Credit Card Transparancy !

[Jim Cassedy]

One of my credit cards expired at the end of last month. Rather than shred it,
I decided to put it in a cup of Acetone overnight, which basically dissolved the
PVC exterior and left just the 'skeleton' of the card's innards:

All that's left are the gold contact points, and the printed circuit antenna traces
ClearCreditCrd_1.jpg

On the other side, you can see the actual (32bit!) embedded microproscessor chip
ClearCreditCrd_2.jpg

My electron microscope is in the shop (just kidding!) - - so the best pic I coud get of the
actual mini-microproscessor was through a magnifying glass. Pretty amazing stuff !
ClearCreditCrd_3.jpg

You can try this yourself some time on an old credit or debit card.
If you don't have any Acetone handy, I hear Red Bull works almost as well.

[Leo Enticknap]

Or maybe Filmguard?

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Or maybe Filmguard?

Nope it'll just make your money spend quieter and with less dirt and image bounce.

[Leo Enticknap]

On a more serious note, acetone is gnarly stuff that should be handled with extreme caution. A few years ago, someone I know resorted to it thanks to an expired parking permit sticker in his windshield that just laughed at rubbing alcohol (didn't even begin to unstick it). His hand slipped while holding the bottle of acetone, and the resulting acetone spill melted half the dashboard. The repair bill was $1,200.

[Frank Cox]

And it evaporates. I had a half-bottle of acetone laying around and got it out to clean something a little while ago. Empty bottle.