A rumble in the distance. Big things are coming.

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  • edited September 2015
    Maybe. I'll try it in a few days and we'll see if the chip can still receive signal through the metal layer. If not you'll need a silicon or polymer coating, I suggest pdms. I'll be looking into pdms and soft lithography but with school and the 80000000 things i need to do already it'll be a bit till I can add polymer coatings to my list of services, while metal and TiN will be very soon.
  • Earlier in this thread you were talking about diamond coating? What does that involve?
  • That's an even more agressive and hot process but I could also try that. still waiting on the tungsten wire though so until that shows up i can't. Normally it's done on metal or glass but i'll certainly try it on plastics and see if it just melts them.
  • edited September 2015
    new blog post: link

    Turns out the reactor was acting as a catalyst for the carbon capped particles. So when i switched to a teflon reactor it stopped working. Finally got a good batch to work today now that i'm adding catalyst in manually. Also I didn't put it on the blog but i'm looking into coating the particles in silica. For those who are gentically minded may know that silica beads can be used to extract dna from tissue very easily and cheaply. Currently it's the standard. The other method is to chemically attach dna to iron nanoparticles and then suck it out of solution with a magnet. I thought i could do better and after discussion with my genetics proff i'm gonna see if i can do just that this weekend and over the next week or two. If that all goes well he's letting me try it out in his lab. I'm excited to say the least. And now that im making particles again i have feedstock for the fluorescent ones so i can get some research samples of that as well. And finally every bodies favorite, graphene. Turns out i can make it using hydrothermal synthesis. gonna try it out this weekend as well and i'll let ya know how it goes, if it goes well i'll make a video.

    edit: forgot to mention, chamber 1 imploded and now has to be rebuilt (that was the diamond one). Vacuum system is still fine and i ducked before it got me. Still working on the sputtering but it's giving me issues and may send out for a 3d printed steel part cause i lack a welder atm.
  • How did you implode a chamber?
  • It was the first chamber i'd made so it was of lower quality. There was a slight crack in the top that had been hidden by the epoxy i'd used to hold  the gas inlet on. I accidentally touched an elelctrode to ti and the heat of the arc on the inside of the chamber made the crack lengthen. I saw it happen and dove out of the way before the implosion. I'm still finding glass in the lab. It was a stupid mistake
    but now i've learned and have an excuse to make it better next time
  • When you said there was a rumble in the distance, I didn't expect it to be as loud as an imploding vacuum chamber. How did you cut the hole for the gas inlet? And how thick was the glass? 

    Also, as a rule, I generally wear protective gear comparable to a lower-end blast suit whenever I work with anything that can explode. Doubled denim does a fair job of catching shrapnel and embers. If you can get one, a winter-weight military jacket (Not a coat) does an incredible job of shedding embers and keeping heat in, and out. It's also pretty resistant to chemicals. I haven't tested it's resistance to shrapnel yet, though. 

    It'll be more expensive, but have you considered using laminated glass, or draping the chamber with welding backdrops? 

    Finally, what kind of steel part do you need for sputtering? Also, any chance you could do a quick video on the specs and construction of your reactors?
  • edited September 2015
    The exploding reactor actually gives me a great chance to show how I make them. I use a dremel and diamond bit to cut the glass. the trick is to use a bit of modeling clay or plastacine to make a little pool of water around where you're cutting. Keeps the glass cool and you cut much faster. I keep a pippette full of water next to me and am constantly dousing it with water as I cut once there's a hole through since the water just drains away. Glass is a about a quarter to 3/8ths thick. It's a regular glass jar. I have a big stainless steel vacuum chamebr i've been eyeing but i'll only move to that once I have a functional system. i need to know the parts can take the abuse before I got and work a 400 dollar chamber.  Honestly the glass doesn't have very much mass and becuase it's an IMplosion a lot of the energy is lost before it can get to you, so long as you're not sitting right next to it. I am working on installing a blast shield though just in case. It's too damn hot in my house for that sort of coatage but in winter i'll be wearing something heavier. Im always wearing pants and a lab coat though so that helps. 

    The steel piece is what holds the magnet, the material you're gonna sputter and acts as the main electrode. It's intrinsically easy to make but i was using epoxy to hold the pieces together which is less than idea since it gets really hot, even with water cooling. I had about a liter of ice water being pumped through the thing and the whole litre was luke warm within a minute or two of running the thing. I had a nice 3d model of the part but my computer crashed before i saved so i only have an older version of the part. It'd still give you an idea of what it'll look like if you're interested but i haven't had time to sit down and re-do it so it's not accurate to what the final thing need to look like. Also 3d printing is expensive whereas if i could weld the bits quickly myself it'd be far cheaper. Theres an autoshop down the road, may ask them to weld it for me.

    Also, if you see me running, i suggest you follow suit. My work has a habbit of becoming energetic XD. So if i say rumble, assume something big is actually coming. 
  • edited September 2015
    Well it's been a productive day and the day isn't over yet. I just did a thing that could actually make a big impact. DNA extraction is usually done through a couple techniques but they all have their drawbacks. One of the main ones used now is the use of silica beads. DNA will bind to the beads under high salt conditions while other cell fragments pass right through. By then adding some clean solvent the DNA lets go and you've got your sample. This has a few problems that I won't get into now. The other method is to chemically modify the DNA straight out of the cells and then use iron nanoparticles to chemically grab the DNA, then using an electromagnet you pull it out of solution. rinse the plate then release the magnet and you've got clean DNA. Big problem with this one is the chemical modification. 

    What i've done is hopefully fuse the two. I used the carbon capped particles i've been working on and have successfully coated them in silica. Going to eb going in to one of my professors labs to try them out. I'll keep you updated. 

    Other house keeping things, the youtube channel is gonna get moved around. I think for the sake of numbers i'll be moving the videos on to my old channel (that has 16000 subs, vs the current one which has 300). Same content but different location so for those interested in following my work you'll have to sub the other channel for updates. Gonna spend the night overhauling the old channel to make it hospitable for biohacking stuff. Not a real change, just a beurocratic one that needs to be done. I'll give more details on this tomorrow once the move is done and stuff but just a heads up.
  • Updated my implant video and moved it to the correct channel: link

    also at the end I showed the silica particles quickly for those interested.
  • Just talked to my professor. On Friday I'll be going in for the first time to try out the silica magnetic particles to try and extract DNA.He's very interested in my nanoparticle work and im sure I can grab his attention with biohacking projects as well. He's giving me essentially free reign of his lab and is head of the bio department so could mean access to all kinds of fun toys. I'll keep ya updated but this could be really exciting.
  • I just was checking out some of your videos very awesome stuff your doing. Keep the updates rolling. I've been reading it all as it comes out.
  • Say, what vacuum pressure are you using for your chambers?
  • IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! wabalubadubdub!!! Spent the morning in my proffs lab using the silica particles to pass DNA from one vial to the next. It loses a bit on the way but it still works well for a first go. Still lots to refine and i'll need to see if the particles are working because of the silica or because of something else. I also need to adjust the particles and stuff. But point it, I could be well on my way to a new method to extract DNA.

    @thegreyknight usually about 10^-3 to 10^-5 torr. Depending on what I'm doing and if I'm using a diffusion pump or not, which currently I'm not. So usually 10^-3, although deeper is almost always better
  • Will a refrigerator pump do the job? Or am I going to need a real vacuum pump?
  • Sorry @chironex but I can't resist this.....that's what she said........

    Anyway have you documented it? And would this be the first time it's been done? I can only imagine what this could be used for outside of biohacking if it turns out to be "better" then either one of the other methods.
  • You need a real one. Fridge won't work I tried trust me. A decent one is like 50 bucks? not bad really.

    There's 1 other product i've seen that's similar but mine is made through a completely green method and is a bit different. Ya if it works well it could well replace the kits many people use. I document constantly and am currently looking into a patent on it and once I have it I'll show exactly how it works. It's pretty simple though. Which is what makes it nice. We used stuff every lab has and it worked well. No special tech needed at all.
  • So crazy thought what would be required, bare minimum, to identify the species of the sample? Device wise is what I'm looking for with the assumption you already have the profile of that species on record.
  • What species? You mean the DNA I used? I used whatever the grad students didn't need XD TOPO DNA. it's a plasmid about 29kbp long. That and the silica nanoparticles is pretty much all you need except some buffer and a salt. I'm working out which salt works best and how to make the particles better so they pick up and release DNA on command efficiently. If you're using them to identify a species you'd break open some cells, drop these in with the salt and then use a magnet to pick them up, move them to a new well and add the release solution. They'd let go of the DNA which you can then purify and analyze using pcr or mass sequencing or something.
  • I was talking about using your system in conjunction with a device to determine a species instead of just showing DNA is there.

    My thought is can it be used by a game warden with a device to identify a species of animal be it human, deer, or what ever.

    Am I just daydreaming or do you think that it could be possible to do? I'm not to sure about DNA so I'm sorry if it's an odd question.
  • If micropore tech works then yes eventually it could be used in a hand held device, probably with cartriges at least in the first few models. It's a year or two off I think. When they sort out micropore to actually sequence something in a small space then the rest is easy. extracting DNA is also easy, but my method makes it easier and cheaper
  • I wasn't aware there was a name to that. My thought was like a glucose tester where you put the sample in and it compares a certain preloaded data base of X size.

    I'll have to look into micro pore it sounds very interesting to me.
  • So i was reading into magnetic silica beads online. I think im really onto something here. All the ones i've seen are made through nasty methods and/or are expensive as hell, whereas mine is dirt cheap all around. I'll go into the lab either this week or next and try rerunning mine with the updated protocol I've drawn up and see if it all works better. By all counts it should and if it does it'll be exciting. Also redid the fluorescent magnetic particles and got a much better particle size and volume and it's a much nicer pink now rather than dirty purple. 
  • Potential success, more testing needed. I think I managed to plate TiN onto a bit of wire and glass. Only had time to run 1 test before the idea broke :P But now I know I can do it, I just need to improve the system and I could be plating TiN. No promises but could be a thing soon. Also big news and other bits to come later.
  • Ok so lots of news and things and stuff. 

    Graphene, new video of how I made it and a quick little first project with it: LINK

    TiN, made a new special chamber just for TiN and it works great. Got the nice halo that I'm supposed to get and succefully got a very thin layer of TiN onto one of the test implants. It got too hot and the titanium sheet is too thin so I had to stop it before it ran longer. I'm hopefully getting the gas tanks or argon and nitrogen that i'll need for this next weekend. With that and a few adjustments I should be plating TiN soon. I'm making a whole video on it but I'll post some pics of it working. The layer on the implant is too thing to see with a camera, it's more of a sheen at this point because it's so thin. 

    Gold, I've been collecting gold for a while from computer parts  and today finally started processing my collection. I'll be using it to make gold chloride and from that, gold nano particles and maybe some plating. 

    News, Me and a friend came up with this crazy nanoparticle system. We're working with one of my professors to make it and then we'll eb patenting it. Once we have that we'll be unveiling it and a few of my other projects at Body hacking con 2016. I've been invited to speak and will probably make a whole other post about this with more detials. The point is, nanoparticle system is nuts and if it works could mean big things are coming. and my proff agreed to help and iss giving us lab space and materials.

    Silica, My silica particles are still undergoing testing but are showing great results. Managed to move 30ng/uL of DNA with the beads out of the original 80 ng/uL. I'm still refining it and need to test it on a cell lysate but I'll be writing a paper on it soon. Once it's published I'll be selling the beads on my site for people to buy as a kit for cheap.

    Super capactiors, just started playing around with them. they're super wierd but i'm making some graphene now to let me make better ones. i'll update if i make progress but probably wont be getting much more done this weekend.
  • I'll give it a try using a heated solution with polyethylene

  • pics from today:link
  • Does murray's blender method work effectively for creating graphene? I seem to recall he used it when making graphene, but I'm not sure how the yield compares. Also, do you have to scale it directly up from the quantities you mentioned? Or would adding more graphite and more acetone accomplish the same thing?
  • The ratio is highly specific and if u mess with it it doesn't work. A blender works just fine as well, I just don't have a working one on hand. I'm probably going to make a second video at some point soon and I'll be sure to go over the details more carefully. But ya, stick to the ratio of graphite to di water to acetone. It has to be di water too. It scales well though. Made a 500ml batch this weekend, processed 4 more tubes like the one in the video. They're almost done, need another hour probably. Also mechanical graphene is awesome. Little more elbow grease to make but it's so neat! I'm making a video on it as soon as the sander shows up cause doing that shit by hand is aweful. You basically just rub some graphite on something with a soft cloth for 30 min and if that thing is clear plastic, you end up with a highly conductive transparent sheet. using it to make some crazy stuff. Very excited.
  • Crazy stuff like supercapacitors? Also, I haven't tried your experiment with graphene-doped polystyrene, but I melted down some Styrofoam in gasoline, and let the solvent slowly evaporate off over the course of 6-12 months, and the resulting disk of polystyrene was pretty strong. Perhaps it was the result of the solvent I used(I also stored it in an HDPE bottle, so some of that might have leached into the sample), but it seemed like a sample roughly double the thickness of yours possessed about the same structural strength. Not a proper experiment by any means, but it seems to support your hypothesis. Does dissolving Styrofoam into a solvent change its structure, other than allowing the air used to expand it to escape (e.g. Changes into HDPS or LDPS)? Also, what's the best place to get micronized graphite?
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