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Can I just use mercury?

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knoober

Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2015
I've been doing some reading on liquid metal tims and they say "like mercury" a lot. So what I'm wondering is could I just use.... Mercury! For instance I am replacing a thermostat with a mercury switch on it soon, would be real easy to pop it open and "recycle" the sweet sweet liquid metal inside. I know of mercury is toxic, but I think I can manage not to eat it :) maybe... Who knows it might smell really good!
 
Outside of it being highly toxic as you know, see ATMs post....it wouldn't stick to the processor. ;)
 
it soaks right into your skin a does all sorts of bad things, even the fumes are poison to you, just leave that stuff alone.
if you want to use a metal tim just order liquid metal and use as directed, great stuff, and even made to be used as tim.
 
Everything I think of is a bad idea! I was just hoping to save a few buck and find a used for something that would otherwise go to waste :) I've heard of all kinds of junk working as a tim.... Even mayonnaise in a pinch! But obviously I don't want to break stuff or get toxicated, which is why I asked you guys first
 
I hope you are disposing of the mercury as per your local laws. You don't just throw it in the trash.
 
mayo???? that stuff tastes good but really stinks when it gets hot, now peanut butter, it smells pretty good when it gets hot.....
 
Mayo stinks over time but smells fine when heated. If you heated it then shut down the pc and restarted it later..... Well that might be unappetizing :) the article I read said mayo was fine but didn't say anything about peanut butter!

As for disposal, around here we pretty much just take everything to the hazmat station. It's kind of a pain but helps keep things nice :)
 
Like what the others said, but you can use it in place of water in a water cooler but then mercury is heavy so it might be a good idea not to use it, it could break the cooler.



edit: I found out to day that mercury will soak into other metals making them weak and even dissolve, so don't even try using in a water cooler.
 
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it soaks right into your skin a does all sorts of bad things, even the fumes are poison to you, just leave that stuff alone.
if you want to use a metal tim just order liquid metal and use as directed, great stuff, and even made to be used as tim.

:thup:
Mercury fumes used to poison old-school clock makers to death in their workshops (went mad first). It's poisonous to touch too.

I was just hoping to save a few bucks

It's not worth risking your health or computer :(
Really good TIM is $8-10 and proper liquid metal TIMs a few bucks more - go with those!
 
Mercury is over 13 times heavier than water so will flow or infiltrate small crevices, will amalgamate with some metals like copper, gold, solder (will dissolve them), is an electrical conductor (switch contacts) and is highly toxic.
 
Well I gotta say you guys probably saved my comp. I might ha e tried it just for grins otherwise. Liquid tim is on the way and a full rebuild is in the works. I've brought out the angle grinder and the metal saws again for case mods and such. I look forward to hearing how I loused up the rebuild when I post about it :) seriously though, thanks for all the help guys!
 
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