New
#1
"Painting" SATA Cables
I bought a bunch of SATA III cables for my next desktop. These were the only ones that would keep the cables out of the way of a graphics card in the tight case I'm using (Antec Two Hundred v2), something they will do well. One minor annoyance is the almost bright red color since the rest of my cables are either black or sleeved black; I find that red rather annoying. I thought about sleeving them but 1/8" is too small and 1/4" is a bit oversized and looks too bulky.
I have a PCI slotcover with two USB 2.0 ports mounted to it with a pair of cables leading to two USB header connectors (very similar to this). The gray body and cables bugged me for the same reason the red cables did so I removed the connectors from the slot cover and took a black permanent felt marking pen to the connector bodies and cable sleeves. The results look surprisingly good. I was wondering if I could do the same to the red on the SATA cables. I know they can be pretty touchy when it comes to sharp bends, which suggests they might be more delicate than the USB cables I recolored, and I didn't know if the solvents (smells like xylene) in the marking pen ink would mess up the insulation (or outer jacket if the wires inside have their own insulation).