What cards work for conversion to microcard implant?

Toluene can be used in the manufacture of Methamphetamine… so sell yours to a Meth cook and buy yourself some acetone. :wink:

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TIL that credit cards are made from some relatively obscure copolymer of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate - Polyvinyl chloride acetate.

Would love to, but I’m fresh out of acetone and the specialized stores who sell it are all closed due to the lockdown. I could buy it from a lab supplier but it would cost me my firstborn and it would probably arrive after the lockdown is lifted since I’m a low priority customer. And I very much doubt the cook would have any to trade :wink:

No problems, just grab some nail polish remover :+1:

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No dice, some years ago all nail polish removers in regular stores were moved to oil based shit. Will try buying, bit I doubt it will work. Will do a solubility test in some “household” items tonight

Where do you live again?

Interesting, As far as I know, the ones in NZ still have acetone, I wonder why they went away from it?
Anyway, regular stores…What about from a $2 shop full of Chinese imported stuff?

I havent tried it, but you could look at “Model Cement” sounds like a glue, but it actually melts the plastic…not sure what it would do to the Chip though, so maybe a test on a cheap test card first…

All I can think of at the moment, I hope you find something…If so let us know :+1:

Some years ago it was added to the list of substances where suspicious purchases have to be reported to the police, and since then it has been gradually phased out (same thing happened to hydrogen peroxide above 12% I think, and some nitrates, nitromethane…). Well, acetone + h2o2 is easily explainable (the form an extremely unstable and dangerous primary explosive acetone peroxide, sometimes called ‘Mother of satan’, which was already used in terrorist attacks several times), and I can easily see why they would want to prevent that.
But AFAIK most explosives used in terrorist attacks are nitrogen based.

I think since the beginning of this year, even purchase of sulfuric acid has become impossible for normal citizens. Terror paranoia just makes me sad, and makes life unnecessarily difficult for amateur chemists. → harder to get into → harder to develop a love for it → less passionate chemists who can discover new and amazing things

yep in the uk we have a similar act in fact 2 one of which is the precursor of explosives that effectively banned any chemical that could be used for oxidization or fuel during an explosion this included things like potassium nitrate, high strength acetone and hydrogen peroxide over a certain %

Oh yeah? Maybe they should consider adding propane-butane gas cylinders to the list too since they are just an insane explosion hazard :confused:

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Some unlikely substances end up on those lists.

Years ago, I went to my local harware store (not big box, a high street mom and pop store I liked patronizing) to buy 10 lbs of baking soda, to make an electrolytic bath to remove rust out of a bunch of old gun barrels.

The little old lady who ran the store asked me my ID card and my reasons for the purchase. I obliged, but I was surprised, so I asked her why she asked me that. She told me baking soda is used for cooking meth or some such drug, and that she had to report the names of those who requested unusual amounts of the stuff. Just like cough syrup at the chemist.

Funnily enough, she would sell a pound of potassium cyanide, which I use to case-harden soft steel parts and releases large amounts of incredibly toxic vapor when it comes in contact with red hot metal, and which I could use to poison half the neighborhood if I felt murderous, no questions asked. But baking soda? Oh no no!

I once asked a pharmacist if I could buy ammonium nitrate in bulk. They had it, but would not sell it to me, so I walked right over to the pile of instant cool packs which had ammonium nitrate and a little pouch of water inside. You’re supposed to just break the water pouch and it gets cold when it mixes with the ammonium nitrate (endothermic)… they happily sold me their entire stock.

Maybe we should ban water and electricity… with just those two things I could recreate the hindenburg disaster!

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Bit of a derail, but the Hindenburg disaster wasn’t primarily caused by the hydrogen, but by the aluminum-powder-based paint on the outer covering. It charged up with static while the dirigible was aloft, and the mooring line created a spark that ignited the whole affair when it touched the ground.

The hydrogen didn’t help of course…

Haha well sure… but like… when seen from that perspective, suicide bomber jackets aren’t the cause of the disaster either…

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I’m nothing if not pedantic :slight_smile:

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Here at least, they’re based on ethyl acetate and isopropyl alcohol

Not sure that’s any better for your purposes though :man_shrugging:

Hope you find a suitable solvent!

This has been driving me crazy since I’ve been in Sweden! No hydrogen peroxide in the stores or Amazon and no Acetone… can’t do my own nails or hair easily. Definitely a first world problem but gets on my nerves like crazy.

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In Canada you buy that in the dollar store.

Here in UK I was ID-d at the store when I bought some superglue.
I started to laugh so hard…
The cashier pressed a button for security! No joke!
…well actually joke…

The reason I started laughing because I just recently arrived in the UK and was unfamiliar with life in here. I went to the cheap shop to pick up bits and bobs for my new house. I was warned that I’ll be ID checked if I buy kitchen knife, so I brought passport with me.
I went to the cashier to check out, the lady put my stuff in the carrier bag, but the amount I was about to pay was surprisingly low.
-Can I see your ID, sir?
I was like: sure, but let me check if you got everything, because something is not okay with the price.
She was like: Whaa?
I’ma: The money! You must have forgotten something…
Boy, then I noticed the kitchen knife, she didn’t scan it. I smiled at her: You didn’t notice my knife, did you?
…she freaked the F out, no jokes
She said: Step back!
But dude, she was pale! I thought I have an insect on me or what?!
Security came…: Everything alright, sir?
Ima: Get that spider off of me, that freaked the living crap out of this lady!
The whole store is looking at us…
The security guy had long dreads. (me too) I asked him: Can you please check my hair? There’s gotta be something in it. It freaked out the cashier.
Then the lady: That was your knife!
So I took out the knife from my shopping basket and put that on the bench:
-See, she even forgot to check this out for me. I only noticed it cause the bill came like 20quid short.
The guy tapped my shoulder: There’s nothing in your hair, I’m sure. It was something under her hair… (pointing at Emily, the cashier)
I was like: K, so you didn’t see my knife, how on earth did you know you’ll need to see my ID.
She said: Super Glue
Boy, I started laughing so hard, the security came again.
I was like: Dude! You’ve gotta listen to this… Have you heard the joke about the superglue??
He was like: Nah, bring it up, bro!
K, ready? Here we go:

A: What do you eat?
B: Fast bonding superglue…
A: WHAAAT??!!
B: Fast bhmm-hmm hmmmm-pfmmm-bhmmmm.

We were laughing so hard the security from the neighbour shop came over to check if we were alright.

That was a true story!
The security guy h5-d me when we met again!

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dumb ways to die super glue

On track

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Here’s something else that’s disappeared and that’s really annoying: TCE-based metal degreasers. There’s nothing better to clean metal parts. But the European Union, in its infinite wisdom, decided that a cancer-causing chemical that’s usable for recreational purposes has no place in an industrial product. It is however still sold in small bottles as spot remover for grease stains on clothes in supermarkets, so that addicted teenagers can procure it easily and on the cheap. Stupidy stupidy…

Well, I tested with some household solvents, all of which should have had at least some effect according to a chemical compatibility chart for vinyl chloride (which is about 90% of PVCA - so I assumed it would apply). I tested credit card fragments overnight in 1ml each of ethanol. isopropyl alcohol, 20% acetic acid, toluene, oil based nail polish remover. No observed effect with any of them (delamination etc). I can think of a couple of reasons: low temperature: I kept them in a rather cool place overnight as not to flood my tiny apartment with noxious vapours. This usually impacts solubility; inaccurate source material; inapropriate conditions; different characteristics for PVCA. There is a theory that acetone is not only effective for dissolving the material, but that it thoroughly delaminates it and destroys it. Will think of something else in the meantime.