Credit card chip contacts

[dougp]

I've seen credit cards with yellow contacts and with dull silver contacts.  Does anybody know what is the material used for these two varieties?

TIA

[Robin2]

Gold and silver ?

...R

[dougp]

Thanks for the reply.  I thought of those two but it seems an expensive option for a credit card. 

[Robin2]

Thanks for the reply.  I thought of those two but it seems an expensive option for a credit card. 

There won't be very much of it. I'd guess you would need to recycle a large number of cards to get $100 worth of gold.

...R

[dougp]

There won't be very much of it. I'd guess you would need to recycle a large number of cards to get $100 worth of gold.

...R

Yes, if it's a precious metal the thickness is probably measured in 10/1000ths of an inch.

[Coding Badly]

I believe the unit of measure for such things is µin (microinch).

[Robin2]

Yes, if it's a precious metal the thickness is probably measured in 10/1000ths of an inch.

10/1000 = 1/100. If the gold was that thick my card would be worth more than the amount in my account.

I suspect microns is the more likely unit of measurement. Or the even smaller micro-inch that @Coding Badly mentioned. I never heard of micro-inch before - but that may be just because I am on the right side of the Atlantic.

...R

[Coding Badly]

Or the even smaller micro-inch that @Coding Badly mentioned.

After a spot check a Digi-Key:  That does seem to be a common unit for gold alloy contact coatings.  50 to 200 seems to be a common range.

[Robin2]

A micro-inch is 0.0254 microns so 50 µin would be 1.27 microns.

...R

[dougp]

10/1000 = 1/100.

I misstated. My intent was .0001 inch. Apparently even that's much more than needed.

[dougp]

After a spot check a Digi-Key:

Wish I'd thought of that.  I put 'credit card metal' and a few variations in the search bar and got lots of off-target results.

But, I did learn that there are metal credit cards. Who knew?

[Robin2]

I misstated.

I had figured that. I was just having fun.

...R