My first button

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niks neims

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 7, 2017
Messages
367
Location
Latvia
Hello everybody!

My name is Arturs, i am 30 year old, from Latvia - tiny country in East Europe, Baltics, have background in entrepreneurship.

some time ago i got obsessed with the idea of e-waste recycling (i think from some youtube videos), so i started collecting old PC and other e-scrap, somewhat recently i found this forum and started studying, got hokes book also :)

Thanks to this forum and all you guys posting i made my first button few days ago (1.919 grams), got it XRF`d at the local university, it tested at 95% Au, so i guess i am still in the recovery realm for now :) still not so bad for working in the middle of field, with few mason jars, without any previous expirience.

it was pretty challenging and i am quite proud of myself, i am yet not convinced that there is real possibility for a succesfull bussines to be made there for me, though, but still for now I would wery much like to be a part of this great forum :)

Thanks again for this amazing place, could not have done it without you guys, thank all of you!

P.s. i hope it is not against rules to post a picture of my buttons:
 

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Well done and welcome to the forum.
No more hairy nipples please. use a coin for a size reference next time. :wink:

Last words, you might be surprised at how fast you can accumulate gold from e scrap. I average about 60 usd an hour for the time I put into my e scrap recovery.
 
Smack said:
justinhcase said:
And why douse it look so much more engorged in your close up?

I think he's lactating.

I thought he was extruding the gold from them. :)
Kind of like the goose that laid the golden egg.
....but completely, totally, and utterly different
(See what i did there :wink: )
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
Smack said:
justinhcase said:
And why douse it look so much more engorged in your close up?

I think he's lactating.

I thought he was extruding the gold from them. :)
Kind of like the goose that laid the golden egg.
....but completely, totally, and utterly different
(See what i did there :wink: )
A Ha Ha Ha ahna Ha.expletive.
 
FrugalRefiner said:
Arturs, I think they look great!

Dave

Dave... Honestly.. .

Now look away from the profile pic.

I've got to say that if you asked me to write a list of the top 5 things "never to be seen" on GRF that would have never even crossed my mind! I can't unsee that now. Or ever. :lol: :lol:
 
I have fixed that image. Now it looks much better.

Your picture probably does not break rules but to be honest, it is distasteful.

DSC_0333.JPG
 
joekbit said:
Well done and welcome to the forum.
No more hairy nipples please. use a coin for a size reference next time. :wink:

Last words, you might be surprised at how fast you can accumulate gold from e scrap. I average about 60 usd an hour for the time I put into my e scrap recovery.

Joe- are you serious- $60.00/hr? Does this include all the time for picking stuff up, hauling all the broken down stuff to the scrap yard, dealing with waste acids, processing the parts for AU, etc. Perhaps you are in a place where selling boards etc is more profitable than where I am at (California). I can't even get close to $60.00/hr refining ewaste. Not when I calculate all the above mentioned aspects into the cost of doing things.
Of course, maybe you are just better at this than I am :D .

Dennis
 
ok ok i changed original and profile pic :) maybe it was a bit wierd

still thank you guys for welcoming me, i hope i didn`t traumatise anyone too much



joekbit said:
I average about 60 usd an hour for the time I put into my e scrap recovery.


wow, that is great man! got any tips for me ?
 
Pick your material.
Have the correct gear to process it properly.
Plan your time.
Work smart.

I think that about covers it. 8)
 
Thanks!

That's a lot better, we like it when there is nothing to distract us from what's important... the gold! :D

Usually we have a policy that it is forbidden to editing a post so much that it makes later replies look out of topic, but in this case I allow it.
For anyone reading this thread for the first time, there were a picture with some questionable content in the first post but it has been cropped down to the one showing now where the gold is the main focus.

Göran
 
anachronism said:
Pick your material.
Have the correct gear to process it properly.
Plan your time.
Work smart.

thank you man, that is very general of course, still from researching forum I got the feeling that you are one of the top e-waste guys here so any tips are welcome

as i am still at the very start of the road one of the biggest questions for me is: what scrap is and what is not worth messing with, for example i learned the hard way that CRT monitors are at best worthless. But for a positive example: i was very nicely surprised about amount of gold bearing material and impressively populated PCBs in somewhat ordinary looking office phones (got my hands on mitel superset voip central)....

also, and i apologize if this has been discussed here already, if you would like to break down expected incoming cash flow proportions of small, average e-scrap operation (PC, office e-waste, nothing too specialized) that still wants to recover gold by themselves, not just collect, sort and re-sell scrap.... what would be priorities to focus on between these main categories:

1) re-sale of still working or collectible items on e-bay
2) gold recovery from fingers, pins & chips
3) selling depopulated items like MLCC or tantalum caps
4) selling copper, aluminium, iron and depopulated, trimmed and brown boards to scrap yard

for example would you expect to 65% of your revenue to come from copper and iron and only 10 % from gold recovery? am i missing some important category ?
 
g_axelsson said:
it is forbidden to editing a post so much that it makes later replies look out of topic
Göran

let`s make a deal, I will save the original picture and if someone still gets the unhealthy obsession to look at the original masterpiece, i will PM it to them directly :D
 
niks neims said:
g_axelsson said:
it is forbidden to editing a post so much that it makes later replies look out of topic
Göran

let`s make a deal, I will save the original picture and if someone still gets the unhealthy obsession to look at the original masterpiece, i will PM it to them directly :D

Haha lesson learned then. By the way one particular member certainly looks like he's a prime recipient for the "uncut" original. :lol: :lol:
 
Clearly I missed all the excitement! $60/hr doesn't surprise me.

I just wish I were that restrained. I lower the wage a bit by getting too excited (stupid) and making mistakes in what I buy.

As long as I don't make the same mistake twice I guess.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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