Good morning, so I have a question well several really I have a rather large stock of Circuit Boards, Motherboards, CPU's, Hard-drives, Ram Sticks, etc I work IT And I also Dumpster Dive and have been collecting for some time to make a batch worth it. Now I am a simple minded fellow and was curious on other people's approachs on depopulating these boards. Right now I use a heat gun and scrape off all the components then separate them out into different containers. Is there by Chance a Solution to remove all these components instead of melting off the solder? I do not mind putting in the effort as I do enjoy it, but was curious where most the solder is tin based if I Could use a concoction to remove it. Thank you so much for your time
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Good evening here
When talking about depopulating PCBs as much other stuff we do there are as many ways as there are members more or less
Short answer is anyway that works for you.
The benefit with heat gun or other heating is that it is removing the components more or less whole, but it’s dirty, smelly and the gases is not good for you.
Then you have acid, put the board in Muriatic acid until the solder is dissolved and shake off the components, it is smelly and expensive and creates plenty fumes that will rust any steel in its path.
And then there are mechanical, grinding off on the solder and pins backside, dirty noisy and not for all boards. Or one can use manual or mechanical chisels and plain chisel them off. Hard work (ish) sometimes noisy but relative fast.
So in short, anyway that suits you and the level of equipment and experience you have. I have tried all but mechanical chisels, and use them all from time to time.
PS!
Some prefer a heated sand bath and bang the board against something to get the components off. Some has built heated drums where the components drop off.
Search the forum for depopulating and see what you find
Thank you so Much for the reply! I'm thinking of moving to the chisel approach, after I get a Good Batch of all the little bits and pieces from the components not sure how Much Precious metals is to be had in them but I find I love to experiment on small batchs and see what happens. Thank you again so much for the responseGood evening here
When talking about depopulating PCBs as much other stuff we do there are as many ways as there are members more or less
Short answer is anyway that works for you.
The benefit with heat gun or other heating is that it is removing the components more or less whole, but it’s dirty, smelly and the gases is not good for you.
Then you have acid, put the board in Muriatic acid until the solder is dissolved and shake off the components, it is smelly and expensive and creates plenty fumes that will rust any steel in its path.
And then there are mechanical, grinding off on the solder and pins backside, dirty noisy and not for all boards. Or one can use manual or mechanical chisels and plain chisel them off. Hard work (ish) sometimes noisy but relative fast.
So in short, anyway that suits you and the level of equipment and experience you have. I have tried all but mechanical chisels, and use them all from time to time.
PS!
Some prefer a heated sand bath and bang the board against something to get the components off. Some has built heated drums where the components drop off.
Search the forum for depopulating and see what you find
Next step would be to sort the components and process each kind according to best practice.
The amount of PM depends on age and quality of the boards.
Visible gold on PCBs and components is obvious, but usually there are more gold inside different kinds of chips.
If the boards are old enough or high end there may be Pd and Silver in some of the MLCCs. And so on.
Hello Oganon17,
As @Yggdrasil has stated, ther are many techniques for depopulating boards, for motherboards I use a pneumatic chisel, for RAM stics I use soldering iron (for foils) and cutter (for the IC chips), for removing IC from large boards I use a rotating drum and heat (my newest design will be made from a washing machine drum)
You have to find the most suited way for yourself. I go mechanically with machines rather than handwork, allthough I really like to work with RAM sticks depopulations, somehow i find it relaxing..
) )
Whatever you choose, make sure safety is first and you`ll get away from heat produced gases...
Be safe,
Pete
As @Yggdrasil has stated, ther are many techniques for depopulating boards, for motherboards I use a pneumatic chisel, for RAM stics I use soldering iron (for foils) and cutter (for the IC chips), for removing IC from large boards I use a rotating drum and heat (my newest design will be made from a washing machine drum)
You have to find the most suited way for yourself. I go mechanically with machines rather than handwork, allthough I really like to work with RAM sticks depopulations, somehow i find it relaxing..
) )Whatever you choose, make sure safety is first and you`ll get away from heat produced gases...
Be safe,
Pete
Thank you for the information, oh yes safety is a number one for me.Hello Oganon17,
As @Yggdrasil has stated, ther are many techniques for depopulating boards, for motherboards I use a pneumatic chisel, for RAM stics I use soldering iron (for foils) and cutter (for the IC chips), for removing IC from large boards I use a rotating drum and heat (my newest design will be made from a washing machine drum)
You have to find the most suited way for yourself. I go mechanically with machines rather than handwork, allthough I really like to work with RAM sticks depopulations, somehow i find it relaxing..
Whatever you choose, make sure safety is first and you`ll get away from heat produced gases...
Be safe,
Pete
For the most part gold and silver recovery I've researched alot on and have done several "Test" runs the rest not so much as of yet.
Hi Oganon17
I'm bit of a newbie that has just started depopulating boards. I was using a heat gun and it worked really well with getting stuff off the board whole but sometimes the smell was just to bad so I now use hammer and chisel. Its quite quick and if u use a nice sharp wood working chisel you can get most things of whole with 1-2 taps of the hammer.
Hello Ibanez,
I would be very interested in any info you can provide as to designing and building a tumbler unit to depopulate boards.
Many thanks!
Well you don't remove all solder, hot air is good for loosening components and removing some of the excess solder.
It is not possible to remove solder completely without chemicals, you may however be able to remove enough to proceed with HCl based leaching.
Naughtius Maximus
Member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2023
- Messages
- 7
Air hammer seems the way to go.
silversaddle1
Well-known member
I have always seen depopulating as a money loser. Why? I think in the long run a guy would be better off just selling the whole board and buying PM's with the money. By the time you de-populate, sort, refine, you are in the hole. As a hobby, maybe, for profit, IDK.
anachronism
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 31, 2016
- Messages
- 3,153
Spot on. Cherry pick the really good stuff and trade the rest.
Ayham Hafez
Well-known member
4metals mentioned before that depopulating PCB's is much better than smelting directly without depopulating, but since depopulating and sorting took too much time, how about just remove steel and aluminum parts from PCB then just smelt it with rest components, we will not loose any PM's right? And copper from PCB layers will help to collect PM's from other components, I will use nitric acid later to recover PM's,I know its costly but I can't go with copper electrolysis cell now.Good evening here
When talking about depopulating PCBs as much other stuff we do there are as many ways as there are members more or less
Short answer is anyway that works for you.
The benefit with heat gun or other heating is that it is removing the components more or less whole, but it’s dirty, smelly and the gases is not good for you.
Then you have acid, put the board in Muriatic acid until the solder is dissolved and shake off the components, it is smelly and expensive and creates plenty fumes that will rust any steel in its path.
And then there are mechanical, grinding off on the solder and pins backside, dirty noisy and not for all boards. Or one can use manual or mechanical chisels and plain chisel them off. Hard work (ish) sometimes noisy but relative fast.
So in short, anyway that suits you and the level of equipment and experience you have. I have tried all but mechanical chisels, and use them all from time to time.
PS!
Some prefer a heated sand bath and bang the board against something to get the components off. Some has built heated drums where the components drop off.
Search the forum for depopulating and see what you find
