Magnet coatings

@John_NY: "When buying your parylene-coated magnets be sure to inspect them for
damage.  I saw at least 2 (of 100) that were damaged in a V&P batch I
ordered.
I'd recommend using a jeweler's loupe, magnifying glass, USB
microscope, or regular microscope to inspect any candidate
parylene-coated magnet for damage in the coating before you consider installing it.  
If you drop or nick them, you may want to move on to another candidate:
my common sense says to check out and sterilise a few of them just in
case you drop one while you're bleeding and shaking.
One consequence of installing a damaged magnet seems to be that you'll
have to cut it out.  I'd guess that removing a magnet would be at least
as painful and might take longer than installing it in the first place.
Folks that do group buys should remove visibly damaged magnets from the
pool of available magnets.  I'm not sure what method folks will come up
with, but I recommend using nitrile gloves to keep hand oils off the
magnets.  I think splitting up the batch with gloved hands is the best
way to avoid damage (compared to using tweezers)."

@Version2: "Parylene coating is done at room tempurature, it doesn't hurt the magnets at all. And Sugru is just silicone for the most part, it's biocompatible, but it's not medical grade silicone if that's what you're wondering."

Comments

  • edited January 2011
    How about posting some pros and cons of different coatings? Those parylene magnets seem to be the best protection (medically), but they are only N42 grade. For those that want a stronger magnet (N42-N50) I think a list of pros and cons for different coatings would be helpful. I'm thinking of coating a N52 with sugru, but I can't seem to find much info on it.
  • Sugru adds some definite girth to the implant. Its difficult to get it thin without compromising the coating. I'd definitely recommend purchasing pre-bioproofed hardware when possible, especially when it comes to installing magnets in your fingers.
  • I agree that pre-bioproofed magnets are probably the best way to go. The only reason I'm considering it is I just got some N52s. Since they should be significantly stronger than the parylene N42s from V&P, I'll coat one in sugru and see how they compare. I still can't find if anyone has implanted a sugru coated magnet, so if the sugru N52 greatly outperforms the N42 I might give it a try. Do you know if anyone has actually implanted one before? I'd like to explore it as a possibility, but if its generally accepted as being unsafe I'll leave it at that.
  • @Dillinger1983:  I'm pretty sure that L has one implanted in its finger; if not, I know that it has experimented by putting blobs of sugru in the back of its hand.  After some four weeks, the blobs neither degraded nor poisoned it.  So you're safe, at least in the short term.
  • Don't know if this is old news or not, but I checked with V&P and the parylene coating is Parylene C, not some other variant. This is not tremendously important, but from what I can gather Parylene C is the preferred variant for implants..
  • I used a Sugru coating over the nickel plating on both of my implants. It was difficult to get a thin layer, maintaining the disc shape of the magnets - ending up more orbital. This made implanting a bit easier, however, the thick coating has made interacting with metal objects impossible. I can move other magnets around, but can't pick anything up. This isn't really a problem as my objective was to provide sensory input and not perform bar tricks. I've noticed no degradation in the past several weeks and will post of any changes.
  • edited October 2011
    I've noticed reading about other people's Parylene magnets and it seems they are being rejected due to the body not being able to hold the magnets in place. I think a quick  fix would be to use some Sugru coating thin enough to provide a firm grip and not have to worry about the silicone coating getting compromised. 

    Also would it be possible to get some stronger magnets coated with Parylene? I was thinking about shooting them an email to see if I can get a custom order, they might do it if it was large enough to strike interest on their end. I'd be willing to set up a group buy with a few other people. It'd be some what of a minor investment for me if I could sell them to you guys at a later date, for a very fair price of course. It'd be even easier if I had one or two other people split the order with and then we all work together to re-distribute them around. 
  • @Jacktheripper I just want to chime in and say that my magnet is parylene-coated and there was never a sign of rejection. Implanted in April (I think?) and not an issue yet.
  • @Oak

    Awesome I might just go straight through with parylene coated magnets then. I've been looking online and it might be possible to get an N52 coated in parylene c. Only issue is that it's probably going to have to be a bulk order. 
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