not :lol:

I was hoping for some (non-applique) way of turning the outside of Tygon Silver into a white-ish color...might turn into a subdued pearl look.

Maybe I'll try dilute Ecru RIT with the Whitener if I get around to it :shrug:

I ran some tests with the Denim Blue color. Denim Blue is not blue at all, in fact... it is purple!

I dyed some Tygon Silver and Masterkleer. Pics will come as soon as I can find my camera.

I also attempted to dye plexi and copper pennies. I soaked the plexi in the solution for 30 seconds and it didn't dye at all. I also soaked 10 copper pennies for 10 minutes. 7/10 pennies were unaffected. 2/10 had color in the ridges of the dye, which I was able to mostly wipe off. One actually appeared to be partially dyed and I couldn't wipe it off. It is worth noting that the pennies that did change color were fairly dirty while the unaffected one were fairly clean. So my guess would be that the grime on the pennies is what got dyed as opposed to the copper.
Just something I thought I would test in case people were worried about using dyed tubes in a loop.

What year was the one that got permanently dyed?

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Originally Posted by Vapor

What year was the one that got permanently dyed?

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I can't say for sure as I just grabbed them from my Dad's penny collection. That's right my Dad has a penny collection, and not any specific set or organized in any way. He just has this vase filled with over $500 worth of pennies. I am sure though that none of the pennies I grabbed were from 1982 or older.

If you can, find some older ones, they're more representative of the material we use:

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The alloy remained 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc until 1982, when the composition was changed to 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper (copper-plated zinc). Cents of both compositions appeared in that year.

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http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint...ion=fun_facts2

EDIT: I didn't even think about what RIT would do to copper, but it's definitely a valid concern if the internals of the tubes get dyed.

was gonna say this is the stuff people (geekhack) use on keyboard keys

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Originally Posted by Vapor

If you can, find some older ones, they're more representative of the material we use:

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint...ion=fun_facts2

EDIT: I didn't even think about what RIT would do to copper, but it's definitely a valid concern if the internals of the tubes get dyed.

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True, but my understanding of it is that current pennies aren't actually alloys but copper plated zinc (as is also stated in that fact sheet) so what is touching the dye would still be copper. I'll see if I can find some pre-1982 pennies anyway.

RIT dye is a thermo set dye, I dont think it will have issues as long as the tubing is thoroughly rinsed after being dyed

Arg, I bought the wrong cap plug size :hitself:

I was about to test Rit Red with that UV whiter stuff I posted ealier.

Rite Aid has the whiter stuff on sale for $0.79 and I got 2 boxes to test out, results tomorrow if I can get my proper cap plugs

Any results with the Rit Red?? I'm not so hot on the UV so much, but I'd love some transparent red tubing, and in the spirit of case building and modding, would prefer to dye my own if it looks good.

Do youn think that you could apply one dye over the top of another??
Lets say, a base coat of mid green, then apply lots of twisted rubber bands, then an application of brown, to acheive a camo effect???

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Originally Posted by heinz357

Do youn think that you could apply one dye over the top of another??
Lets say, a base coat of mid green, then apply lots of twisted rubber bands, then an application of brown, to acheive a camo effect???

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yes this is possible, search the net for dying lacrosse heads and you will see all the techniques that can be done :)

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
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6890/img9419m.jpg

Thanks to Snipedogg of XS this is what he shared

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Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG

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

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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.

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6351/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.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/453/img9424.jpg

I removed one fitting, poured out the water inside, then started to remove the tape
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/1867/img9426i.jpg

Whoa that came out very nice!
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9169/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
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6351/img9420f.jpg

Repeat the process, remove the tape, fittings, etc Vollia!
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/1493/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.
http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/8782/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.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/792/img9437v.jpg

Under UV light, the one with the whitener barely shows some characteristics but it's not that great
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8325/img9438m.jpg

I tried this out the other day on my case's drive latches and was able to dye them completely black. Much better then the purple they started out as. Let them boil in the dye for 2-3 minutes so it had a chance to soak in. One warning though, some of the pieces did shrink a bit. My drive rail shrank about 1-1.5mm and now don't really fit. Lesson learned.

This also works on plexi. I put a small piece in the black dye and checked it every few mintues. After 40 minutes of simmering it turned a deep translucent brown, not exactly the smoked black/grey I was looking for. When I get access to a camera again I can post up some pictures if anyone is interested.

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Originally Posted by pb300

I tried this out the other day on my case's drive latches and was able to dye them completely black. Much better then the purple they started out as. Let them boil in the dye for 2-3 minutes so it had a chance to soak in. One warning though, some of the pieces did shrink a bit. My drive rail shrank about 1-1.5mm and now don't really fit. Lesson learned.

This also works on plexi. I put a small piece in the black dye and checked it every few mintues. After 40 minutes of simmering it turned a deep translucent brown, not exactly the smoked black/grey I was looking for. When I get access to a camera again I can post up some pictures if anyone is interested.

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Pics please :D

on and sucks to hear about the shrinkage, they were still usable right?

original

dyed
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...3/DSC_1261.jpg

plexi dyed. This was with black dye and you can ignore all the dots. The water boiled off and I ended up with them, opps. The color of the plexi is correct even though the rest of the picture isn't (d40 wouldn't play nice and I'm not getting out the lightbox and flashes at 5am). Maybe blue dye would make a smoke grey color?
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...3/DSC_1263.jpg

Yes the rail were still usable, just had to jam them on.

Edit: You can also dye sata cables this way too. No idea how this will change the longevity/performance of the cable though.

Great idea, I must admit it was something I'd thought of previously.

Should be good if you just have enough length, just dip the middle in (don't submerge the ends) and only the outside will be dyed! Means that there is no chance the dye will go into your loops. :)

Umm does anyone here realize the candy cane dye I made had it's end's sealed during the process? I'm getting the same responses across the net asking why I didn't seal the ends, of course I do admit I did not seal the end for whitener test because I figure it wasn't that important for testing reasons but the Candycane had to for preventing dye being over lapped internally and getting shown different external.

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Originally Posted by dreamaxx

Great idea, I must admit it was something I'd thought of previously.

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If you get an idea, just do it lol

Might give off a cool 3D effect if you use a red solid colour for the inside and the candy cane black on the outside.

is it safe to dye the inside of the tubing? i know that the colored tubing you get is but the whole material is made that color before they make the tubes.... maybe we can test with the inside dyed too?

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Originally Posted by alphadog009

is it safe to dye the inside of the tubing? i know that the colored tubing you get is but the whole material is made that color before they make the tubes.... maybe we can test with the inside dyed too?

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There was some people mentioning that they will test the bleeding, so far I haven't heard any responses. :shrug:

i havent heard of anyone doing it on keyboards getting blue fingers...

as he said above, OP only plugged the ends for the stripe effect.