UVMOD101
Before even getting into the real deal, lets get the some terms straighten up.

1) fluorescent (AKA Neon) Color, is highly reactive with UV ray.
2) UV is also know as Blacklight, its not harmful so dont worry about exposing to it too much. The REAL UV Ray is harmful though.
3) CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) is the commonly used lighting in case mod. CCFL comes in a bunch of different colors; however, only UV CCFL can bring out the most shine from fluro stuff.
4) Single UV vs dual UV = its really just quantity difference....1 apple vs 2 apples.

What You Need for UV Mod?
1) Fluorescent Paper/ Fluorescent Sticker*
2) Double Sided Tape*
3) Fluorescent Paint**
4) Blade/Scissors*
5) Fluro Techflex(sleeve)
6) Electrical Tape/ Heatshrink**
7) Ruler*
8) Hole Puncher*
9) Uv reactive Fans and Accessories***

*You can get these from Popular Bookstore, or most stationary stores.
**Most hardware stores carry these.
***Widely Available in LYP, I prefer getting them from robyncom. Alternatively, try the bulk/garage section.

Which of these are optional? That depends on What kind of things your gonna use. Continue Reading.

How Many UV CCFL Do I Need?
You will need at least 2 x 12" UV CCFL minimum, I use 4 tubes as it covers almost every angle of my rig. anyhow, it depends on the size of your casing.

CCFL Placement
Here is an example of how I place my CCFL. It basically covers every single angle in my rig. If You've got only two tubes, have one placed on the top and another at the bottom.

Please excuse the messy setup as ive yet to tidy it up.

What do you consider as a nice UV mod?
There arent many UV mods out there that caught my eye, most of them are either lacking in highlights, or overly highlighted. One of the biggest mistake that I've seen is people sleeving their whole PSU with Fluro Techflex(sleeve), I find it freaking messy when it comes to presentation. When modding a UV theme, try to highlight only things that you believe is "worth showing", there is really no point sleeving all the cables in your rig, I'd rather have most of them sleeved in black and hidden. (one exception though.....full acrylic casing ) So, what are the things that's worth highlighting? Here is a checklist for you:

Checklist:
1) Fan Grill
2) Fan Blade
3) Fan Frame
4) PCB Sides
5) Top of the heatsink's fins
6) CPU retension bracket
7) IDE/SATA Cables (show only certain parts)
8) Other Cables (choose only cables you wanan show)
9) 3 pin fan connectors
10) Molex
11) Ram Slot
12) PCI Slot
13) Capacitors
14) Ram Chips

How To Mod?
Fluro Sticker:
You can try to find them in stationary shops, or you can make them yourself. How do you make it? Well...its really simple....just stick the back of a fluorescent paper with doublesided tape and viola u've got your own fluorescent sticker

Fans:
PAINT
You may paint them with fluro paint. I wont go into details of how to remove the fan and such, you can find guides regarding that matter in modding faq stickies.

STICKER


You may use hole puncher, and punch out some round shape sticker and ahve them stuck on your fan blades as seen in the above picture. when the fan started to spin, you would be able to see a glowing ring. you may also use the same trick to make the whole fan glow, that could be done by sticking a row of the rounded sticker vertically along the fan blades. I figure out this trick a few months ago, its less risky, than painting the fan, doesnt put on much weight to the fan like paint do, and you can customize the colors anytime you want. the only disadvantage of this mod is that the sticker might come lose if the fan get too dusty.



Capacitors:
PAINT
You can paint the caps as well, Its permanent and there have been a couple of cases that the paint sipped into the caps and caused the mobo to malfunction. Do it at your own risk.

STICKER
Using the same hole puncher trick, punch a bunch of round shape sticker out and place them on the caps

Heat Sink Fins

PAINT
Painting the tip of the fins is probably the easiest way to get this job done.

STICKER
Alternatively, you can measure the tip of the heatsink fin's dimension and cut out the appropriate dimension from the fluorescent sticker....this is really a PITA and I've done that for my Abit's flower NB hsf. the dimension was 1mm X 2mm. Took me an hour to "UV" the nb hsf.

PCB Side

PAINT
Again, probably the best way to have get this job done.

STICKER
Yet again, you can cut out the appropriate dimension and stick the sticker on the pcb side.

PCI & Ram Slot

STICKER
The same method, cut and stick. thats the only way you can do it. otherwise, you might wanna buy Vantec's UV Slot cover...which I find that they barely glow.

Other Cables

PAINT
You can paint them if you want, but the paint would not stick on cables with silky surface. i.e. sunbeam's CCFL cable.

Techflex(sleeve)
Best method here

Have Fun

Something a little extreme:

done with BIC Gel pen. though the pen is not conductive, there is always a small chance that it would fry things out.

temporarily pinned
Guide Added to Case Mod FAQ

wah...nice thread....thanks to our new MOD....

cool...a cheaper way to UV the rig...thanks to our new MOD..

nice... but alamaklor... i m more interested to ur mod...

Very Useful Guide

um...thats my mod, and thats all the tricks i used to mod my rig

Good idea . Gonna start my next rig with some Uv''s . Thanks ;D

respect to the new mod, very dedicated modder indeed....

waaa... nice...
isit all flourescent color have the uv effect...

i thought its all being said in the tutorial already? there are only a couple of fluorescent colors, fluorescent colors are the most uv reactive colors, so yes.....

that BIC gel pen mod.. OMFG thats so cool. like something out of Tron. when u say "a small chance that it would fry things out", since its non conductive, what would the short circuit be due to? how long has that card been running with the gel pen mod?

Nice, time and patience are really needed for it. But it does really pay off!

some stuff, when they say its non conductive...it doesnt mean its 100% non conductive. there is a very very small chance that it could suddenly conduct electricity and short things out. ill give u an example....AS5...its non conductive...but there is still a chance that it would short ur processor out if u were just unlucky.

eventhough i like uv mod pretty much, and my main rig is only powered by a <RM300 FX5200...im not gonna take the risk of drawing the pcb. even without this mod.....aint my rig nice enough?

what brand r there with those uv ccfl??

ur's is pure uv light with some purple color rite??

UV is purplish, no other color. whether it looks blue or pink in picture is just due to the camera's exposure.

those are sunbeam. other than the northbridge fan, it is pure uv.

Wow, sweet, i was just starting to make a UV rig myself, what i really really want to know now is where do i get the UV accessories, i mean the UV fans/sleeving kit/CCFLs?/Cabling if possible please recommend us the shops themselves (in Low Yat), cus its pretty hard to find decent shops selling those kind of stuff, either they will be overpriced or not much choices. I'm looking forward to buy 3x 80mm + 1x 120mm UV fans, as well as a few nice and bright colored UV sleeving kits, not to mention the CCFLs themselves. If anyone want to recommend their favourite shop(s) to buy these stuff pls do so, cus i will be visiting them

Another thing, does the Vantec UV LED fans looks nicer than the normal UV fans? cus i'm considering to buy those instead of the plain UVs, if so, where can i get them? Thanks for your advice, and once i complete my full UV rig, i'll definitely post a pic of it

BTW, how much do u think a well built UV rig would cost? any estimates? care to name the average prices of UV accessories (fans/sleeving kits/cables/ccfls/etc.)? thanks again. (i'm referring to lowyat prices though)

This post has been edited by Xonius: Feb 15 2005, 11:58 AM

my favorite shop for uv stuff is Robyncom. However, ultimately it the stuff will be purchased at the store that could offer the lowest price....so u have to search around in lyp anyway.

Normal UV fans (non led version) are actually better than vantec spectrum, when building a uv theme.....stay away from LEDs, as their concentrated, intensive light would wash off the fluorescent reflection. additionally, when it's too bright, shadow appear. so if you can, try to find plain fluooro/neon dans instead "UV led" fan.

price wise....the minimum u need is 4 tubes of UV CCFL, that would cost about RM80-90. other stuff are optional as you can either sticker mod them, or paint them.

AlamakLor the UV man....

nice tread.....very useful for my upcoming mod project...
now i know a lot about UV stuff......will pin up this tread in my favorites..

thanx mr new dedicated n hardworking moderator

Really appreciate the effort you put into this thread AlamakLor.
since im near popular in kl, im gonna go buy sum paper n tape after tis =)