Water cooling colour scheme issue

Sida

Sida

Sida

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I've been planning my water cooling setup for a few days now. I've got most things covered (except for deciding whether to use cylinder/bay res) but I just realised I may have an issue with the colour scheme.

My plan was to use red lights on the case (fans, leds etc) and have green uv tubing however it just occured to me that it may cause a strange blend of red/green/purple once I add the uv lights. How bad do you think it will be and is there any way to get the tubing lit up without having the uv dominating the case?

Also while I'm here I figured I'd ask about the whole red/green as I simply can't find any examples of anyone who has used green tubing in a red-lit case. Do you think it will look naff? What colour schemes would you recommend if so (I know some people like plain simple themes, but I really do want it lit up, though not looking distasteful). I'm not keen on an all-blue theme either incase it gets suggested.
 
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Personally I don't think red and UV green will work.

http://www.koolertek.com/computer-parts/pc/catalog/OK-1152-1.jpg

I think that's an AC Ryan Blackfire fan that has a UV green shell and red LEDs. As you can see the red LEDs go a bit pinky purple when mixed with the UV to activate the green. It's a bit muddy for my tastes if I'm honest.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/picture.php?albumid=221&pictureid=1810

That's a red and blue UV build and again I think it's too muddy because of the amount of light spill you get from the UV cathodes.

So yeah, red glow from the fans mixed with purple spill from the UV just to set off green tubing (which in turn will catch the red fans) may be too much and look a bit grim.

You COULD try using UV LEDs instead to target certain parts of your tubing. Not only will that not spill too much light in the first place, but the ambient glow from the red fans may cover up any UV spill you to get.
 
I think it could look good if you do it right for example having 10cm cathodes and hiding one behind the drive bays to reduce the light given off by the cathodes
I had orange tubing with green dyed liquid and it looked awesome (until my pump stopped working :( but I'm going to do it again once I get a new pump and res and also get some uv cathodes and maybe uv LEDs in the pump top and res.
 
Hmm I see what you mean about the red and the UV. That's a shame as my HAF-X already has a large red fan, my mouse is red and my keyboard has a red light option. I do really want UV though, and green looks just awesome. How about blue/green? I guess the purple uv won't ruin the blue so much? And my PSU has blue leds so I guess that works.

I'm going to be playing around with the lighting a lot, but the thing I have to get right first time is the colouring. I'm cutting down on spending as much as possible and can't afford to be switching out tubes, fans, lights etc to try other colours. I would try all green but the mono-colour schemes always seem a bit plain. I'm not using dye either, just distilled water so all colour is coming from tubes and lights.
 
LePhuronn said:
Play up the purple - purple and green!

Xigmatek do purple LED crystal fans in 120mm and 140mm sizes.

In fact 120mm is right here on OcUK:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-004-XG

You could still even keep the red fan in the front of your HAF and it wouldn't look so bad.
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Lol, I've been worrying about what I'm going to do about all the purple light and it didn't once occur to me to use purple in the scheme! I love it. The purple and green would also look freekin sweet with the Frozen Q double helix res I plan to get in the future.

I'm thinking though, the only green will be the tubing. With all the purple uv light, it may be too much purple and not enough green if I use purple fans. You reckon green fans would look better? Maybe UV green. That way the green is the glowing focus colour sitting in a background of deep uv purple.
 
OK you've got my designer head going on now (thank you - I got so much design work to do but my programming brain has taken over and it needs kicking out)!

For my perspective, I think you'd be better off going for a base colour and then highlight it. If you try to get an even mix of colours it may just look muddy and a bit wrong.

For me, I don't think the LED purple fans are actually that bright on their own, so when mixed with the UV spill you should get a nice even "canvas" of purple. Your green tubing then should lift off quite nicely as the highlight colour. You could also use a few ultrabright green LEDs to pick out a few points in the case (like the CPU block and res) if you feel the green isn't coming off enough.

This is what I'd do if it were my rig.

On the flip side, you could use green fans to lay down the base colour and then do UV purple tubing, but the green glow and the UV spill may mix up things a little weird, or as green fans are generally quite bright you may just have too much green.
 
The first option sounds great. How many UV cathodes do you think I'll need? I've read that using two doesn't give off enough light to light the majority of the inside of the case and using 4 provides a better effect.

I'm getting a bay res so I'll put green LEDs in that. They shouldn't have too much of an effect on the rest of the case though as they're pretty limited to when you're actually looking at the res. I'm wondering how I would go about getting something like the image below as I think that would look great with a green LED. The image uses multiple LEDs and is too bright, but I'd probably just use a single one, maybe one at each end. The card will be an ATI 6950

35212-koolance3-embed.jpg
 
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I'd be inclined to say 4 cathodes to "box in" the entire motherboard area and get even UV to all parts of your loop.

4 30cm cathodes though might be too much, so maybe a pair of 30cm bottom and top to get most of the UV in, then add one or two 10cm on the left and right to help pick off the biggest bits of the loop would be best.

The light off the Koolance GPU block is a bit bright, but I think that's more down to the way the photo's been taken - when you have some LED fans and the UV cathodes in there your overall ambient light level will come up so the green strip off the GPU won't be so glaring.

Also, as a personal opinion, don't bother lighting a bay res - all your attention will be front and centre with the tubing and the GPU block so then having something lit up in the top-right of your view would be odd and unbalanced.

Light a tube res by all means, but not a bay one (hell, I'd even stealth a bay one from the inside). Also I'd get a plexi-topped CPU block and drop a single green LED in that.
 
I'm getting the XSPC Single Bay res and would really like to have the water illuminated so you can see it from the front of the case. I'll be replacing my HAF-X side panel with the one shown below so the res should really be hidden when looking through the window:

HAF-932-Window-big.jpg


Can you put an LED inside the plexi top cpu block? Or does it have to be close to it but not inside?
 
Sida said:
Ok honestly I have no idea how I put this in project logs. Can someone move it to the proper place please?
Click to expand...

it can go in project logs when it is a project log.

get some pics and plans on the thread and post it in there.
 
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