UV Dye Question

[sn8kedr]

Hi all,

I have a really dumb question....which is pretty normal for me.

I've got some Mayhems UV Green dye on it's way for my next loop. I plan to use a tube res in the case with some small UV LED's mounted behind the res in the Res mounts. This should really make the coolant in the res 'pop'. I will be using clear tubing for the loop but all the other lights in the case will either be white LED's or green LED's. Definitely no UV.

Soooo, the question is will the UV Dye in the res remain 'charged' through the loop? Or as soon as the coolant leaves the res and the UV light dissipates will it lose it's 'glow'?

I had assumed it would lose the glow but just wanted to double check with you guys to make sure as it will impact my choice of lighting in the case.

 

[Josh Weston]

My understanding is that UV Light works just as normal light. The reason that UV Reactant materials seem to glow is that they reflect the UV rays back at a different wavelength that the human eye CAN see. As soon as the UV reactant liquid is no longer in 'view' of the lights, it shall no longer glow. So, as long as the rest of your tubing is going to be bathed in the UV light, you should be fine. If it doesn't, then you may want to reconsider the placement of the lights.

 

[sn8kedr]

ahhh - that's kinda what I had expected

Thanks for the explanation though - certainly gives me some more to think about in terms of light placement now though lol.

Do you reckon it would look strange just to have the UV dye react in the res but not through the tubing? As it will be a tube res it's gonna be right in the case next to the tubing so it's probably gonna stand out a bit too much maybe.

Either way I'll have a play around with it once I get all the components up and running.

Ta

 

[Josh Weston]

Aesthetics are a hard thing for other people to judge - it's all up to you.
How comes you're set to having them behind the res? As far as i know, the best placement for the lights is in front of all your tubing, say in the top/bottom near where the side pannel slides in. This seems to hit the majority of the rig's tubing.

 

[p1ngman1969]

My understanding is that UV Light works just as normal light. The reason that UV Reactant materials seem to glow is that they reflect the UV rays back at a different wavelength that the human eye CAN see. As soon as the UV reactant liquid is no longer in 'view' of the lights, it shall no longer glow. So, as long as the rest of your tubing is going to be bathed in the UV light, you should be fine. If it doesn't, then you may want to reconsider the placement of the lights.

very nice explanation mate

 

[CPMFW]

very nice explanation mate

yes indeed!

 

[sn8kedr]

Aesthetics are a hard thing for other people to judge - it's all up to you.
How comes you're set to having them behind the res? As far as i know, the best placement for the lights is in front of all your tubing, say in the top/bottom near where the side pannel slides in. This seems to hit the majority of the rig's tubing.

Yeah - fair call. I have the dye and the res now so I'll start to play around with aesthetics in the case soon.

The Res mounts come with predrilled holes to add two UV Led's in each bracket (a total of 4 just for the res). I liked this idea because whilst I want the uv to react I don't overly like the look of the UV light all over the case. So I thought this would work nicely, and it probably will but it obviously won't have an impact on the dye in the tubing.

 

[Sniffle]

I kind of like the idea of a glowing res with clear tubing and clear liquid, and maybe if the cpu block has a clear top as well place a couple there as well so that the UV reacts there as well. Basically my idea is to have UV reactive "hot spots" but not a completely UV reactive rig.

Also keep in mind that with UV reactive things the more normal light that is around the UV the less you will see the UV, so if you have specific UV lighted area's and you don;t want the whole case to be bathed in UV you will need to have specific white light accented areas with the non-highlighted areas being dark so that you can see the UV.

 

[sn8kedr]

yeah yeah - and that's we're it's gonna be interesting to get the right kinda of mix......really tricky for me since I have previously only gone with massive overtones (everything blue). Which I liked at the time but looking at it now it's just way too saturated. Defintiely trying to accentuate the green highlights for the new build.

So probably going to do something similar to your suggestion - the res will be UV'd and possibly around the CPU and GPU blocks too (this will probably be minimal though). The the other part I'm concerned about is how much other light should go into the case......at the moment I can't quite decide between three options:

White led's throughout (three in the roof for the 360 rad pulling air out and 4 in the front for push/pull on the 240 rad) .... I guess this will likely wash out most of the UV though OR

No LED's on any fans (this would give the UV a bit more emphasis I think) OR

Green LED fans on the outside of the rads only to give the case a green glow and no LED's on any of the fans that are facing internally (the inside of the 240 and the exhaust at the back of the case).

 

[Sniffle]

OK, I'm much like tom in the way that UV screams noob and the reason why is that it is so overdone, not just in actuality, but the entire way UV works is by washing out normal light to make the UV spectrum more apparent. Besides, my thinking is who wants to do all this work on a case buy all these awesome parts and have a dark case illuminated by this ominous green glow that washes out the other pieces of the build besides the water cooling.

If i were you I would MINIMALLY use blacklight LED's to highlight the reactivity. but otherwise try to balance out that glow with well placed white light to bring that glow and dark UV light down to a reasonable level and show off the rest of the build that you spent the money on not just the overpriced plumbing.

99.999% of the time looking at UV rigs I go oh look another glowing box... it's the ones that have no UV or very sparse UV where you can see everything not just some tubes running from and to who knows where that make me stop and take notice, because i like seeing the radiators, barbs pumps motherboard pcb, graphics pcb, the actual blocks themselves.

this is just me though, and i have managed to get sick over the last couple days so if i have rambled and ranted too much i do apologize as i am medicated atm.

 

[sn8kedr]

oh man - hope it's not the man flu!

Totally respect your opinion on this one and I agree - that's why I only wanted to accentuate some of the features with the UV light. It's gonna be really tough for me to get the balance correct to be able to both show off the internals but also accentuate some of the coolant in the res and around the blocks. at the end of the day if the UV stuff just aint working out I would rather go with some nice accented lighting.

 

[Sniffle]

I thunk that's the smartest move you can make good luck on your build