Black USB 3.0 ports

[Konrad]

Title says it all. I'm looking for some USB 3.0 ports, the standard A-Receptacle host/port (or 2-port) part ... with black plastic. Black (hell, even a charcoal grey or something) instead of the obnoxious "Pantone Blue 300C" recommended in USB3 spec and eagerly implemented by every USB3 vendor/product.

I've seen a few red ones, a few yellow ones. Conspicuously marked ports meant to deliver dedicated power to unenumerated USB devices for charging purposes only. Probably compatible with my purpose (assuming all the usual data/signal wires will still fit into their designated spots), except that I won't accomplish much by swapping out one bright annoying colour I don't want for another bright annoying colour I don't want.

Complete port components or just these plastic port subcomponents would be ideal. Cheap devices like hubs/etc from which black ports can be extracted or swapped would be good, too. I've found one or two laptop models which appear to use one or two non-blue USB3 ports each, but they'd be a ridiculously expensive source from which to cannibalize such trivial parts.

Another option might be 3D-printed replacement plastics. The part geometry seems a little bit more involved than I'd like to carve and fashion by hand. Many times.

Does anyone know a source of such black port parts, quantity of maybe one dozen pieces?

Yet another option might be a black resurfacing of the existing blue plastic. They seem to invariably be made of "engineering-grade plastics" selected for hard wearing durability, which I expect usually means some ABS or ABS-blended equivalent. I'm not sure how I would "paint" ABS with an (electrically nonconductive) coat capable of penetrating or layering or otherwise resisting many insert/remove cycles of wearing. The "plastic fusion" paints I'm familiar with all happen to contain metallic particles. ABS (or whatever thermoplastic) materials won't survive a powder-coat baking process. And I don't want any of that nasty yucky blue to ever show through!

Does anyone have advice to permanently blacken these blue plastics?

[Edit: wiring and soldering and component mounting isn't an issue, so long as the receptacle meets USB3 spec, is electrically and mechanically intact, and isn't stupidly blue!]

[Konrad]

Bumpy edit ...

Transparent or translucent plastics would be good too (if combined with an exciting LED), although as far as I'm aware such materials tend to be too soft or too brittle to last long in this application.

[TLHarrell]

Dye it. Rit Dye should be capable of turning it fully black. Look up instructions via Google.

[Konrad]

Hmm, looked Rit Dye up. Acetone. Problem: polymer + ketone = depolymerization = part becomes partially melted and deformed goo.

ABS is actually a blend of three very different thermoplastics, at least one of which would react quite poorly to solvent exposure. I don't really know if the USB port plastic actually is ABS, of course (let alone what grade of ABS or what other polymers might be blended in), but it seems a reasonable bet (it's cheap, common, fits spec, and would be the material I'd choose to use if I had to engineer the part). No markings (not even plastic recycling info) can be found, no specifics about this material can be obtained from the alleged manufacturer.

I found some videos demonstrating Rit Dye on ABS. And many comments condemning the practice or reporting highly variable (often poor) results. I think some confusion arises from the fact that many people haven't properly identified exactly which particular plastic they're working with - much as I can't easily identify the plastic in these parts.

Never thought of dye, though. Even if the Rit product perhaps seems a little dodgy, Parasol offers some alternatives which look fairly promising.

[TLHarrell]

It would be easier than replacing the plastic with something else. You wouldn't even need to disassemble the ports.

[Konrad]

It seems like my only real option in today's Pantone Blue 300C world. I'll give dye a shot (on only a couple parts at first) and report my results.

[WindlCrync]

Have you considered trying Rit Dye to turn your USB 3.0 ports black, and are you aware of the potential challenges, especially regarding the polymer and solvent reactions?