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Comment by qwertox | Hacker News Reader

I hate electrical tape. It becomes sticky after some time, when it starts to smear because it got moved or stopped sticking to the surface.

I bought a set of nail polish and use the black one to paint over the LEDs, it even allows you to control how much you want to cover it, in case you still want to have a bit of light to see if it's on or off.

Other colors can be used to mark pins on breakout boards or cables. It's really useful to have around.

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The really nice thing about electrical tape is that has an extremely high ignition tempature, and strong voltage resistance, so can throw it on stuff that gets hot (in either sense) and not worry about it. I use it to block off the annoying LED "backlighting" on my PS5... that gets warm enough that I'd be nervous about some tapes. Also handy for actual electrical stuff, like that one speaker wire that loves to comeout of the terminal on my stereo if I look at it funny. I've had some strips of it for years and have never had problems with "smearing" or adhesion.

I've had some success with kapton tape, it drops the 'bright blue' down to a dull orange. Not perfect but its adhesive and knocks the brightness of the led down.

The stuff I use (3M) is opaque to anything you’d reasonably think of doing this to.

Got a name? i'm always looking for a cheaper/better options.

Gotta buy better electrical tape. Scotch Super 33+ is amazing.

Tape is really backing (whatever) + glue. The glue can vary a lot in quality and properties.

F.ex. Patched a hole in a Miata top with some duct tape = gone in 2 weeks in high summer heat. Used some "high strength" heat-tolerant duct tape = still there, 3 years of summer and winter later. The latter was ~$5 more expensive.

> I hate electrical tape.

Same. I’ve used aluminum tape to block LEDs, works great.

Oh, yeah. Aluminum foil tape is an all-purpose wonder. It's often used for air ducts, although it isn't what you think of when you say "duct tape."

Duct tape is/was actually duck tape. Duck is the name of a fabric.

I'm not intending to suggest there aren't better solutions than periodically taping & cleaning, but a can of adhesive cleaner stuff will make short work of that mess, worth having.

(The one I use - mainly for barcode etc. stickers with shitty adhesive that doesn't peel off nicely - is by 'Pro Power' which I think is CPC's house brand, so that's not helpful if you're outside the UK.)

I use MG chemicals safety wash in the US -- particularly formulated to be safe on plastics and electronics.

Oil based paint sharpies are an alternative and useful for writing things with as well.

black gaffer’s tape is perfect for covering LEDs long term without any residue.

maybe i just bought cheap tape, but i've definitely found gaffers tape to leave a residue if left in place for a couple years. especially on electronics that are generating some heat.

The good stuff is like 20 or 30 bucks for a roll. I just pulled off a piece that was stuck to glass for 4 years and it came off residue free.

There’s some really crappy offbrand gaffer tape on Amazon these days. The “pro gaff“ brand which costs around $30 a roll is the good stuff I recommend. (Source: I run a theater and pay hundreds of dollars a year for gaff tape. I have tried a wide variety of brands and price points.)

I would be worried about that.. had some gaffer's tape in my car's interiors, left horrible residue after a year or so.

I use sticker note tape for these. There are colord variant of it, which comes blue/red/green/yellow. They are tapes, so you can decide how long it is required, while being easily removable without leftover because it is sticker note.

Something like these: https://images.app.goo.gl/aCK31v9x8Ea2uE7P6

Those tapes (which I sometimes describe as just the sticky part of a sticky note) are also great for labeling when you want something that takes ink/pencil more nicely than masking tape.

I use blu-tack putty, it’s opaque, easy to apply/remove. Its not flat though

Copper foil tape works well too.

Blue Tac?

Seems to be similar to UHU patafix which I also do use to cover LEDs on devices like ESP32 boards.

https://www.uhu.com/en/product-page/patafix-white/35211

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