# Tutorial Project: Nº2 - How to paint components



## Luciel (Mar 2, 2012)

Hi Everyone,

As mentioned in the Tutorial Project: Nº2 thread, several components will have their own thread, i.e. this one. This is mainly so there´s a generic thread on how to paint such componentes so anyone can use it as a guide without having to read through the whole main tutorial project.

You can see how these components look in the overall project by reading the main thread:
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161128

First, I´m going to start with the optical drive.

In this case I will be using an LG CD/DVD rewriter, but most common modern drives have the same mounting system so while there may be some differences, the concept remains the same.







We need to open the bay, for that you can either open it when your pc is on and then leaving it open when you shut down and unmount it or you can put a pin in a small hole on the front of the bay which by pushing it in, it will eject the bay.






We now need to remove the bay mask, in this case it slides off upwards, again there may be some differences in your drive of choice but just be carefull, you don´t want to brake it.






Now we need to remove the frontal, normally there are mounting clips on the sides and underneath which need to be pressed in in order to release it.






We remove the metal casing by taking off the 4-5 screws under the optical drive, once done you can take it apart easily, in most cases it will just slide off.






We proceed to sand down everything and clean it, remember to remove the stickers, normally I use distilled water but you may use other products like alcohol. If you use a different kind of product like window cleaner, make sure it´s not abrasive or you may damage the plastic.

Once done and dry we proceed with the primer. For paint types and techniques please refer to the main project thread stated at the beggining of this thread.






Because I will be using a pearl effect finish, I need to aply a base color on top of the primer, if you´re using a normal, glossy, or metallic color you can ignore this step.






The first coat of pearl blue.






First coat of pearl white on the frontal.






Once dry, we aply a coat of clear lacquer and leave it to cure for 24h

Now it´s all ready to put it back togueter, and here we go, our finished optical drive, ready to be mounted in the tower.





















Next post will be the hard drive.


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## _ALB_R3D X (Mar 2, 2012)

Subbed!
When are u going to paint the VGA?!Always looking for a tutorial but never found one!(ecxept (FIH)the don's)


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## Luciel (Mar 2, 2012)

Will do eventually don´t worry, for now however you can have a look at my other projects on neonit.net as I have painted vga for some of those, it´s quite straight forward and will do the step by step as with the optical drive within the next couple of days : )


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## Black Panther (Mar 2, 2012)

Nice job OP!



_ALB_R3D X said:


> Subbed!
> When are u going to paint the VGA?!Always looking for a tutorial but never found one!(ecxept (FIH)the don's)



DaMulta had spray-painted a motherboard white. And it still worked.

Here, I found his thread.


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## Luciel (Mar 2, 2012)

Yes if you use acrilic paint it will work without much heat increase howeve I would recommend against spraying a pcb.


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## de.das.dude (Mar 2, 2012)

sub.. ahain


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## Luciel (Mar 18, 2012)

Part 2:

Hard Drives.

Hi everyone, before I start there´s two things you need to know; first, some hard drives have ventilation holes on top (mostly WD drives) and some don´t (mostly Seagate drives), this doesn´t mean you can´t paint them but you have to be very carefull, if you use the right paint (acrylic) you won´t cover the hole as it does not create a "coat" if you will, therefore not covering the hole, remember to paint in a sideways manner so paint doesn´t go directly in the hole as a drip could cover the hole. Secondly, i think this is pretty obvious but this WILL invalidate your warrantee.

That said, let´s start.

First we have to remove all stickers, you can if you wish to keep a more retail look, leave them on and just cover them with masking tape and detailing tape, but for the purpose of the tutorial I will be removing them.
















Here´s the tricky part, if it´s not a new drive, chances are that it´s dirty so we have to clean it. We also don´t want to use sanding paper as we don´t want to create any sort of electrostatic energy on the surface of the drive, just in case. So what we do is using a bit of cotton with a drop of alcohol, we clean the drive as best as we can.

Really the paint process is the same as when painting the dvd drive, there´s a few changes however. We have to cover certain surfaces that while paint wont go anywhere near it, it´s more for safety and getting clean lines.

For this I use masking tape, not detailing tape as it has to adjust to the surface which isn´t plain or straight so detailing tape isn´t great for it.
















Now we aply primer, remember, for tips and what paint types to use refer to the main tutorial thread indicated on the first post of this thread.






Give it 20 minutes and we can aply the first coat of the chosen color. Wait another 20-30 minutes and aply the second coat. 40 minutes later you can aply the clear coat lacquer for protection. 

Give it 24h so it can cure...






Remove the masking tape and...

...you´re done!
















Next post will be a Lamptron FC3 controller, I´ve chosen this one as the design is basic and the guide should aply to most fan controllers.


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## Luciel (Mar 23, 2012)

Hi Everyone,

Today we have the fan controller tutorial, in this specific case, a Lamptron FC3, I´ve chosen this one for two reasons, first, because it follows a structure design that most controllers follow, simple controls, mounted on a 5.25" bay with front plate and pcb so you can use this tutorial for the fan controller of your choice in most cases. Second, because of the build quality of Lamptron´s controllers so I know it´s not going to fall apart when trying to modify it, be it paint wise or deeper modification.

So let´s start, here´s the FC3 by Lamptron.






Because I will only be painting the front in this case as the side is to short to be visible within the top bay of the case, I won´t be taking out the pcb, but just in case you want to do it in yours, most follow the same design, two screws.






If you use a Lamptron fan controller you´ll notice that the bottom part of it is covered for protection, however if you´re carefull enough you can slowly peal it off in order to dismantle it.






Back on track, to remove the front we need to remove all 4 screws that hold the faceplate on.











I quite like the black mesh for contrast so I´m leaving it on for now. I chose the black edition of the FC3 as it´s anodyzed alum which means we can paint it, non anodyzed alum will give you trouble as paint has more trouble staying on and it´s likely that it will peal off eventually.

So we aply a coat of primer, for paint types and techniques, reffer to the first post on this thread for a link to the main tutorial post in which I talk about the types, techniques and ways of aplying paint.






We wait 20 mins and we´re good to go to aply the first coat of color, then wait another 20 mins and aply the second coat (sometimes one coat is enough, but in the case of white you really want to use 2 coats at least to get a nice solid white color. We wait 30 min and we aply the clear coat lacquer and we let it cure for 24h.






Right, let´s mount it and see how it looks.






I like it but... hmm it just doesn´t go with the rest of the look, so I´m going to go ahead an take it apart again and paint the mesh blue. Repeat the paint process on the mesh. Now I´ve put it back togueter and...











...much better.

Next part will be the Graphics card.


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## Luciel (May 2, 2012)

For the purpose of this tutorial I will be using a 9800 GTX I normally use as a spare. Please have in mind that, as with most of these, following these steps will void your warrantee.






The first thing is taking the gpu apart, we need to remove all the screws in the back. Have in mind that this may vary depending on the brand of the card, there may be other screws, hooks, cables, etc, so do not force it open if it doesnt easily (although if the card is very old and very dirty it may seem as it´s still hold down by another screw when really it´s just the thermal paste).






Once that is done we need to remove all stickers and clean the surface.






This really depends on the card itself, sometime you may get lucky, others... well... let´s just say I spent a few hours cleaning and sanding down this one.

The next step is to paint it, for paint techniquest, preparation, types and so on, check the first post of this thread which links to the main tutorial thread where all this is explained in detail.

Once ready, we put it all togueter again. Remember to remove the old thermal paste and aply some new one. About the trim, that´s really up to you if you want to change it. In my case it seemed in decent enough shape so didn´t bother changing it.











Up Next,
The Antec 620 H2O CPU Cooler


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## Luciel (May 5, 2012)

It´s time for the Antec 620 H2O CPU Cooler.

First thing´s first, let´s unpack it as it´s brand new.






Right this is provably the most simple part to prep, what I´ve done here is, using masking tape I´ve covered all the piping and instead of covering the cpu cooler itself, I´ve wrapped a plastic bag around. I know it may sound stupid but check the bag hasn´t got any holes!






I´ve cleaned it even though it´s new, we don´t want any dust particles on the surface. For paint types, techniques, waiting times and so on check the first post of this thread which has a link to the main tutorial thread where everything is explained in detail. Do feel free to ask if you still have doubts after that though.

Once dry, I´ve removed all the taping and done! Ready to go in!






Next up, the power suply (at the time of writing I´ve bought a more powerfull PSU as the one I had for this project doesn´t cut it for the gpu, so even though I painted it and it works, I´ll be posting a tutorial with the new PSU so the next post will remain "reserved").


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## Luciel (May 5, 2012)

* RESERVED FOR PSU GUIDE TUTORIAL *

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With this we finalize the how to paint components thread and we go back to the main thread to continue with the build.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161128


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## de.das.dude (May 5, 2012)

everything is not explained in detail!!!in that thread


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## Luciel (May 5, 2012)

Do let me know what´s missing and I´ll do my best to fill in any holes


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