How I made my own Liquid Metal on the cheap (and you can, too!)

You can make your own Galinstan for less than 10% of the price of the commercial stuff like Conductonaut. And get to experiment with Indium ratios too compared to regular Galinstan.

Gallery here. Warning: it creates a LOT more than is apparent at first so start slow. Make a tiny bit, like a few grams, get a nice syringe and a cap, and test that. A few grams lasts many applications.

https://imgur.com/gallery/GKP3gEr

Started with 100 grams of Gallium, 40 grams of Indium and 20 grams of Tin purchased. Total cost: $64, for a max of 150 grams combined.

If this was 150 grams of Conductonaut, that would be $800, at the price of $40 for 5 grams.

Used about 5 grams of Gallium, 5 grams of Indium and 1 gram of Tin. With the ceramic cup as an oven casualty since not all of the Indium melted by combining it (The cup will get used again , ended with 10 grams of Galinstan for a fraction of the price of the commercial stuff!

HUGE protip for putting Galinstan--or any material, in fact, into a syringe (anyone who has messed with syringes knows this).
First, put the cap on the tip, remove the plunger then pour in the material.
Then, put the plunger into the first stop at the top of the tube. Go no further. Once it's past the safety trap, flip the syringe over so the tip is face up. The safety trap will stop anything from spilling out the plunger end. Then with the tip face up, very slowly push the syringe plunger in until the material gets to the tip. then apply the cap.
You need to do this with the cap removed, because otherwise, trapped air will prevent the plunger from going down anymore.

Got a lot of raw materials left. Tested on my MSI GT 7820HK Laptop, temps were equal to or better than Galinstan I bought from Riga (30 grams for $22 awhile back), maybe by 1C better. Should be equal to conductonaut, but longevity is to be determined.

https://imgur.com/gallery/GKP3gEr


Attached Thumbnails

 

This is great, hope that I can do it. I spent a lot of money buying this materials.

 

You ordered Gallium, Tin and Indium? Or you spent a lot of money buying Conductonaut ?
How much were the individual metals and how many grams did you buy?

 

As a Chemistry major, I should really try this...lol

 

I meant spent a lot of money buying the branded one. your idea is great, i'll try to buy and do it soon.

 

The markup the companies charge is nothing short of highway robbery @Mr. Fox
Gallium is a common metal and you can get a lot for cheap. 100 grams of the stuff can be less than $40.
I got this one with prime shipping. 100 grams for $29.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0792TB9GX/

Tin is also cheap as hell, no need to post links cuz its cheap everywhere. Just don't get gouged on shipping. I chose 20 grams for $9 from the same ebay seller I got the indium from, since I clearly don't need a lot of it.

Indium is an arm and a leg, however.
After looking around I choose this one, which was 40 grams for $24, which seemed like a fair price.
100 grams on Amazon is between $54 to $63+ and some of the sellers of smaller amounts I saw on Amazon have questionable feedback (like one person got Gallium instead of Indium--that would hurt BAD if that happened and you were trying to see Gallium contact indium and melt each other at room temperature...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Indium-Met...510144?hash=item33f2d70600:g:xRQAAOSwze9c0MrH

 

Is it worth using liquid metal on a Laptop? I saw some pretty bad outcomes online of that after 3-5 months or more.

 

its all about spillage protection and proper soaking into/saturation of the copper.

Sent from my Huawei Mate 20 X EVR-AL00 using Tapatalk

 

What would you recommend for me to buy and test?

 

This is honestly amazing! Old school DIY is still alive! That's what I call real hacking lol

I still don't use liquid metal for peace of mind, but I might try making some now.

 

der8auer recently had a YT video on factory applied liquid metal on laptops (was it asus? dont remember) they had an interesting approach to use double sided sticky tape, so that spillage is taken care of.

as for type of liquid metal, just go for what ure comfortable with / your wallet allows. either conductonaut as highend or self-made / ordered off ebay (gallinstan) for cheap

there are also some threads here regarding selfmade solutions for spillage protection in notebooks.

 

Okay, I am thinking one of these:
- https://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Griz...jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

- https://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Perf...uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

Which one is better?

 

1 gram of conductonaut for $23 is highway robbery. Seriously, buy a crucible, some 'needle nose' syringes and just make your own :/

Syringes with needle tip (you do NOT want to use LM without special tips--too much will come out).
https://www.amazon.com/BSTEAN-Syringe-Blunt-Tip-Needle/dp/B01HFTYINS/

Indium 40 grams (20g * 2, so two orders):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Indium-Met...510144?hash=item33f2d70600:g:xRQAAOSwze9c0MrH

Tin: 20g
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tin-Metal-...604222?hash=item56b5a3e3be:g:10cAAOSwWo5bfyfM

Gallium 100 grams:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0792TB9GX/

And any graphite crucible you can stick in the oven to melt the stuff easily. Then all you need is a stirrer to stir, and some lint free swabs to apply LM to surfaces.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MEC5084/
(I just ordered this just now. Checked feedback and people said the tips don't fall off like some of the other brands). You only want LINT FREE wipes. That's why you don't use Q-tips or something.

Please compare the total prices (sans crucible, I'm sure most people can use a ghetto crucible anyway) and compare that with the 1g and 5g tubes of Conductonaut and see what's highway robbery or not. If someone somewhere finds that Conductonaut also consists of 1-2% Bismuth and Antimony, hell, grab that too.

The only thing I left out is a digital gram scale. You can find those anywhere usually for less than $10. A ton of Amazon. If you do use those, put the gallium in plastic wrap or something at a cool temp so it doesn't touch the scale directly.

There are no reviews of the Thermalright Silver King except in Japan. It's liquid metal.
There's 3 grams on newegg but it's out of stock.

https://www.newegg.com/p/2MB-001F-00010?Description=Thermalright silver king&cm_re=Thermalright_silver_king-_-9SIA4RE8XR6370-_-Product

 

I personaly don't use liquid metal - because on thin&light convertible laptops with low thermal capacity which will likely hit 80C+ even with LM it is asking for trouble - but if I did, I'd definitely follow this DIY guide. Hands up for great job!

 

have you tried it? how did it work with temps?

 

Same as Conductonaut.

 

I use the gray type thermal compound and that works just fine and I don't think that cost that much. I found them as low as $6 dollars so not sure where your finding the $29 version. I used the gray thermal paste and so far laptop with upgraded CPU and my Desktop Rzy1500+ works just fine. No doing OC just standard.

 

11 months later, hows the longevity @Falkentyne

 

No problems to report. Problem is my 9900k is sitting open bench in a desk with a TRUE 120 on it so the LM is removed from the IHS (I think I threw Kryonaut on it) but still under the IHS. Last time I tested it, core deltas were the same as when it was under the NH-D15 with LM.

I'm too chicken to put LM on my 10900k ES with the Liquid Freezer II 360. Too much work. Shunt modding and repadding and re-fixing shunt mods on my RTX 3090 FE is already too much for me.

I tried applying LM to my retail 10900k under an Alphacool Eisbaer Extreme 280 AIO but the contact pressure was atrocious and I had better temps with Kryo or TFX. Probably their terrible mounting backplate system so I gave up.

Laptop is a throttlebook. Still works. I don't play on it for obvious reasons...
Quick 4.7 ghz No avx prime small FFT test has 1-2C core temp deltas so no problem with the LM.