Paint for Noctua anti-vibration pads and mounts?

[Dakkottadavviss]

I'm looking to paint the anti-vibration corner pads of a Noctua fan a different color. I was going to get the Noctua Chromax things. It's like $15 per fan just to have a different color corners pads and mounting sticks. I have Noctua iPPC fans and I want to have red corner pads and red mounting sticks. I figured I could buy some paint for less than the $75 it'd cost to buy pre-colored from Noctua. A few other things I have questions about. Painting the thermal armor on my Asus Sabertooth motherboard and the metal tops of Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM. 

I'm a bit of a noob when I comes to modding and paints so bear with me. 

[tekgeek1205]

I would bet anything you try to paint it with will flake off quickly. I would love to be proven wrong. You could try Krylon Fusion. Its supposed to bond with plastics. The Anti-Vibration pads are probably a rubber or vinyl, and thy flex making flaking more of a risk. http://www.krylon.com/products/fusion-for-plastic/

 

Only do a small corner and let it dry for 24h+ and see how it holds up. If you cant rub it off with your fingers(not your finger nail) i would say its ok.

[Dakkottadavviss]

2 minutes ago, tekgeek1205 said:

I would bet anything you try to paint it with will flake off quickly. I would love to be proven wrong. You could try Krylon Fusion. Its supposed to bond with plastics. The Anti-Vibration pads are probable a rubber or vinyl. http://www.krylon.com/products/fusion-for-plastic/

 

Only do a small corner and let it dry for 24h+ and see how it holds up. If you cant rub it off with your fingers(not your finger nail) i would say its ok.

I believe the material is silicone according to Noctua's website now that I've looked it up.

[tekgeek1205]

silicone is just as bad as rubber if not worse about flaking when flexed in any way. The only good thing is if it doenst work you just end up with some paint you have to chip off. 

[BenjaminC]

I wouldn't recommend it. Painting them will most likely cause the rubber to degrade and very quickly turn to mush. Your dominator platinums and thermal armor are perfectly fine to paint, just be sure to take the memory apart and the thermal armor off the mobo very carefully. 

 

If you can wait a bit, noctua periodically sells sets of 16 chromax corners good for two fans each on their amazon storefront for $6.90 per kit. According to your estimate you have five fans, so that would be $20.70 with enough corner pieces left over for a sixth fan, and it would be a MUCH better solution all around.

 

Noctua's amazon storefront  is called Noctua Cooling Solutions, here's a link to it: Noctua Cooling Solutions

[Dakkottadavviss]

15 minutes ago, BenjaminC said:

I wouldn't recommend it. Painting them will most likely cause the rubber to degrade and very quickly turn to mush. Your dominator platinums and thermal armor are perfectly fine to paint, just be sure to take the memory apart and the thermal armor off the mobo very carefully. 

 

If you can wait a bit, noctua periodically sells sets of 16 chromax corners good for two fans each on their amazon storefront for $6.90 per kit. According to your estimate you have five fans, so that would be $20.70 with enough corner pieces left over for a sixth fan, and it would be a MUCH better solution all around.

 

Noctua's amazon storefront  is called Noctua Cooling Solutions, here's a link to it: Noctua Cooling Solutions

Thanks, those are a lot cheaper than the others I was looking at. Turns out that they don't have corners in red though. Strange they only have the mounts in red but not the corners. All of this because Corsair doesn't sell any non-LED Static Pressure 140mm fans. Believe it or not Corsair discontinued their SP140 fans. They still sell the regular AF140mm fans but I don't want to put those on my rads. I'm pretty happy with the Noctua fans though. Dead silent while moving decent amounts of air.

[BenjaminC]

6 minutes ago, Dakkottadavviss said:

Thanks, those are a lot cheaper than the others I was looking at. Turns out that they don't have corners in red though. Strange they only have the mounts in red but not the corners. All of this because Corsair doesn't sell any non-LED Static Pressure 140mm fans. Believe it or not Corsair discontinued their SP140 fans. They still sell the regular AF140mm fans but I don't want to put those on my rads. I'm pretty happy with the Noctua fans though. Dead silent while moving decent amounts of air.

The iPPC fans are exceptional. I use them exclusively myself. I still can't believe how corsair refuses to use square frame fans, they're completely kneecapping their performance on rads. Keep an eye on Noctua's storefront, they should have the red corners back in stock within a week or two. Glad I could help!

[oriol]

Yes, seems like there's lots of demand for the red pads so they're out of stock at the moment. Should be back shortly though!