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Gameboy Advanced: The Quest For Color (Outside)
zenintrude writes: "Unfulfilled by Nintendo's current offering of GBA colors? Why not buy a Blank Slate (formerly known as 'Arctic') GBA, and dye it your favorite shade? If nothing else, it will pass the time until Portable Monopoly is back fighting the good fight." It seems that question ("Why not?") is not rhetorical -- if four bottles of RIT dye don't do the trick, maybe nature never intended it to be. I will wait until Gameboys are given away with cereal before I try such a thing.
Yes, but the real reason of owning one is to look at the screen. The color outside makes no difference. Playing the games is what matters. The thing is not a fashion statement.
Game Boy Advance people. And for future reference it's Gamecube, not Gamecubed.
You are pretty offensive. You are also wrong.
From the Rit dye faq:
Can I use Rit to dye materials other than fabrics?
Rit dyes can also be used to color wood, paper, plastics, canvas shoes, and many craft materials.
I think a product like Plaid's Paint for Plastic (here) would probably work pretty well on a gameboy. RIT works fine on nylon, but it's not going to be able to do a decent job on hard plastics.
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When is somebody gonna get Linux running on these things, so we can have a Beowulf cluster that's "All the colors of the Rainbow?"
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Why not use a high-quality automotive paint? Slick that puppy right up! What made him think black dye would do the trick?
Personally, I'd recommend FlexProducts' Chromaflair colorshifting paint, with a polypropylene/urethane primer to soften the plastic a bit first.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
RIT is a decent product, but for plastics, there is some other kind of dye that was around 10 years ago used for RC car wheels. You'd mix this stuff in water, but your plain-old white nylon plastic RC car wheels in overnight, and it would dye the plastic very nicely. Anyone remember what this stuff was? Sounds like that's what you would want to use for plastics.
--- witty signature
If you go to a big auto parts store, you should be able to find one of 2 products that will work perfectly for this:
1. A bottle of black dye with a sponge applicator on top. It's used for restoring faded black plastic on car bumpers and other crap. Make sure it's the dye, and not just the Armor All type stuff that makes it shine. This is harder to find than the next product, but you should be able to find it on carparts.com or something.
2. Go to the spray paint section. Near the paint section, you should be able to find what looks like cans of spray paint, but is for Vinyl tops on cars, plastic pieces, and possibly even carpet. Depending on the brand, some of it is actually dye, not paint. I don't have the brand name handy, but I used it to dye a beige plastic front of a computer case to charcoal gray, and it looks absolutely perfect. It doesn't scrape off unless you take a chunk of plastic with it.
Maybe he should have done some research before just going out and buying RIT dye.
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Does this mean I'll be able to tie-dye my GBA?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I guess I should've mentioned that I have a very low threshold for acceptable. Guess it's that punk rock sensibility.
RIT Dye isn't really all that good on anything besides fabrics. According to his description of the dye (powdered, all purpose, concentrated), it sounds like the same stuff I have. From the package: "Not recommended for 100% polyester, 100% acrylic or fabrics with special finishes, rubber backing..." I mean, if it's not expected to work on polyester, I don't know what kinda results are expected on injection molded plastic. I dyed a pair of shorts tonight and they turned out fine, a little variegated in shade of black but still totally fine, but these were 100% cotton. There was a patch made out of tightly wound colored cotton thread which did not dye, so consider that. As for another post, which said spray paint, you have to be really careful about that. Spray paint can really easy warp plastics like this, even the kind that are supposed to be used on models (Testor, etc). The whole thing sounds a little stupid to me, if I were trying to do the same thing I'd just buy a few sharpies and color the whole thing in by hand.
You can't just put your gameboy in a tub of dye and change it to your favourite color. ....course, no one will heed my warnings, OSDN will be filled with cries of agony as one gameboy after another is destroyed in this quest for new colors.
Maybe there IS room for MSFT in the game market!
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Rit Dye is manufactured and guaranteed primarily for tinting and dyeing washable textile fabrics. It is, however, effective for coloring many types of vinyl or plastic articles, such as jewelry (simulated pearls), buttons, rivets, and eyeglass frames, etc.
So there you go. But there are definitely paints much better suited to the task.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
You don't dye plastic, you paint it. He needs to go to a plastic supply house and talk to them. They can sell him a light solvent to soften the material, and then they can make him a jar of custom paint matched to any shade he wants. For a few extra dollars they will sell you a aerosol attachment so you can spray the paint.
Take the RIT Dye, GBA, and FIRED clay mold (go to an arts and crafts store) put the GBA peices in the mold (with the inside peices there to keep it's parameters/stop it from warping)
Boil the RIT dye solution (Make it a little heavier since you're not dying cloth. Put as much as you can in there. Drop the GBA in the dye, and boil it for an hour or two. Pull it out, let it cool, and it should dye without shrinking.
Course, a REAL MAN would make a PLASTER MOLD of the GBA, inside and out, and pick up the stuff you need to make one out of CARBON FIBER, or FIBERGLASS/Resin. A friend of mine converted a streetbike for enduro racing and did just that. It came out green, and black (thread/fiber yarn) zigzagged. it ROCKED!!
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
There is a company in the Radio Control Car industry called Litespeed products. I can't find a web site for them, but any hobby dealer, and possibly Tower Hobbies could get the stuff for you. Aside from making a cool set of low loss battery connectors, they had a product called Dylon. It was made in a number of colors, and produced good results with white nylon parts, such as those used in Associated Electrics' products, at least untill the mid 90's. Dylon was used on styrene parts, but the colors tended to be much more faint. Red dye produced light pink styrene parts.
I think the real issue here isn't the poor choice of coloring method so much as the fact that the poor sucker put plastic (that they were obviously unfamiliar with) in warm water overnight).
From the last posting: "The worst part is that I wasn't careful, and warped the plastic."
Of course, there's also the issue of using nail polish remover to attempt to clear up DYE blotches!
Anyway, I think we all know that real men use duct tape for all their stylization needs, and I know a hardware store that sells in over 50 different colors. Stupid idea? At least it won't warp the actual casing.
I guess you could just use spray or car paint, but wouldn't that take the fun out of it?.... I mean, ya don't even get to melt anything!
If anything Nintendo has proven recently, they're all about the color choices. Granted, most of their choices aren't ones many sane people would buy, but hey, they're there. Testament to this is the 6+ colors available for the Gameboy Color, or the variety of N64 colors (and, for Pokemon crazies, shapes) available.
Plus, don't forget, Nintendo has released other colors (metallic hues, as I understand it, that change color as you tilt it in the light) as special Pokemon editions in Japan (just do a search on eBay for "Gameboy Advance Pokemon", you're sure to turn up some hits with pictures). And then there's the Fuchsia version that's out/about to come out (clear pinkish color).
Just be patient, is what I'm saying, it's in Nintendo's nature to release more colors.
Oh, and we can never forget this beast of the dark side... yech
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
This from the same guy who uses the word "Links" (the game) and "Links" interchangeably.
/.
Did he really think dye would work? Why would anyone think of dye for anything other than fabric?
Although, this hello kitty gameboy on his site looks "super" cool!
Please, no more Geocities links on
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
But honestly, I've spent over $300 in Game Boy Advance merchandise in the past 2 weeks (one import, one US and 3 games). Do I really want to risk this?
Portable Monopoly?
You mean this?
It does bear a striking resemblance to GBA, don't you think?
Friends don't let friends buy Rit dye.