Painting plastic bits on motherboard?

Merlin5 · 9 Oct 2012 at 22:26

Hi guys, I'm looking for some advice on achieving a better colour scheme for my case interior. With what I have in case interior colours and my motherboard, I think my best bet is blue. It's a 3 year old CM690, the first version. Unfortunately not a black interior. Rather than buying a new case (and new motherboard), I want to try and work with what I have. I've put links here to show you what I want to buy, and if you think it will be worth doing, given the other things I describe below.

I'm going to buy blue Bitfenix braided extensions.
PSU 24 and 8 pin blue braided, and 3 x sata blue braided.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CM-172-BX&groupid=701&catid=1428&subcat=2244

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CM-144-BX&groupid=701&catid=1428&subcat=2244

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CM-007-BX&groupid=701&catid=1428&subcat=2244

I'm buying four of these fans to replace my cooler fan, my top fan, my bottom fans and my exhaust fan, so that all four fans are identical colour scheme instead of the sickly mess of different coloured led fans I have. http://i.imgur.com/HRboq.jpg

They'll match the cables, the blue bits on the motherboard and the blue cage sliders and latches of the CM690. The grey surround of the fans would blend quite well with the silver interior of the case rather than black fan surrounds which would stick out like a sore thumb against the silver.

So far so good? Now here's the problem (in my eyes anyway). My motherboard (GA-MA770-UD3) has horrible yellow sata sockets, a yellow IDE socket, and quite a lot of white PCI sockets. My 4870 and GPU cooler in my pictures below have gone and I currently have a single black 5850 in there, but because the cooler has gone, there's five white PCI slots visible below the GPU. So my question is, if I go ahead and do this blue colour matching with braiding and fans, is the visibility of several white PCI slots all below each other, and the visibility of the several yellow sata sockets going to let it down? Is it possible to paint them blue or black, or, to buy coloured or black caps to fit over them?

The ugly stripey cable I've marked in one of my screenshots, is there a braided cable extension for it, otherwise what can I do with it? It's a case cable for power, led, reset. The red IDE cable will be gone btw. This CM690 is not ideal for what I want to do, no cutouts really and I'm wondering if I'll get the rear side cover on when I add the 25 pin braided extension. Thanks for any opinions.

http://s9.postimage.org/gq1s86h3z/image.jpg
http://s12.postimage.org/oy51rz8ul/image.jpg

Merlin5 · 10 Oct 2012 at 01:20

Ok,thinking further on it, I'm not too fussed about the white slots, just the yellows. Can I pull the yellow IDE and three of the SATA connectors off (and one of the yellow USB's) and paint them black or blue with something like airfix paint? Then glue them back on? I think the theme would work well then.

BuToNz · 10 Oct 2012 at 10:38

The Bitfenix cables are brilliant, very high quality and you shouldn't have much difficulty hiding the extra cables behind your motherboard tray.

Regarding the SATA ports, the only way I can think of is removing some SATA connectors from either an old motherboard or buying some from somewhere and soldering them on.
Looking at the ports themselves there are 7 contacts for the data and two mounting solder points. (Yours could be different though) The data ones are quite small so soldering them on - ideally you need good soldering skills. This is your best option I'd recommend highly against painting them as it will no doubt end up in a sub-par result. (Flaking paint, tight connections)

daveyg · 10 Oct 2012 at 13:20

If you don't need the ports could you do a tidy job with a bit of rubber cable sheathing / heat shrink?

Buy sheathing for a 10mm cable (or whatever size you need stretch it over the ports, chop it off and tidy it up. Might work.

Alternatively google for blankning caps - they might exist.

I think painting or soldering is asking for trouble.

Merlin5 · 10 Oct 2012 at 17:44

BuToNz said:
The Bitfenix cables are brilliant, very high quality and you shouldn't have much difficulty hiding the extra cables behind your motherboard tray.

But how can I hide that stripey cable, I just can't see a way to do it. Also, the bitfenix sata cable is only 30cm long so I'm not sure it's long enough. I'll try them though. I just received
two regular sata cables in sky blue, 50cm, I think they should be ok.

Hmm yeah, I have a soldering iron, though I wouldn't say I have particularly good skills and I really don't want to have to remove the motherboard to do it. Also if it's asking for trouble, then I'll stay away from that.

I'm not sure how to do the rubber sheathing you mentioned, where to get it or how to heatshrink. I presume I'd need a heatshrink gun?

I've searched high and low for dust covers and can't find any. Something like these would be perfect but they're the wrong size, these are for 15 pin sata.

What I need is three 7 pin sata dust covers, one USB cover and one IDE cover. You'd think it would be easy to find such things, but it's not. If anyone finds something, do let me know, thanks!

daveyg · 10 Oct 2012 at 19:46

OK, if you are feeling brave you could try: PLASTI DIP applied with a small paint brush. Got no idea if it would work.

It is insulating so no risk of shorting. One of the proposed uses is filling circuit boards.

I would try it on something not computer related, a small piece of plastic and see if you can peel it off. You would probably need to put something into the ports if you want to paint over them completely, else risk never using them again.

Merlin5 · 10 Oct 2012 at 20:53

daveyg said:
OK, if you are feeling brave you could try: PLASTI DIP applied with a small paint brush. Got no idea if it would work.

It is insulating so no risk of shorting. One of the proposed uses is filling circuit boards.

I would try it on something not computer related, a small piece of plastic and see if you can peel it off. You would probably need to put something into the ports if you want to paint over them completely, else risk never using them again.

That's an interesting solution. I can get a small can of that in blue or black for £15. What would be good to put inside the ports? It would presumably need to approximately match the colour of the paint? I also want to paint the yellow IDE port and one of the yellow F_USB ports. I'm not fussed about not using the USB or IDE so if paint did get on the pins, I assume it's safe since the paint is non conductive?

daveyg · 10 Oct 2012 at 22:45

Hmm the more I look at your pictures the more I think you could be on a hiding to nothing.

I think you wil really struggle to get a good finish whatever you do. I say tidy and braid all the cables and see if the ports are still upsetting you before you do anything too drastic.

Merlin5 · 10 Oct 2012 at 23:02

daveyg said:
Hmm the more I look at your pictures the more I think you could be on a hiding to nothing.

I think you wil really struggle to get a good finish whatever you do. I say tidy and braid all the cables and see if the ports are still upsetting you before you do anything too drastic.

What about if I just put black insulation tape over those ports, would that work or look crap? It would at least hide the yellow.

The Matrix · 10 Oct 2012 at 23:24

Deffo don't paint them, it will crack and you'll have bits of paint on your motherboard in time.

Why not just buy a sheet of adhesive plain stickers, like plain blue etc and carefully cut it to shape to stick on, better than paint as it won't cause any damge.

personally if that was me i'd save up for a new motherboard and just put up with the yellow for now, its not like your looking at it all the time as you'll be looking at your monitor.

Merlin5 · 11 Oct 2012 at 00:15

The Matrix said:
Deffo don't paint them, it will crack and you'll have bits of paint on your motherboard in time.

Why not just buy a sheet of adhesive plain stickers, like plain blue etc and carefully cut it to shape to stick on, better than paint as it won't cause any damge.

personally if that was me i'd save up for a new motherboard and just put up with the yellow for now, its not like your looking at it all the time as you'll be looking at your monitor.

That's a good idea. Though paper stickers might be difficult to mould around the plastic bits. I'm gonna try black insulating tape first as I have some here. It won't be perfect but should do the job to a decent degree. You're right about not looking at it all the time, but you see, I stupidly looked at the case gallery again and now I want to create something that's worthy of taking photos of and showing.

Twirlywoos · 11 Oct 2012 at 09:27

Just put carbon fibre vynl wrap over them. You can get them in various colours. That way if you have to rma your board you can peel them off.