"Painting" SATA Cables

[Lady Fitzgerald]

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).

 

[essenbe]

To the best of my knowledge and belief, no it won't hurt to color them. Another suggestion may be replace them with black cables like these.

 

[kodi]

On one of my builds I wound Black Electicians Tape around a red lead to make it blend into the black background of the case.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, guys. The cables I linked are the only ones I could find that would stay out of the way of a graphics card (it's a tight case but, then, so is the space it will go into and still have room for air to get in and out of it).

As much money as I will be spending on this, wrapping electrical tape around the cable seems a bit Mickey Mouse. It would be obvious, adhesive always oozes out along the edges as the vinyl shrinks, attracting dust and looking perpetually dirty, and I've yet to see electrical tape that wouldn't eventually let go.

I tried using a marker on an extra cable and it actually looks good and I can't tell the solvent in the ink softened the jacket/insulation so I doubt it penetrated enough to be a problem, if it penetrated at all.. The color is even and I doubt it will ever wear off. It's a bit glossier than I would like but that's from the slick surface of the cable and probably wouldn't be noticeable inside the case since it won't be illuminated (yeah, I know, I'm being anal but if I'm going to be spending so much money, it darned well better look good, too).

 

[kbrady1979]

I would try a cool tape job on them with some PVC tape.