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Hardware Hacking

Flexiglow UV Reactive Neon Paint 127

Posted by CmdrTaco from the it-ain't-no-picasso dept.
VL is running a review of (no I'm not kidding) UV Reflective Paint for whatever sort of artistic case design aspirations you might have. Various colors and some bad photos make me kind of wonder about the whole thing, but perhaps others have more informed thoughts...
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Flexiglow UV Reactive Neon Paint More

Flexiglow UV Reactive Neon Paint

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  • Keyboards and goth clubs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @11:48AM (#10880883) Journal
    Painting up a keyboard would be great for a (particularly goth) club DJ's PC - both in looks and functionality.

  • How is this different... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cbrocious ( 764766 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @11:49AM (#10880888) Homepage
    from Clearneon?
    Is it just that clearneon sprays on and this has to be applied by the applicator?

  • Benchmarks Please? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Average_Joe_Sixpack ( 534373 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @11:49AM (#10880889)
    How much of a performance boost will this paint give me? Will it allow me to run Doom 3 in XGA??

  • Note (Score:5, Interesting)

    by elid ( 672471 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .dopi.ile.> on Sunday November 21, 2004 @11:50AM (#10880895)
    Note that you can see some pretty interesting "pre-painted" gear directly at the company's website [flexiglow.com].

    • Re:Note (Score:3, Funny)

      by sunhou ( 238795 )
      Note that you can see some pretty interesting "pre-painted" gear directly at the company's website.

      Thanks! I was going to click on one of the five links [flexiglow.com] to the company's website [flexiglow.com] in the review, but I was afraid maybe the review site was in cahoots with Flexiglow [flexiglow.com] or something, and felt a bit reluctant to click on their whoring links [flexiglow.com]. But here in the pure and innocent environment of Slashdot, I can safely click on the link [flexiglow.com] you provided.

      Thanks again ! [flexiglow.com]
    • Undoubtably, the biohazard [flexiglow.com] and radioactive [flexiglow.com] etched warning signs look really cool. But if your house or office were on fire, would the emergency services refuse to continue to work in the building if they saw potential radiation and biological hazards that they didn't have the correct protective gear for?

  • I have to ask (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ryvar ( 122400 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @11:52AM (#10880902) Homepage
    I'm not terribly familiar with the latest in case-modding, so I have to ask - are these UV lights entirely safe for longterm exposure? Say, 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year?

    --Ryv
    • sure! its only cancer.
    • You're right, could be risky. Rather than using this stuff, check around to see if anyone still sells Undark paint [roger-russell.com]--it doesn't need UV at all.

    • Re:I have to ask (Score:5, Funny)

      by Vic ( 6867 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:13PM (#10881002) Homepage
      I'm not terribly familiar with the latest in case-modding, so I have to ask - are these UV lights entirely safe for longterm exposure? Say, 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year?

      Um, I think you have bigger issues than the choice of paint on your PC. :)

    • Re:I have to ask (Score:5, Funny)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:14PM (#10881003) Homepage
      Well there has already been speculation that some of the plastics used for cable insulation and component construction may not be UV proof. I gather the effect was that long term exposure to UV lighting used in case mods caused the plastic to breakdown leading to the possibility of shorts and component failure, although precise timescales were unclear. If the UV is potent enough to break down plastic over time, then it's got to be having an effect on your skin, right?

      Then again, if you are sitting by your PC for 16 hours a day, then that's a lot of UV from sunlight you are missing - it *might* balance out... Just make sure that you move around enough to get an even tan. :)

    • Re:I have to ask (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WareW01f ( 18905 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:20PM (#10881040)
      Prolly not. Most things I've read indicate that even the tamer wavelengths of UV used in black lights can still cause cataracts [postgradmed.com] I would imagine that the UV LEDs would cause problems too (with enough exposure) although there is not yet an LED out there at the right wavelength to do real damage (and be useful for things like steralizing things, or say, keeping water in water cooled PCs from getting slimy... if I'm wrong about this please post a link here as there are many that would like to know) There are many fun links (like here [nasa.gov] and here [hps.org]) on the fun effects of the different forms of UV. Most deal with tanning beds and sun, but I'm sure if you spend enough time in blacklight, the same applies.

      I'm sure in the end most Slashdotter's will opt for more enertaining ways of going blind. >;^)
      • ...there is not yet an LED out there at the right wavelength to do real damage (and be useful for things like steralizing things... if I'm wrong about this please post a link.

        I'm not vouching for its ability to do what it says but this [scan.co.uk] fan claims to purify air using an UV LED.

    • Re:I have to ask (Score:5, Informative)

      by legirons ( 809082 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:29PM (#10881089)
      "are these UV lights entirely safe for longterm exposure?"

      They may not know the birthdate of Alexander Hamilton, but Wikipedia does have an article [wikipedia.org] on ultraviolet light and its health effects.
    • For those who are realy conserned with this I suguest getting a roll of UV Filter. [rosco.com] For those who desire to have their fun and not die.

    • UV exposure = Risk of cataracts, melanoma (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sakusha ( 441986 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @01:49PM (#10881506)
      I used to work in a prepress lab where we used UV rigs to expose plates and Matchprints. The units are usually closed boxes so no UV leaks out, but we had a huge freestanding unit that had huge UV-opaque curtains around it. And that's because prolonged UV exposure is a health risk.

      The manufacturers of these UV systems made it absolutely clear, prolonged exposure to UV light will dramatically increase your likelyhood of geting cataracts and skin cancer. I don't know anything about the cataracts, but I sure wouldn't do anything to endanger my vision since I depend on being able to read a computer screen.

      But I do have personal experience with the effects of UV lights on skin. I worked around UV lights for years, and despite my precautions to minimize exposure, I've already developed a 3 precancerous lesions that had to be removed, one was a basal cell carcinoma in an early stage, the two were neoplastic somethingorother that my dermatologist says would have developed into melanoma (skin cancer) if I hadn't had them removed. Now I have to go to my dermatologist every 6 months for a complete body inspection, and have any lesion that is even the slightest bit suspicious surgically removed. I guarantee that these lesions were solely due to UV exposure in the lab, because I'm a night person and I hate going out in the sun.

      DO NOT FUCK WITH MELANOMA. It is one of the deadliest cancers around. Most people are dead within 6 months of discovering they have the disease, it metastasizes rapidly into every organ in your body within weeks, and becomes inoperable. Most people are already fatally afflicted by the time they even discover they melanoma.

      So if you want to play around with kewl glowing UV lights, just realize you might be inflicting fatal damage on yourself.

  • Inkjet? (Score:5, Funny)

    by superswede ( 729509 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @11:54AM (#10880919)
    Can I put it in my inkjet?

  • The good old days (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 21, 2004 @11:59AM (#10880939)
    I remember painting the inside of my folks microwave when I was younger using a similar green paint.

    My non too technical mother freaked when she saw the "radioactive glow".

    But this new stuff, can I use it on skin?

    I have a lovely sphinx cat [google.com] which would look devastating with a fluorescent glow.

  • making a bitchin hoopty (Score:5, Insightful)

    by photozz ( 168291 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [zzotohp]> on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:01PM (#10880949) Homepage
    Personally, I think painting my hardware is on the level with doing burnouts in front of the high school with my bitchin Camaro that I will fix up someday. It does nothing for system performance, and can't imagine what it's doing to the thermal properties of the card. It's just tacky. Really tacky. If you have that much energy you should concentrate on Doing something a little harder [thebestcasescenario.com]

    • Re:making a bitchin hoopty (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bergeron76 ( 176351 ) * on Sunday November 21, 2004 @01:25PM (#10881380) Homepage
      Interestingly, they sell clear versions of this paint for use on license plates. They apparently make your plate illegible to Traffic Camera's.

      • Interestingly, they sell clear versions of this paint for use on license plates. They apparently make your plate illegible to Traffic Camera's.

        Yeah, I have a whole bottle of it right here- I'll sell it to you for only $49.95! Imagine all the money you'll save on speeding and red-light tickets. Plus now you can go through toll booths without paying!

        "Honey, where's that clear nail polish you just bought? Someone wants to give me fifty bucks for it!"

        I mean really... you think that stuff's for real?

      • So does putting a $10 plastic cover over your plates :) Although that *is* illegal in a lot of areas...

  • UV warning system (Score:4, Informative)

    by r00t ( 33219 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:01PM (#10880951) Journal
    If the computer case glows, you have problems.
    UV leads to eye damage. (cateracts?)

    Plus there's skin cancer, your furniture fading...
    • UV light is outside the visible spectrum, so can someone more versed in Physics than me explain how exctly stuff painted with UV reflective paint glows? I would have thought that UV reflective paint would reflect UV rays which you can't see anyway
      • I don't claim to be versed in this, but my understanding is that they absorb UV and re-emit in a visible frequency. So you get a glowing effect because you can't see the initial (or reflected) UV but do see the the visible light coming off the dyes.
  • I'm not a photographer, but I play one on /.

    Use a tripod or other solid mount when making photos in low light conditions... it keeps your photos from bluring.
    • Another trick is to set the camera on self timer mode. This will prevent that little shift that happens when you press the shutter release. However, having those shutter release cables will also work, but even the cheapest digital cameras have a self timer mode available.

  • Cool idea (Score:3, Funny)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:02PM (#10880954) Homepage
    Rather than just using that paint for case mods, you could also paint things in your room with it. Like maybe posters and stuff, especially for music groups.

    UV Reactive Posters. Right, I'm off to the patent office!

    • Re:Cool idea (Score:3, Funny)

      by Skater ( 41976 )
      While you're there, could you ask them to move the office? Their new building is blocking my view of the Washington Monument.

      Thanks!

      --RJ

  • Keyboard and monitor? (Score:3, Funny)

    by E IS mC(Square) ( 721736 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:02PM (#10880956) Journal
    Now I dont have to get up and switch on the lights - i can avoid the horrors of typing pubLic with L missing!

    But fun would be to set the background of the 'windows' to one such color - if available in future!

  • the laws (Score:4, Interesting)

    by myukew ( 823565 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:05PM (#10880967) Homepage
    did you know that (at least here in germany) it's actually forbidden to use computers which don't have a complete metal cover? it's because of the radio interference, I believe.
    • Wait, so the iMacs, both new and old, are illeagal? And what is done for palms and the like?

    • Re:the laws (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not true. It is forbidden to sell computers and parts of computers which do not adhere to certain standards (It must not interfere with other electronics, very much the same thing the FCC does in the USA)
    • It's very similar in the US: Any electronic product you sell (or build for more than personal use) must be certified to be compliant with (at least) Part 15 of the FCC rules. (Part 15 deals with the amount of RF energy that can be radiated by a device that is not designed to produce RF radiation). You don't necessarily need a complete metal case, a full metal case will generally make it easier to pass the certification testing.

      Of course, home-built computers also need to comply with Part 15, but as lo
    • In America it's an FCC regulatory violation to mass produce and sell a product which is not certified... most consumer goods are Class C certified, meaning that they give off a minimum amount of radio interference, and accept whatever interference they are subjected to.

      But there are ways around this legislation, as seen by all the clear case manufacturers and aftermarket window kits...

  • Finally, the technology... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:05PM (#10880968)
    ...to make my velvet Elvis casemod a reality.

  • What's so amazing about this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KDan ( 90353 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:09PM (#10880982) Homepage
    I've seen UV-glowy paints around for years. This is nothing new. You still need a blacklight (ie UV light) for it to be visible, it doesn't just glow in the dark magically (that would be more interesting, but still nothing amazing - there are plenty of fluorescent material about). So what's so great about this that it deserves a front-page post on slashdot?

    Daniel
  • Maybe Viperlair should take some of the money they make from using slashdot as their free advertising platform and buy a non-shitty digital camera+tripod, so they don't look like a hardware review site ran out of some teenager's basement...
  • Im still waiting for a backlit keyboard that looks like something out of a cockpit, that would rock.. or i could save my eyesight, money and timne and just get a life..

  • How about ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @01:15PM (#10881314)
    A computer system that fits into the surrounding decor, seamlessly, as if it were a well-chosen piece of furniture, efficiently serving its prime function, while maintaining a muted physical presence that does not grandly announce its existence to every pair of eyes in the vicinity, thereby diminishing the worth of whatever is being presented upon the screen? Or shouldn't I say that here?
    • I feel the same way. I've seen a few casemods that made me say "Hey, neat!" but those have been few and far between. The G3 Mac in a gas can comes to mind, it's original and a far cry from the same old "install mass produced crap" that most computer hot-rodders do.
  • But nothing new. This paints have been around for quite awhile, just maybe not for case modding. To clarify, it's NOT UV activated but "black light" activated, which is nothing more than a high frequency violet shade. This is simply visible light and shouldn't affect your components any more than the goofy cold neon tubes that people are putting in their cases. I wonder what the long term effect of painting a video card would be. But this paint has been used for stage and film work. One thing I find really
    • Sorry, but a black light most certianly does produce ultraviolet light, along with a tiny bit of visible light from the very end of the spectrum before it shifts into ultra.

      If you do a simple google search for "black light" you will find many sites about black light and every single one indicates they are ultraviolet.

      There are two types of UV light, UVA and UVB. Black lights give off UVA, while the Sun gives off UVB, which is much more harmful.
    • UV paint for casemodding has been around for a while too. I'm sitting here looking at a can 'Black Light Accent Paint' made by pcToys that I bought almost two years ago. I think it cost about $5 when I bought it.
    • As I understand it, incandescent "black" light aren't real black lights, they're just regular lightbulbs which have been painted violet.
      Which is quite different from florescent black lights. The fluorescents are the real deal and include the warned against UV.

  • This is for pansies. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tim Doran ( 910 ) <timmydoranNO@SPAMrogers.com> on Sunday November 21, 2004 @01:58PM (#10881536)
    Real hardcore gamers make their keys glow by painting radium [blackmask.com] on their keyboards.
  • Something that might work with all those glowing colors and paints would be a fog machine. Maybe I'm just thinking of Deep Thought.
  • UV condums may turn into a great fad. If you are strait, your GF may get a kick out of Glowing Willy. If you are gay, you can recreate Light-Sabre fight scenes from Star Wars.

  • I already did this (Score:4, Funny)

    by DrugCheese ( 266151 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @03:34PM (#10882086)
    Many many moons ago I colored my keyboard and mounted a blacklight underneath my monitor stand so that I could be in a very dark room and still see my keys needed to code n play my video games.

    Problem was I used Tide to color the keys, as Tide laundry detergent reflects rather brightly under blacklight. A little too brightly in fact as I soon washed it off becuase it was too bright and distracting.

    But let me tell you when I was using that thing ... my hands always smelled clean.

  • I'm disappointed (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When I saw the heading "UV-reflective paint", my first thought was "Oh Wow!!! Paintings for Bees!!"
    Bees see into the ultraviolet, and many quite plain looking flowers have quite garish patterns in their UV reflectance so the bees can easily see them and home in on the nectar.

    But this is just fluorescent paint. Colour me unimpressed.
  • All this obsession with modding the part of the computer you don't look at.

    How about an acrylic case for the monitor?

    hell, the back of it glows all by itself.

    • All this obsession with modding the part of the computer you don't look at.

      They probably have a case with a window / do the common window mod.

      How about an acrylic case for the monitor?

      It's really not a good idea to be messing around with CRTs because the voltages involved are highly dangerous and may take quite a while to dissipate (even after they're unplugged).

  • Highlighters (Score:2, Informative)

    by kd5ujz ( 640580 )
    I have recieved almost identical results with highlighters and a UV light sorce.

  • I was surprised to notice that the bottle and applicator in the poster's link [viperlair.com] looks just like that for regular nail polish.

    UV reactive color-changing nail polish has been around for a few years, and is available in many colors. The nail polish changes from Color A to Color B and a few brands have 3-Color transitions. Unlike the Flexiglow product mentioned, I don't think these are available in Clear.

    Its available at several nail polish sites like Del Sol [justaddsun.com] and Solar Magic [solarmagic.com]. Its sometimes called Mood Chang
  • http://www.unitednuclear.com/ [unitednuclear.com]

    http://www.unitednuclear.com/glow.htm [unitednuclear.com]

    Blurb:

    We now stock the new generation of Phosphorescent (Glow in the Dark) material in pure powder form. This is not the old Zinc Sulfide based material that's commonly found in the typical glow in the dark items. As you know, that cheap stuff only glows for about an hour after being exposed to light. This new Phosphorescent powder is doped with the element Europium, along with other rare earth elements that give it an astonishing glow

  • Wildfire UV, various wavelengths (Score:3, Interesting)

    by telemonster ( 605238 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @09:21PM (#10884235) Homepage
    There is a professional company called Wildfire that makes UV lights and paints for stage and theater (think Mr Toads wild ride @ Disney).

    They sell the lights and paints at different wavelenghts... so you can actually paint several scenes (clearly) over a standard painting... then fire up wavelength #1 and kill normal light and you will see one wavelength of paint.. .then you can fade into another and another. I always thought it would be awesome to paint a house with it. Find a nice house in a normal neighborhood with a stringent neighborhood association. House is normal by day. But at night time, it turns into some sorta sick florescent tetris looking freakshow.

  • I've experimented on this for arcade walls (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @10:04PM (#10884424)
    My gameroom is filled with arcade games, and there is UV lighting from overhead. But I experimented with different designs and patterns to put on the walls (for what little wall-space remains visible).

    The interesting combination I came across, which could apply to PC case mods as well, is by using regular paint, UV reactive paint, and glow-in-the-dark paint.

    By using the three different types, you can create an image under normal everyday light. Then, when the lights go off and the UV light goes on, you can have a different image (caused by both the UV reactive paint and the photoluminescent paint).

    Finally, once the UV light is off, you are left with the images created only by the photoluminescent paint colors.

    So you can create some interesting changes in a picture based on the timing of regular and blacklight exposure.

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