In another thread I offered to refine the gold from voltage regulators free of charge, the payment should have been the rest of the boards. In the end I managed to talk him out of it as postage would have cost more than the gold recovered. But he still wanted me to verify that it was plated gold so he sent me one card.
The board consisted of the long side with gold on nickel plated on copper base metal fingers. On the card were various components, large grey transformers or inductors, small integrated circuits, ceramic capacitors and other surface mount components. On one side were two aluminum plates for cooling the switch transistors. There were a couple of small golden supports for the cooling plates.
Top side with foils, small IC:s and a lot of capacitors
Bottom side, with aluminum plates...
... and without, cooling paste partly wiped off. Notice the small rectangular metal blocks. Probably for connecting the cooling plate thermally with the circuit board.
After dismantling the interesting components I ended up with this :
* Circuit board 27,3 g
* Gold plated fingers 2,9 g
* MLCC 4.0 g
* Golden supports 1,0 g
* Aluminum 15,7 g
* Small IC:s 1,5 g
Total weight 52,4 g
The board consisted of the long side with gold on nickel plated on copper base metal fingers. On the card were various components, large grey transformers or inductors, small integrated circuits, ceramic capacitors and other surface mount components. On one side were two aluminum plates for cooling the switch transistors. There were a couple of small golden supports for the cooling plates.
Top side with foils, small IC:s and a lot of capacitors
Bottom side, with aluminum plates...
... and without, cooling paste partly wiped off. Notice the small rectangular metal blocks. Probably for connecting the cooling plate thermally with the circuit board.
After dismantling the interesting components I ended up with this :
* Circuit board 27,3 g
* Gold plated fingers 2,9 g
* MLCC 4.0 g
* Golden supports 1,0 g
* Aluminum 15,7 g
* Small IC:s 1,5 g
Total weight 52,4 g