[593] Gallium vs. Titalium - Abus Padlock Meets a Gruesome End
LockPickingLawyer1 HN recommender · recommended in 1 month, 2020–2024
demo · general · evergreen · 2020–2024 on HN
LockPickingLawyer shows what happens when liquid gallium is applied to an aluminum Abus padlock, which weakens and breaks the metal. It is a short demonstration of gallium's effect on aluminum.
HN points to it whenever gallium or liquid metal comes up, as a vivid demonstration of gallium destroying aluminum.
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6 comments from Hacker News
If you have never heard about Gallium destroying Aluminium, you should watch his video where he breaks a lock by simply applying Gallium to a lock: ▶ this video
Gallium? That's only liquid down to 30C. And it expands when heated. So what happens when your laptop is off and drops to room temperature? Worse, this is what happens when a small amount of gallium contacts aluminum.[1] [1] ▶ this video
Funny for a metal that seems to flow like Terminator and can melt an aluminum padlock, see LPL: ▶ this video (It’s doesn’t melt it exactly, it destroys the structure because Gallium atoms are very small and insert themselves through).
Now that I read that, it seems obvious that static fields and RF wouldn't interact like that... Thanks! The video is very well done (for a semi-pro it seems?), it's one of those things where people (including me) might think "oh yeah magnets, I know about those" but you actually don't, or at last not at the scale that you might need. That reminds me of this LPL video about Gallium: ▶ this video where you might think: oh yeah, metals, those are sturdy blocks that you need to weld or saw.
Cheers, hadn't heard of that alloy before. I bought some gallium to play with after seeing this video of it on a lock - ▶ this video
Few things I noticed: - That stand is a crazy piece of unnecessary engineering just to make the customer's life a wee little bit easier. Very cool. - Removable side-panels. This was strongly theorized from previous leaks, but I think this is the first time we've gotten an official video showing them. The aftermarket for these will be huge, allowing really well integrated customization. It also makes Sony's "limited edition consoles" they release for big games far cheaper to build, and maybe even accessible to people who don't want to replace their whole console (if Sony releases the plates as a separate/pre-order/etc purchase). - The NVME and fan are both easily accessible without voiding warranty. They've advertised that NVME slot before; PCIE4 is required, and it has to match or exceed the internal SSD's raw read performance in order to be supported, which is 5.5Gbps. Nearly every current-gen NVME SSD is too slow, which may lead to some confusion, but I also expect Sony will have some PS5 branded SSDs right in the Best Buy gaming accessories isle so hopefully too many people don't get burned by this. Definitely prefer it to Microsoft's proprietary strategy. - Single cooling fan. There's a ton of empty space inside the console, so it doesn't seem impossible that they could have found room for a second fan, but they must feel confident about this one (massive) fan's ability to cool that (massive) heatsink. Judging by the design though, it looks like it has a lot of surface ar