Hi, not sure if this is the proper forum for this question, I havnt posted for quite some time. But does anyone know the life span of the debit card custom conversion? I got mine put in a little less than a year ago and its been working great, but about two weeks ago it’s started to have some issues with card readers where I frequent daily. Some readers won’t read at all, others take a little finagling to get the placement just right, and the rest still read it without issue.
I have it placed on the top of my left hand between P4 and P1, would the flexing of my hand slowly wear down the effectiveness of the antenna/coil? Or it be more usage over time thats causing it to be less effective?
Any info or suggestions on how/what test I could do would be mighty appreciated. It doesn’t expire for another 2 years and I’d like to increase its longevity as much as possible.
It depends… a slow failure might indicate moisture infiltrated through the polymer. Did you take it to an artist for installation?
I did go to a body mod artist, yes. I went to Dana Dracula (and after taking a quick peak I see is now officially on the partner map <3)
Is there a way to check without taking it out if moisture got in? Like if I were to use the “hf tune” on a pm3, is there a range it should be at? Or is more of a visual inspection and I’d have to take it out to find out?
Follow up question, is it going to be dangerous to keep it in my hand if moisture has gotten through the polymer? Is there the possibility that means theres a crack or hole where something toxic can seep out of it?
If moisture can get in, it can get out along with whatever implant internals it takes with it Not ideal. What’s worse is the possibility of some form of bacteria using it as a form of Forward Operating Base or hideout.
Only if that is the case, though
I’m going to hope it’s not moisture. I really do not want to have to take this one out. There’s no pain, swelling, or redness, and this started a couple ish weeks ago. I’m hoping it’s just their card readers since some other ones can read it without issue. If I have to get another then oh well. I’ll get another.
Do you know if they autoclaved it to sterilize it?
She did not, I brought the chip with me to the apt, so there was no time before hand to autoclave it. Except for when she numbed up my hand, the chip was in my sight on the table. and I do believe she only used her fingers to put the chip in, no forecepts.
Ok good to know. The only time I’ve every seen failures are 1) moisture infiltration which is slow as you’ve observed, or 2) antenna failure which is an immediate and complete loss of operation.
Autoclaving them results in a slow infiltration of moisture which in turn causes a slow failure over modality like increasingly bad performance over days to weeks until it stops working completely. Generally though this process will start within a few short weeks to several months after autoclaving, and you mentioned you’re closer to a year on at this point. It could have been damaged somehow in daily use, or there might have been a defect in production. We use clean room assembly but sometimes a very small fiber can lay itself across the trim line, basically acting like a very tiny wick to slowly move moisture from the outside edge into the device. We do visual inspection under a microscope before final release, but some fibers are basically optically clear and extremely difficult to see.
Sadly I think you will continue to see performance loss until it no longer works. It will need to be replaced. Reply to your order confirmation email and we’ll work out a solution.
Oh, saddest of pandas.
I do have some errands and shopping to do this weekend, so I’m going to do a little bit of testing with other card readers. If this is a card reader issue, I don’t want pin the issue on the implant or DT and make either look bad in anyway. I have two other implants and they’re great quality.
From my current usage, I’ve only noticed problems with 3 companies I frequently daily, but phones, vending machines, my flipperzero and pm3, and other places are almost perfect.
I’ll still reply to my order confirmation, but i would like to get a larger sample size of different readers to make completely sure that its the implant and not something else.
If it was working great with these readers and now it’s not… chances are it’s starting to have issues.
This is confusing though.
Agreed… keep us updated!
Same! That’s why it leads me to believe it’s a reader issue but it would be wildly coincidental that the three places I go to daily would start failing all at once. That’s why I turned to the forums.
Of course! I should have my completed sample group by Sunday evening-ish
Hey, just thought I might chime in. I had a Walletmor fail on me due to moisture infiltration and mine also slowly, over multiple years, started to be harder to read on some readers while others were fine. Mine was installed in the knife edge before that location was known as a no-go. I experienced joint pain and muscle aches/stiffness due to increased systemic inflamation, which was confirmed via a blood test where my CRP levels were elevated. I was also tested for trace metals contained in solder and PCBs, these tests were negative however. The implant stopped working about 2-3 days after removal, but was somewhat functional until then. Here are some pics that I haven’t shared yet. (This was about 2 months ago and I haven’t come around to making a full write-up yet.)
Do you about when this started? I havnt experienced any of this [yet]
I’m pretty sure that DT uses lead free solder. And I since the moisture infiltration process is a slow one, the time it’ll take for anything to leach out is should also be pretty long.
Also, I’d expect the performance degradation to be caused at first by the resistance of the fluids that make it into the implant. Circuits that are exposed to moisture while powered tend to suffer from galvanic corrosion but unpowered electronics don’t corrode as fast, especially if the solder mask is in good shape. Although moisture and oxygen can make it past this layer and corrode the copper traces but this is rare.
Anyways, I’m kinda curious about that inflammation now.
yep.
yes if it’s due to a fiber… to be totally fair, very early encapsulation processes had serious issues which would allow some flex to kind of “split”, opening quite the hole… though this has not been a problem for many years now (since ~2018ish).
It has more to do with the “salt water” that makes up most of your body fluids acting to change the antenna tuning and performance… if anything resistance goes down as it starts to form shunts across antenna traces as it infiltrates.
Yeah, there’s also a capacitive component to filling an implant with salt water…
I need to do less (pointless but required) paperwork, it’s messing with my brain.
It started about 1 year ago. I had the implant installed for about 4-5 years at that point I believe. To be fair, I have an autoimmune disease and my body reacts quite aggressively to inflammation changes, not everyone would get such symptoms. However, I would still think that inflammation would probably be higher than usual, even without symptoms. This can be measured with a CRP blood test, if you are willing to get some blood drawn. However, a normal CRP value does not have to mean that it is not failing. Hope I could help somewhat ^^
For starters, sorry for the delayed update. Was really tired after work and took a nap
So after going to a couple different stores and nad places, and talking with a coworker, I can say for the most part that there is nothing wrong with my implant.
First: For some background with my coworker, our “lunch” is around 2030 and Culvers is the only place within walking distance that’s still open. I was talking to him about my concerns with my implant and the troubles Ive been having and he said that he’s also had issues with their card reader recently to the point that he’s had to use cash a few times. So score 1 for card readers
Second: For the second most common place I go, I decided to go to their other location in town. My implant did work on the second try but it worked almost right away, so it’s possible that I had it a little to far from the reader’s antenna. Whereas the primary location won’t accept it at all. So we’ll say half a point to both sides.
Finally: I ate out at few places I don’t normally go and did some shopping, and my chip worked almost immediately at all of them. One of them did take two tries but I hadn’t been there since I got my implant so I’m chalking that one up to being too far from the antenna. Score 1 for card readers
it seems that by some extremely wild coincidence, the three places I go the most just happen to have issues with their card readers (Im not fully convinced, but I can’t argue with the evidence). I’m still going to continue to monitor it a little closer and expand my sample pool even further (just stopped by Maverick, worked w/o issue)
Ok sounds good. Have the card readers which are difficult to read at been moved, or other metal objects been moved closer to them?
Could also be the make / model? Are they all the same type of reader at these 3 places? A recent firmware update may have changed their performance? The new NFC v5 spec came out recently… terminals might be getting rolling upgrades…
I realise the new nfc spec is for longer range operation, however this could also backfire a bit for older transponders not compliant with 15… not sure… anything is possible, especially with badly implemented updates. Payment terminals are typically focused on active-active NFC with phones, and kind of eschew cards and fobs… so I would not be surprised if an update focused on that and basically blew off any detrminetal effects it might have on passive card communication.