Painting My Wireless Adapter

[swazitron]

I'm looking to paint a wireless adapter I have, the Asus PCE-AC68, to match the white theme of my computer. Right now, it is the only colored piece in my build and I would like to paint it. I know some might say just get a new adapter but this one works extremely well in an otherwise terrible location for internet in my house (not to mention it was relatively expensive). Other adapters I tried (both USB and PCIe) only received a maximum 15 mbps from the router whereas the Asus PCE-AC68 received the full 65 mbps signal that I pay for without ever dropping the signal, which the others did. It really is an excellent little card.

The problem is, it has a red PCB and a red heat sink. I know for sure I want to paint the heat sink because that is the part that stands out the most and is the most visible in the case. I would LIKE to paint the red PCB but I am hesitant to do so out of fear of ruining the circuitry.

For the heat spreader, what kind of paint should I use? I am assuming the paint shouldn't be electrically conductive, but it also needs to be thermally conductive and capable of withstanding a little bit of heat. Should I sand off the red finish before attempting to paint it? Do I need some kind of primer when painting metals? How many coats? Is there any outer coat I can use to prevent it from chipping?

For the PCB, I am assuming I can't paint it without destroying it but I may as well ask if anyone has successfully painted a PCB before and how they did it.

Here's some photos:

 

[Lutfij]

The heatsink is made of aluminium and as such is anodized to be red. This means it's electrically treated and removing it will only be a PITA or you'll need a lot of time and patience to accomplish what you want. I'd suggest you use an abrasive scotch brite pad and go over the heatsink a couple of times to create an etch. The etch will create grooves for the paint to adhere. Seeing that the heatsink has many abnormal crevice's it's not going to end well for you, i.e you're going to end up with multiple coats of paint and they will look like runs.

On the topic of being thermally conductive, the point to keep in mind is to get rid of any intermediary layers in your paint thus if it's possible to find a shop that can do anodizing for your heatsink but it won't be cheap. The point I made earlier about multiple runs, thick coats, will impede your heat transference and in essence will drop your adapter's performance.

Regarding the PCB, they are porous material and painting them will only allow the paint to go into the PCB layers and will introduce interference/connectivity/signal wise. If you're like Linus Sebastien and want to go out with a drama...be my guest but for all intents and purposes, unless this card is expendable or you want to sacrifice it for the sake of experience then you're better off spending less resources on buying a wireless adapter that is USB driven, plugged in at the front end of your chassis or dropping some money on a wireless NGFF/msata card with some extension/antenna's.

I apologize for shooting your idea down but it's not in our ethics to help you destroy a functional hardware, even though it'd have been your money wasted

 

[swazitron]

The heatsink is made of aluminium and as such is anodized to be red. This means it's electrically treated and removing it will only be a PITA or you'll need a lot of time and patience to accomplish what you want. I'd suggest you use an abrasive scotch brite pad and go over the heatsink a couple of times to create an etch. The etch will create grooves for the paint to adhere. Seeing that the heatsink has many abnormal crevice's it's not going to end well for you, i.e you're going to end up with multiple coats of paint and they will look like runs.

On the topic of being thermally conductive, the point to keep in mind is to get rid of any intermediary layers in your paint thus if it's possible to find a shop that can do anodizing for your heatsink but it won't be cheap. The point I made earlier about multiple runs, thick coats, will impede your heat transference and in essence will drop your adapter's performance.

Regarding the PCB, they are porous material and painting them will only allow the paint to go into the PCB layers and will introduce interference/connectivity/signal wise. If you're like Linus Sebastien and want to go out with a drama...be my guest but for all intents and purposes, unless this card is expendable or you want to sacrifice it for the sake of experience then you're better off spending less resources on buying a wireless adapter that is USB driven, plugged in at the front end of your chassis or dropping some money on a wireless NGFF/msata card with some extension/antenna's.

I apologize for shooting your idea down but it's not in our ethics to help you destroy a functional hardware, even though it'd have been your money wasted

I went ahead and did it. I removed the red anodized layer wth Easy-Off and sprayed the heat sink down with white Plasti-Dip. I did not end up painting the PCB, but the heat sink looks good. I also did not paint the backside of the heat sink, where the thermal pad touches the heat sink. I had no issues covering all the little grooves with paint. I also probed the temperature of the heat sink before painting it and throughout a few hours of use it never went above 30 C so heat is not going to be an issue I'm sure. I'm on mobile so I can't take a picture but it ended up really well.

I would recommend to others that you try this out on a piece of equipment that isn't super essential first and to use Plasti-Dip.

What's nice about it is that it's pretty forgiving. If you collosally screw up you can peel it off or dissolve it off with a non-polar solvent. It's also basically rubber so you don't have to worry as much about it conducting electricity. It is, however, an insulator so it will basically kill the whole point of having a heat sink but in this case, the trade-off was not a big deal as the heat sink didn't get hot in the first place and it's in a very well ventilated case.

I'm very pleased with the result.

 

[Lutfij]

You actually pulled it off like a professional

I was going to recommend Plastidip but the grooves/angles were the issue since plastidip when applied in thick layers end up being a dollop and not a coat. I know it's rubber based that;s why it's possible to take the paint layer off with simply your finger nail or with some careful peeling. On a flip side, you don't get to see the underside of the heatsink unless you're OCD and you have eyes between the heatsink and PCB.