How to estimate the amount of gold in electronics and jewelry

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Well, I've loosely calculated that I have about $876 worth of gold on those cannon plug pins. However, I'm still having trouble getting them out of the neoprene grommet in a timely manor. The pins have a groove in them and the grommet is molded around the pin. My next attempt will be a metal template with holes drilled to match the plug pattern. Maybe I can drive them out the other side with a small hollow tipped tool. Anyone have any suggestions?
 
How about a metal template with a press. Get them all at once by pressing them out ???? Just guessing here.
 
I've been a member for a spell, but lurking and reading. On this, however, I had to chime in.

I have wrestled with similar plugs, mil-spec Burndy's to be exact. Tried the old pulling one pin at a time method and burned up a lot of time and muscle mass.

One day, I decided to take a couple outside and try a mild touch of flame from a regular propane torch. Jackpot! The grommet ignited and burned somewhat poorly, but I blew out the flame, let the partially burnt grommet cool, gave it a poke and it fell apart. A light puff of breath across the cinders and ashes and there sat the pins.

So, as Harold has said so many times: "Incineration". But partial is all that was needed for me.

I still have ca 20 lbs. or more of these in the basement to be done. Hope that helps.
 

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Still getting the hang of things...had to shrink this picture. These are pins from Burndy connectors pulled one at a time. Lot of pain in that 154 grams of yet to be refined metal!

Best to all,
Jeff
 
Hey all,

I've decided to build a calculator of sorts to help everyone (including me) "to see" what yields and costs should be, based soley on gold content. I borrowed from Catfish with the formula but changed the measuring units from square inches to square millimeters (because they are easier to measure with, more acurate, and used by electronic designers).

You will only need to enter information in the white cells, all colored cells have formulas. You will need a standard ruler with mm and cm markings, enter the mm as a whole number where appropriate ( 5 mm will be 5). You will need a digital scale that has grains as a measuring unit ( I got mine for $13), this is for measuring the weight of a sample trimmed finger. The calculations will show you what percent of the trimmed finger is gold, projected yield, value, and bulk projections.

I have also added a section that compares the weight of the substrate that holds the gold to the gold itself. This should help (especially the newbie) it discriminating between ebay auctions (ie a pound of cards is significantly different from a pound of trimmed fingers).

Anyway, if anyone sees any errors please let me know and I'll fix them. I will be doing a similiar spreadsheet for headers and pins using the surface area formula for a cylinder (minus the bottom surface).

Let me know what you think.
 

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To finance one of my refineries, we worked about 100 to 200 drums of Cannon plugs that my partner had accumulated. We popped them open with a small, v shaped, powerful shear. It was called a Mini-monster. It was so controllable, you could crack an egg with it. We simply cracked open the metal shell with the shear and the pins fell out.
 
hey there, i watch your videos on youtube. very informative for a newbie. thanks
 
Scott2357 said:
Well, I've loosely calculated that I have about $876 worth of gold on those cannon plug pins. However, I'm still having trouble getting them out of the neoprene grommet in a timely manor. The pins have a groove in them and the grommet is molded around the pin. My next attempt will be a metal template with holes drilled to match the plug pattern. Maybe I can drive them out the other side with a small hollow tipped tool. Anyone have any suggestions?
Click to expand...

What you need is the pin insertion/removal tool that is used to assemble the connectors. I googled "cannon connector tool" and got a number of hits, what you're looking for looks like this: http://stores.channeladvisor.com/daleproaudio/items/item.aspx?itemid=2190217

They are specific to pin size. Another option is to locate one of the temporary plastic ones that are sometimes sold in the bag when you buy the pins. Places that assemble connectors throw those out by the dozen.

The tool is just a hollow shaft that you slide over the pin to compress the locking feature.
 
Thanks for helping look for a solution but I'm sorry to say that while that is a cannon brand pin extractor, it's not for use on cannon plugs. I've used one of those before. We used to call them "pin pushers". It's mainly for Molex type pins that have the little ears that snap open on the other side to lock it into the connector shell. The cannon plug pins have grooves in the body of the pin and the grommet is molded into and around the pin grooves. It's an extremely durable design and really hard to remove the pins even with a lot of brute force.

BTW- Partial incineration, as suggested, worked pretty good and was best method I've found, but was still a lot of time and effort. Pins also came out contaminated with oily carbon from the smoke.
 
Scott2357 said:
Thanks for helping look for a solution but I'm sorry to say that while that is a cannon brand pin extractor, it's not for use on cannon plugs. I've used one of those before. We used to call them "pin pushers". It's mainly for Molex type pins that have the little ears that snap open on the other side to lock it into the connector shell. The cannon plug pins have grooves in the body of the pin and the grommet is molded into and around the pin grooves. It's an extremely durable design and really hard to remove the pins even with a lot of brute force.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, that's what I get for trusting memory. I've used the molex tools in the last few years for projects around the house but the Cannon tools I remember from 20 years ago were much smaller diameter to fit the Cannon pins. I remember using the plastic temporary tools that came with the pins to remove inserted pins, there was a real trick to it I never quite learned. The techs wouldn't let me use their real tools until I could master the plastic one. It's the same principle though, isn't it - instead of the molex style ears the cannon tool pushes the rubber out of the grooves I thought. Oh well, incineration makes a moot point of it I'll agree.
 
Another resurface of an old post. The military connectors I am pulling apart have a 2 piece hard blue holder that the pins go through, one piece from each end of the pins that have a large center to keep them from being pulled from either side without seperating the plastic (Amphenol) pieces. My pins are silver/white as well as the wires. Not sure what year they are from but believe they are from a couple of Generators. Both connectors had internal snap rings and one had a hidden screw apart section. Has anyone pulled any of these apart? I tried to look up the mil spec info but couldn't access. One number I found was ms3102a32-8p Thanks, Everone have a Merry CHRISTmas and a Happy New Year
 
shaftsinkerawc said:
I tried to look up the mil spec info but couldn't access. One number I found was ms3102a32-8p Thanks, Everone have a Merry CHRISTmas and a Happy New Year
Click to expand...

From WebFLIS (http://www.dlis.dla.mil/webflis/pub/pub_search.aspx) :

5935-00-283-3420:

TERMINAL LOCATION BACK SINGLE MATING END ALL CONTACT GROUPINGS
CONTACT SURFACE TREATMENT GOLD SINGLE MATING END ALL CONTACT GROUPINGS AND SILVER
TERMINAL TYPE SOLDER WELL SINGLE MATING END ALL CONTACT GROUPINGS
SHELL MATERIAL ALUMINUM ALLOY
SHELL SURFACE TREATMENT CADMIUM
SHELL SURFACE TREATMENT QQ-P-416,TY 2,CL 3 FED SPEC
DOCUMENT AND CLASSIFICATION SINGLE TREATMENT RESPONSE
INCLUDED CONTACT QUANTITY 6 SINGLE MATING END 1ST
CONTACT GROUPING
INCLUDED CONTACT QUANTITY 24 SINGLE MATING END 2ND
CONTACT GROUPING
INCLUDED CONTACT TYPE ROUND PIN SINGLE MATING END ALL CONTACT GROUPINGS
PRECIOUS MATERIAL AND LOCATION CONTACT SURFACES GOLD AND CONTACT SURFACES SILVER
PRECIOUS MATERIAL AND WEIGHT 0.054 GOLD GRAINS, TROY AND
0.054 SILVER GRAINS, TROY
PRECIOUS MATERIAL GOLD AND SILVER
TEST DATA DOCUMENT 81349-MIL-C-5015 SPECIFICATION
THREAD SERIES DESIGNATOR UNS
SPECIFICATION/STANDARD DATA 81349-MIL-C-5015 GOVERNMENT SPECIFICATION

Even some commercial connectors can be identified through WebFLIS, thanks to the Govt's Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) program.

Cheers and Merry Christmas, Brian
 
thanks Guys. Am I reading it right that the pins are only surface coated Au or Ag.
When I clipped one in half it appeared consistent throughout.
 
shaftsinkerawc said:
thanks Guys. Am I reading it right that the pins are only surface coated Au or Ag.
When I clipped one in half it appeared consistent throughout.
Click to expand...

That is because when you cut the pin the gold layer will thin out(spread) and cover the cut area and make it look like solid gold.
 

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