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Methods of acquiring gold and TiN coated N52 + implantation idea + new method of testing coated N52

I have contacted a couple companies willing to do custom orders of coated magnets but they all require minimum purchases that are only feasible in a group purchase. I have found a couple gold plated n52 3mm by 1mm (Same size as m31) and am planning on testing a large batch of around 500 in a heavy  salt water solution and a bleach solution and check for impurities in the gold. I'll coat it in a second layer of preferably titanium nitride. One company called azind creates custom N52's of different sizes and coats but only does them wholesale.

If people are willing to do a group buy it's possible I can set up a fairly large and inexpensive way of manufacturing high quality m31 'clones.' Azind is asking for $166 for 100 magnets coated with tin (I am attempting to get a gold and tin coating, and this price is based off of information I got from another user. I am contacting azind to get an exact quote) and the gold plated n52's are only a couple dollars on ebay (obviously these will be tested, don't immediately assume I'm not proceeding carefully. I may also use azind to get the gold coating)

I am also considering using 5 smaller approximately 1.5mm by 1.5mm and placing two of them on each side of the finger and one in the center. This would allow for a large amount of nerves to be stimulated and can give a slightly more 'tactile' feeling to fields. The magnets are to big to fit in the capillaries and would be coated using the method suggested above making them just as safe as the popular m31. More about how this can be successfully done without friction/shifting is talked about later on.

In a later comment I explain a unique method of assuring everybody gets implantable magnets. This solves a large portion of most peoples reluctance to participate in group purchases because they believe it is a gamble.





Comments

Displaying comments 1 - 30 of 123
  1. *We are not using this method. All Important information can be found later down the thread, almost entirely disregard the above comment and method of getting the magnets.

  2. So your plan is to get the cheapest magnets you can find on ebay. Let them be coated by some random company who just about coats anything as long as they get paid for and expect the result to be safe and sound? And you want to stick 2 or 3 of them in one finger with the possibility of them migrating towards each other and rubbing the coating off leading to worst-case situations?
    Also your topic title is very misleading, you don't name a single supplier, nor providing a method of coating gold/tin nor a method of actual implantation. 

    This pretty much raises a whole forest of red-flags.

    First of all, you probably don't want more than one magnet per finger for safety and comfy reasons. This may be worth a try if you can rely on your magnets performing perfect, but that's certainly as you don't even have some to test at this point.

    Gold coatings are a long discussed subject on this board. Most industrial gold coating processes aren't exactly what you want to have as base material. Gold is soft, and the usual processes involved can leave tiny holes/cavities which are undesired. Thicker gold coats apparently tend to flake off. So even if your magnets appear to be fine in salt water, they still might be far from good for non-chemical reasons. 

    Getting stuff coated in TiN might look easy at first. You can get TiN coated drills and stuff in every hardware store for a few bucks. But that doesn't mean your magnets will turn out to be useful. There is a lot that can go wrong with TiN and apparently it's really difficult to get a coating done that's good enough for implantation. Parylene C is simmilar in most aspects. You can get electronics coated in parylene C to water/moisture proof them for a bargain, doesn't mean your magnets will turn out to be good. The coating might still be adhering poorly, flake off, rip, have holes or whatever else there is that makes your body happily dissolve the magnet and ruin your day with a heavy metal poisoning or a couple of lost fingers.

    Don't rush things. Take your time, read the threads about what was tried and why it did or didn't work out.
    Getting some random magnets, coating them at some random facility and just slamming 5 of them in your finger is like asking for a trip to the emergency room. Worst case even graveyard.

    If you still want to proceed with your plan I suggest you contact Amal. He has a lot of experience with these coating things and might be able to help you testing.
  3. @Thomasegi You just assumed these things without considering the fact I am aware of and am working around these things. Also, where did you get "cheapest ones you can find on ebay?" You appear to be calling me out and you don't have a good reason for it. Don't assume things, ask.
    I have contacted azind, a company that has been mentioned on different threads a couple of times. They will do 100 for $166 and have received good reviews. They will do custom magnets or you can pay them to coat.
    The magnets would be tested using other chemicals that react with the different possible layers such as nickel or copper. I'll also test it under harsh conditions such as bleach and I will view it under a microscope to be completely certain the coat is intact.

    I am aware of the issue of the magnets rubbing together, that's why they are small and fairly spread apart. The magnets will be in a shape the same as the 5 in a domino set, with the incisions for the top magnets going upwards and vice versa for the bottom set. Using magnets of different strengths I can "maneuver" the magnets into pockets under the subdermal layer and fix any movement in position. By micro managing the magnet over the space of about 3/4 days the incision will have healed enough to prevent the magnets form getting close together to have an issue with friction.

    One users account who did something similar stated it did increase his sensitivity to magnetic fields in contrast to a single magnet implant, but his did fail because he only used gold, didn't test it well, and allowed the magnets to grind on eachother compromising the coating of gold.

    One method of getting 5 small N52's in one finger is doing them over time or using an injector to reduce damage to your finger. You could put the magnets in this order and letting the implants heal inbetween:
    n[x]p   p[ ]n

         n[ ]p

    n[ ]p     p[x]n
         
    n[x]p     p[x]n

          n[ ]p

    n[x]p     p[x]n

    and then adding the middle one in. This reduces the chances of the magnets migrating close to each other, and makes it easier to micromanage them until they have healed enough to prevent them from migrating. The magnets would be places on far ends of the finger to further reduce the attraction of the magnets. To also help prevent them from migrating the poles can be specifically placed to repel each other. This process will be very difficult since the magnets rotate orientation, but they can be manipulated using external magnets to attract specific poles to either side of the finger. The middle magnet will be difficult because it will be attracted to one side no matter what (this one isn't advised to get anyway to reduce chances of impact). To further reduce the possibility of rotation the magnet can be 1.5mm by 1mm since cylinders will have a much more difficult time rotating inside of the flesh.
    It will be fairly easy to tell if the magnets are migrating close to each other when their in your hand, if migration occurs (It might not due to the resistance of the tissue between the magnets) it will be obvious.

    One more bonus for using smaller magnets is the fact that it will be much harder for the to be broken on impact, and smaller magnets are easier to inject.

    I'll contact Amal and see if he can give me any advice, even though it isn't 100% necessary for me to coat my own if $166 can be raised towards a group purchase. The great thing is we don't have to only purchase one type of magnet, hence my suggestion.
  4. You are correct, I did assume a lot of things. But now that you provided the information, no one else needs to assume things anymore. With this, people can judge way better if they want to engage in the adventure of a group buy or not.
  5. If I may ask, why are you intending to do an Au plating under a TiN coating? :o
  6. The point of including the gold is that is adds another inexpensive layer of bio inert material just in case there is an error or the titanium nitride is scratched during implantation etc. The gold layer will be thin and should hardly effect the sensitivity of the magnet but provides a backup incase  of the worst case scenario. The gold will also help prevent it from cracking under pressure (minimally) especially since TiN has a reputation of actually being flaky when it's to thick or has impurities.

    I'd understand if people don't want to do a group buy with a random so If a trusted member would like to handle the orders that would be fine. I'm willing to personally purchase 7 magnets, 2 3mm by 1mm and 5 1.5mm by 1.5mm. I'm contacting azind and other potential suppliers to get quotes for both sizes. According to a thread posted a little bit ago stated azind is willing to sell 100 magnets for $166 (not sure the size and coating costs approximately $.40 per magnet)
  7. Just out of curiosity (I'm not interested or able to join a group buy) but how would the 100 magnets be divided between those who might agree to a group purchase?

    There's no guarantee that any of the 100 magnets would be safe to implant so it would be a gamble to all involved. 

    Bleach is capable of dissolving gold in the right conditions.  You might want to research Stannous chloride as a test to tell if any of the gold got dissolved.  That solution is very easy (and cheap) to make yourself and is very sensitive to gold in solution. 





  8. I am also looking into using a layer of copper because it is actually the 9th most abundant mineral in humans. It's one of the inert metals, but not nontoxic. I am not sure what the toxic dose is or if the amounts used in a thin coating would be sufficient to induce symptoms but it doesn't appear to be fatal. It may cost more money (i'm not sure how much at the moment) but it will be invaluable in testing the magnets because copper oxidizes when it comes in contact with bleach and shows in a very obvious blackening of the copper. As a side note, copper will not corrode in water for short periods of time (copper is incredibly reluctant to corrosion and can almost be considered a noble metal, making a salt water test very viable to testing the integrity of a copper coating)

    We could first test the integrity of the copper layer using heavily salted water and looking for corrosion and the small bubbles from the neodymium reacting with the water, then take the ones that passed the test and coat them in TiN. After that process the magnets can be put in a solution of bleach to test for oxidization of the copper and then properly cleaned.

    One bonus of using the bleach for checking for oxidization is that bleach is a powerful disinfectant and will prevent infection. I am checking to make sure bleach is viable to use with titanium nitride and it seems to be. I came across a method to removal titanium nitride coatings use hydrogen peroxide with a pH of 5, and bleach has a pH of 11-13 depending on if it's diluted, making bleach very basic and can deteriorate the titanium nitride coating unless the bleach is diluted to ph of approximately 8/9 and will reveal impurities in the coating.
  9. According to the Wiki:

    Both hydrogen peroxide and sodium hypochlorite (bleach) will destroy the TiN coating, and should be avoided for sterilization. Any sterilization technique that involves heating (such as autoclaves, boiling, etc.) will also permanently damage the coating and should not be used. DangerousThings provides 0.67mL ampoule of ChloraPrep which contains 2% chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) and 70% isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and may be used to sterilize anything with a TiN coating prior to implantation.

  10. That does make sense but bleach can be heavily diluted. Straight bleach has a pH of 13, and is a very strong base. Hydrogen peroxide has an acidic pH of 5. I would also like to point out that their suggested method of isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) has a pH of 5.5, which isn't a whole lot better.
    Only minute amounts of bleach need to be present to show obvious signs of oxidization in copper. There could be something I'm missing here though.

    How do you propose we use the stannous test to check for impurities in the gold coating? As far as I have been able to read the test only detects the presence of gold, and the only way of detecting micro scratches are by using a microscope.

    Bleach dissolving gold should also not be in issue and rather could be useful if we can determine that minute traces of bleach does not deteriorate the TiN coating (which it shouldn't  because the pH would be altered drastically) we could use the bleach to test if the TiN layer isn't entirely intact by checking for the dissolution of gold. This of course relies on the fact that the pH required to dissolve gold is not too close to the point required for TiN, which it shouldn't be considering TiN is Titanium Nitride and requires a base pH of approximately 13 to gold's 11 (Quote me on these numbers at your own risk)

    If we dilute the bleach so it won't effect the TiN but would slightly dissolve the gold, than a stannous test would successfully determine if the TiN coating was compromised just like the darkening of the copper through oxidation would. I would choose that method over the copper in order to have the gold layer if we could find exact Ph's for when Au/TiN begin to dissolve.

    As a side note I can't find any reaction with nickel that could be used in the same way, so our only two options are gold or copper. Gold will be easier to come by and is the better choice in regards to biocompatibility but is allot more tricky to test without experimenting.
  11. The stannous test would only be useful if the gold was actually dissolved into the test solution.  Bleach and a little acid or acid and a little bleach will/can dissolve gold.

    Stannous (tin - note small 'n') chloride can be made by dissolving some solder (preferably but not necessarily lead free) in hydrochloric acid.  If gold is in solution, a Q-tip can be dipped in the solution and a drop or two of the stannous chloride will turn the Q-tip purple or black depending on the quantity of gold in the solution.

    It wouldn't be useful with TiN (assuming bleach is bad for it) but might work for a Parylene C coating over gold.  I'm not even sure it would work without testing it myself which would mean sacrificing one or more coated magnets.

    Obviously, the whole process of getting biosafe magnets is not easy or there would be more being sold specifically for implanting.  The only ones I have heard of at this time is Steve Haworth's.

    I personally bought some Parylene coated magnets off ebay but never tried implanting any.  I purposely damaged one just to see what kind of reaction I would get with a bad one.  Some seemed good but I never fully trusted them and didn't feel like implanting one yet.  I was hoping AlexSmith's magnets would test good and be available but his batch didn't test good enough to sell.
  12. My plan for distributing these magnets is fairly simple. My main plan is to buy approximately 500 gold plated magnets off of ebay for approximately $25, run through the testing process, and send the amount of requested magnets +10/15 more to the company to get them coated in TiN (unless they're bought precoated from azind). After receiving the coated magnets I will test the TiN coating and ship them to the people who put in the group buy. The 15 extra will help cover any that happen to not have intact TiN coatings. In order to prevent the unlikely scenario that enough magnets fail that the 15 can't replace them, I will be putting in money to buy extra magnets, and others are welcome to put in too. It is also possible to increase the extra magnets from 15 which would very minimally increase the price per magnet because it would be spread across the cost of all 100 magnets.

     I am also seriously considering the prospect of prioritized donators. Each person who puts money in for their magnet is given a number 1-100. Each magnet that fails -1 from the 100 meaning only 99 people get successful magnets unless there is extra magnets which automatically fill the gap.There will be an abundance of magnets (approximately 120 magnets guaranteed. 5 from me and 15 that is taken from the collective price + extras from donations) that helps guarantee all 100 people get magnets. Members who donate extra are prioritized and moved closer to 1 on the list. This creates incentive for donations especially when money/extra magnets will be returned according to the amount donated. Using this method increases the overall likelihood of everybody having reliable magnets.

    A few excess magnets give us an adequate buffer enough for trial implantations to ensure safety. The cost per person will be determined by taking their desired amount of magnets, multiplying it by 5, dividing it from the overall cost, taking the amount of desired magnets divided by the shipping cost, taking amount of magnets and dividing it by the cost of the extra 10/15 magnets, and adding the ending values together to get the final price. I have an equation if you want it.

    This would charge every person equally for their amount of magnets and includes chemical and implantation testing.

    I am also getting a quote for a magnet with three coats, copper, gold, then titanium nitride. The purpose of the copper coat is to increase the tensile strength of the magnet and reduce chances of it cracking. I have researched if coating the magnets in metals decreases the magnetic fields sensitivity but so far doesn't seem like it has a very noticeable impact. If anybody has any input on this it would be appreciated
  13. Using heavily diluted bleach is still an option for testing a TiN coated N52 with the next layer being copper. I'm looking into using bleach to check if the TiN coating is intact using the method of detecting gold degradation in the bleach solution but am proceeding with caution because it could potentially unnecessarily degrade the TiN unless the pH's are separate enough to be able to degrade gold without compromising the TiN (which is very likely, I'm using my colleges database to research more into it)

    Alternatively a microscope inspection of the surface of the magnets will reveal any impurities and will make gold coatings possible, but good quality microscopes are rather expensive and I, like most people, don't currently have access to one. It's possible though that I can get access to one from my community college I am attending.

  14. I am also considering developing a kit that includes lidocaine, isopropyl alcohol, stitching equipment, gloves, a scalpel, an injector, possibly anti-scar cream, and magnets (either 3mm by 1mm or the 5/4 magnet 1.5mm by 1.5mm/1.5mm by 1mm) If anybody is interested in investing in the development instead of a group purchase i'd be willing to sell these kits for a few dollars more than what they cost to make, approximately $40 per kit. I estimate the cost to fully develop the kit is approximately $300 (a large portion ~$200 is the development of the magnet), and the money will be returned with interest + a percentage of initial sales + a free kit.

    I'm not here for the money, I'm just sick of waiting years for high quality biocompatible implants just like many of you are and am willing to finally initiate a reliable manufacturing chain of high quality N52 magnets.
  15. I think you need to contact @AlexSmith or maybe he could respond here.  He probably has the most experience trying to get safe magnets manufactured and had a lot of people willing to spend ~$50 each for a good one.

    It must be harder to do than you are imagining and maybe he could tell you what the problem was or offer things to try to get them done right.  Looks like he has been working at this for over a year now and hasn't got them good enough yet.

    $300 is not a huge amount of money so maybe you could just save up or borrow the money if you are pretty confident about getting them done right.  Wouldn't take very many good ones @$50 each to recover the money and there could be a fair amount of profit if it works and people are confident they are safe. 

    If I was going to do this myself, I would just risk the $25 and get the 500 gold plated ones and do the initial testing (whatever that would be) and see how many of them appear good.  Post the results here and others may jump in to help fund the rest of the costs. 

    I have a feeling there are a number of members here working on DIY coatings but probably too risky to sell. 
  16. I understand what your saying but the price for implantable magnets are massively overpriced. They don't cost anywhere near that amount to produce, at most $3 dollars per magnet. The cost of the magnets comes from supply and demand + the difficulty in properly coating.

    Most DIY's fail because they don't have an accurate method of testing the magnets and are very poorly organized. I have solved both issues with the above proposed method of handling failed coatings and unique methods of detecting compromises in the integrity of the TiN coating.

    That's true $300 isn't allot, but that's a large amount to spend out of pocket considering I am not attempting to start a business. This thread was started because I wanted a magnet but once I explored the cost of manufacturing bulk amounts of magnets and came up with new methods of detecting failed coatings/coatings likely to fail in harsh environments I realized it isn't too far fetched to start manufacturing. I'm not interested in making a profit on these, that's why the numbers are so low.

    For example, each magnet will probably cost approximately $2.50 to manufacture (including the coatings and chemical testing), 40 grams of lidocaine is $12 on eBay (the maximum dosage is 4.5 mg/kg (2 mg/lb)), a pack of 10 scalpels is $5, isopropyl alcohol is insanely cheap, etc... Obviously the prices I listed would be without labor cost since I am not making this a business, I just want magnets.

    You mentioned testing the gold magnets to motivate people to help fund the rest of the development. I would, except I am contacting a few companies (primarily azind since their entire business revolves around high quality coatings of magnets) and may potentially purchase the magnets precoated in copper (still researching this), gold, then TiN from them. Afterwards chemical testing of the coates integrity in harsh environments then visual testing using a microscope will be enough to guarantee the biocompatibility of the magnets.

    There are a few members working on DIY coated magnets (at the moment I am not considering coating on my own) and group purchases, but few of them have the resources, methods, or organization to go through with it. If you compare this thread to most other similar threads you'll see I have proposed many solutions to issues that prevent success. Majority of threads  fail because people are worried about the possibility of the "gamble" as was mentioned earlier but my method fixes a large portion of that. If we decide to create a kit I can charge a couple dollars extra per kit and put that towards extra magnets to even further guarantee enough magnets will pass the coating tests.

    Personally I have never heard of anybody testing coatings using the oxidation of copper or your proposed method of testing for gold to test magnets integrity while also testing their ability to be intact in conditions far harsher than the human body. On top of that, I am also planning on having them visually inspected, if not by me, than other members such as @Cassox who have the proper equipment.


    I am not using this method to get the magnets. Look at the bottom of page 1

  17. I was recently contacted by a member of this forum and received a generous sum of $125 to put towards the development of the magnet. I personally will be putting in approximately $20, which raises the current total to $145. We are $75 off of the development cost of the N52 magnets and halfway to the development of the kit.

    In order to account for the overall cost of developing and to help eliminate the possibility some members won't receive biocompatible magnets due to failed coatings,  I have placed the cost per magnet at $10 plus shipping (Purchases in the U.S. cost ~$3 to ship and multiple magnets can be included)

    This thread has moved from being a group buy into investing in development and individual magnet sales in order to raise the required funding to eliminate the slight "gamble" that is involved in group purchases. The increased price of the magnets means a much higher quantity of coated magnets and reduced/eliminated possibility of members not receiving biocompatible magnets.

    I am on track to purchase the magnets early July. When I receive them they should be fully tested and individually shipped within a month to account for in vivo testing.

    I am also intending on building a kit if enough money is raised. Estimated price of the kits is $35-$40 and they can currently be pre-purchased since I'll begin development when the money is raised. I am not accepting any payments for the magnets until ~$225 is pledged to prevent holding money unnecessarily.
  18. I was just contacted by a member who has pledged $33 for 3 magnets. This raises the sum to $180, $40 off the previously stated development price. I am still talking to Azind to work out the exact price of Au/Cu and TiN. They offered the coating NiCuNi+Au so I am asking them to add another coating of TiN.
  19. I just sent you a private message pledging another $10 + the shipping.  Should bring you up to $190.

    A couple/few more people willing to try this and you will be at your goal.

    Obviously, we will each want to do our own testing before implanting these but who knows ... It might be the way to get the magnets everyone has been waiting for. 

    I know you are not interested in DIY coatings but I contacted Atom Adhesives asking about anything that their food/medical grade epoxy would not stick to which might be usable as a mold for casting the resin.  They replied "This product does not stick very well to rubber and very hard plastics."

  20. I encourage you to do your own testing. I was planning on including a paper that gave indepth instructions to test your magnets after shipping. I'll keep in mind Atom Adhesives epoxy but the process of coating the magnets is considerably more expensive, time consuming, and difficult than would make DIY coatings a feasible idea.

    Thank you for helping pay for development! We are surprisingly close to $220 and are meeting the requirement much faster than I anticipated. Azind recently stopped coating magnets in TiN but have added pure titanium coatings, which is actually a far better option anyways. Titanium is completely biocompatible and is the metal of choice for implants and prosthetics in the medical industry.
    Coating in Titanium also has the added benefit of high tensile strength. Coating in Titanium may slightly increase the price per magnet but my proposed $220 will still likely be enough to cover it.
  21. Titanium is actually the perfect metal coating for implantable magnets. Titanium gets its biocompatible properties from a film that is created when it is in contact with oxygen, which is present in large quantities in our blood. It also makes the above proposed testing method of TiN perfect for testing titanium since sodium hypochlorite (bleach) oxidizes metals, which gives the titanium an incredible ability to withstand high alkaline and acidic solutions. I read up on a couple documents that tested titanium and it's degradability in high levels of bleach and found that literally none of the titanium is effected thanks to the incredible film that is instantly made when it comes into contact with oxygen.

    By getting the magnets coated in gold then titanium I can still use the strannous test using potent enough bleach to quickly degrade the gold without worrying about the degradation of the titanium unlike TiN, which has similar properties but not to the same extent.

    What size of magnets do those of you who have pledged want? We could do the small magnets for increased stimulation of the nerves or larger magnets (M31 is 3mm by 1mm). If the popular vote is on small magnets I will send extras for every order to make up for the size, which is possible because smaller magnets are less expensive. The only concern is that having multiple small magnets in a single finger will make implantation more painful and difficult and it has to be meticulously implanted to prevent friction (which shouldn't be that bad considering the magnets are in the corners of the finger)
  22. I would probably prefer the smaller magnets but 3mm X 1mm would be fine.  I wouldn't want to go larger than that though.

    I'm more interested in sensing magnetic fields than lifting things with a magnet implant and I would assume smaller magnets would require less cutting to implant but not much difference unless maybe using a needle to implant it.
  23. I think the 3mm x 1mm has the most "bang for the buck" in terms of size, surface area, and responsiveness. So that's where I vote on the size.
    Does the titanium coating process involve heat that could reduce the magnetic rating? Part of the appeal of TiN was that it was applied at room temperature.
  24. The company who is coating takes care not to expose the magnets to a heat level that is damaging to the magnet. The 3mm by 1mm likely does have the most bang for the buck in terms of single magnets, but as I said above if the smaller magnets are the majority vote I will send 2 magnets for every order to make up for the size.

    By spreading the magnets across the pad of the finger a much greater amount of nerves can be stimulated. Smaller magnets also have less mass to be pushed around, increasing the responsiveness of the magnet. I do agree that in terms of single magnets the larger magnet will have a much greater effect but adding multiple magnets (up to the 5 I suggested) can be felt more, and are much more resistant to crushing.
  25. Challenging for the sake of advancing development. ^^ Wouldn't it be better to forgo the Au layer? Not only is it creating an extra layer (albeit, a thin layer), of inert (and again, albeit biocompatable) material that reduces magnetic volume, but also creates a weaker sub surface to build off of? It's like pouring concrete over a layer of sand instead of a layer of compacted dirt, for sake of describing Ni versus Au... TiN is strong but brittle. If it's adhered to a weak surface, and granted this is microscale, I can still see faults arising. #_# Also, are these magnets running Ni-Cu-Ni undercoat beneath the Au? And IF so, can these be removed at all, replaced with NdFeB strait to shell? The Ni-Cu-Ni only adds further inert material that reduces magnetic density. Surface area to volume adds up really quickly to create less efficient magnets. Played around a ton with the math to find that coatings can wreck magnetic density efficiency. C_c Also would highly suggest testing magnetic strength before and after coatings, we should be able to calculate rough drop off from coating thickness, and confirm lack of magnetic strength deterioration. ^^'
  26. I have actually already decided against the TiN in favor of Titanium. The magnets will not be coated in Ni or Cu and will just be coated in Au and Ti. The purpose of the Au is to first provide a second biocompatible layer but also to make my method of testing the magnets possible. Using the method I proposed earlier in the thread I can test the magnets under conditions harsher than the human body. It's also possible to do this using copper which may be a better metal to coat with on a structural standpoint but is also difficult to test for in comparison to gold, lacks the benefit of people biocompatible and will reduce the magnetic field more than the gold.

    The second layer of biocompatible material may not be entirely necessary but it will be useful if there is an issue with the coating from being crushed/scratched. Your analogy doesn't quite work in this instance though since the titanium coating will entirely surround the magnet. It's "foundation" has no effect on the coating considering the coating contains its foundation.

    If you don't mind I would actually really like to see the math you mentioned as I was certain that gold actually had very minimal effect on the magnetic field. Gold itself actually becomes slightly magnetized when it comes into contact with a magnetic field.

  27. We just got another buyer who is pledging $10-$20
  28. Are the magnets you are ordering already undercoated with a Ni-Cu-Ni layer? Many are, just wish to confirm, because regardless if it's wanted or not, it's the standard for many manufactured magnets. Many Au magnets have a Ni-Cu-Ni layer underneath. X_x 

    Edit: Scratch that. In the sellers description, it labels them as Ni coated, with Genuine Au coating. They have the Ni-Cu-Ni undercoating, which is adding extra layers and removing magnetic mass. Math below to see effects, Would REALLY suggest a different source if you are looking to optimise. Carry on... ^^



    The reason I bring up 'foundation'... I still think it's largely relevant. To go into a very sharp extreme, an ice cream pop with a Chocolate shell around it... Granted this is an extremely sharp extreme, but the shell is going to do very little to protect the inside should the shell itself become fractured, especially as it is the corners being the weak points. Main differences if there's any compromise there will be failure. 

    Also, in regards to Au's magnetic properties, that study looks to be much more related to it in terms of nanoparticles, not macro scale like we are working with... Fascinating, but not as relevant to this application as I was originally hoping. >~<    






    I'm not exactly sure of the precise thickness of coatings... For shits and giggles that say 20 micrometers, that's a pretty easy number to work with to give us an idea of scale. ^^ 

    Edit: Doing a tiny bit of looking around... "Deluxe"...(?) Jewelry has an Au coating of 3 microns. Not nearly as bad. :D Will leave the below for sake of example.



     A 3mm Diameter cylinder 1mm tall, has roughly a volume of 7.07mm cubed. A 3.04mm Diameter cylinder 1.04mm tall, has roughly a volume of 7.55mm cubed. 

    That's roughly 93% magnetic mass, 7% inert, adding an extra 20 micron thick layer on an M31. Add another 20 micron thick layer for Ti. You just took it down to just under 88% magnetic material. ;_; Adding a .5mm shell to an M31 drops it's magnetic mass to less than 30% by volume. Surface area to volume is scary. :c



    Edit: Accounting for say, 3 Microns to give it a realistic, well-built-up thickness for the ideal construction, we end up with roughly 99.9% efficiency. Not bad! :D 

    I would still suggest validation for such a coating's thickness in some way or another, to make sure we have a legitimate, worthwhile layer that will provide a degree of protection without pinholing, or being so thin it simply displaces upon impact/damage of the Ti. But I stand corrected in regards to Au being unreasonably interfering in thickness. 
  29. BUMP!

    By my calculations, only $10 or $20 more to get to the $220 goal to get this latest attempt to get implantable magnets to happen.

    Anyone else want in on this?
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