Drilling a hole in CPU ceramics (I want to make a keyring!)

[Mitzi]

I have some old Pentium 1, AMD K5 and Cyrix chips which I want to make keyrings out of. No problems I thought, just drill a hole in the ceramic - wrong! That stuffs undrillable!

Any suggestions? Perhaps glue the keyring holder onto the chip? Anyone managed to do this or am I just nuts for trying to do this?

 

[bacillus]

never done it before but suspect you'll need a diamond tipped drill bit!

 

[Jman13]

I did this a while ago. You can see the results here. I used "Weld Stick" and two electrical terminal connectors that were epoxyed together. The weld stick is like putty but dries as hard as metal. I also tried epoxy to hold it together, but for all the torque that is put on a keyring, it just didn't hold at all. You can see the residue of the epoxy in the one corner of the chip from this failed experiment.

I originally tried to just use the weld stick to stick the ring to the chip, and it worked for direct forces, but any shearing force would break the seal, just like the epoxy. However, wrapping it around the other side of the chip (you can see it) worked just fine, and it's held like that for over 3 years. I too found it impossible to drill. Before doing this, I ripped off all the pins with a pair of needle-nose pliers

The chip is an Intel 486 DX2/66 overdrive chip that I picked up for $3 at RadioShack when I worked there. I found it in the back of the store, told my manager that no person on earth would buy it (even in 1998) and he sold it to me for 3 bucks. I bought it solely for the keychain. Good luck!

(link corrected)

 

[Mitzi]

Cheers for the advice.

I cannot find any information on this Weld Stick you talk about. Perhaps its not available over here. Perhaps this would work in its place.

 

[Jman13]

The epoxy didn't work for me...I tried it. It's just not thick enough. I think the actual name of the stuff is "weld stik" with no 'c' in it. I didn't get it on-line, I was able to find it at K-mart. Check hardware stores and such for it. it's meant for chemically 'welding' two pieces of metal together. Do realize that this is only 1 solution...there are probably tons of ways to do it...it's just that this worked for me.

 

[CStroman]

I took a 486 and cut all the pins off, and then sanded the rest of them smooth. After that, I used a dremel around the metal die cover, and popped it off with an x-acto knife. Then, I soldered a ring to some of the circles that were left from the pins. It held for awhile, but then it broke off.

 

[nergee]

i've heard of drilling holes through ceramic tile with a
masonry bit so I don't know why that wouldn't work
for ya!

Cheers

 

[Jerboy]

here's where you can get diamond drill bits you need

It's not that expensive.

.11"/2.7mm twist bit is $5 ea

$8.50 for 5mm core bit (5,000-20,000RPM)

I'm pretty certain you'll need a steady drill press to use the core bit though.