Making a keychain out of a 68040





Well, I only started photographing half way. I took the protection for the core off by heating the CPU on a stove for a few minutes and then a little knock with a screwdriver was enough




Don't worry, it's a 68LC040 ;-) I still tend to use 'real' 68040's :-)


Well, this was the first attempt and way to much polyester used. So I took another 68LC040 and did the same again, with a little less polyester...




...as you can see, I also got rid of all the pins. First I simply cut them off and after that I used a Dremel to polish them a little.



...to be continued...














...and then?

Well, it all went wrong :( The little ring didn't hold and I tried to drill a hole in the ceramic... think again... I bought a special drill for my heavy-duty drill, but to no effect, you need a diamond-drill for this, so I wrecked my 'keychain'. Eventually I tried all kinds of old CPU's I had laying around and one of them, a P166 wasn't made of ceramic and I could drill a hole in it :-) ... But then I tried to get a glimpse of the core of the CPU and it seems it totally covered in some kind of paste... Well then only one thing was left and that was the top-cover I soldered off the P166. Not a bad keychain after all, but still ;-)



...oh, wonder what I did with all the CPUs I opened up, covered in polyester and stuff? I threw it all away :-)

(c) 2004 Mark

geektechnique.org