Types of printers and scanners (what's in them)

[Grelko]

I'm not a fan of taking apart printers anymore. Too much plastic and ink. Too many screws too. Not really worth the effort, but I would like to know which ones are best. :G

Some of them can get quite messy, but you could always put down a plastic sheet and wear gloves.

If you get a bunch of them "literally tons", there's different places that will buy the plastic. There's also a lot of websites that will buy the old ink cartridges/toner.

 

[ION 47]

Dear friends! I have a lot of garbage printers and scanners. I have to make a decision: to throw on the landfill of waste production (I have to pay $ 4 per cubic meter), or to disassemble the recovery of precious metals. Printed circuit Board can pass to the factory for $ 2 per kilogram. ABS plastic will not buy anyone, iron scrap buy 0,16 dollars per kilogram. A worker must receive 300-500 dollars for 24 working days (8 hours per day). Asking the advice of professionals, what should I do? Thank you for your answers! Eugene.

 

[Grelko]

Dear friends! I have a lot of garbage printers and scanners. I have to make a decision: to throw on the landfill of waste production (I have to pay $ 4 per cubic meter), or to disassemble the recovery of precious metals. Printed circuit Board can pass to the factory for $ 2 per kilogram. ABS plastic will not buy anyone, iron scrap buy 0,16 dollars per kilogram. A worker must receive 300-500 dollars for 24 working days (8 hours per day). Asking the advice of professionals, what should I do? Thank you for your answers! Eugene.

I am not a professional, but I will try to help.

I do not know what to say about the ABS plastic, except to send to the landfill. (if there is no one that will buy it and you are unable to recycle it.)
I do not know what to say about the ink cartridges. You can try to find a person that will buy them.

Along with Iron and circuit boards, many printers also contain small motors, Aluminum, Brass, Stainless steel and wire. (The wire is normally copper). You should be able to sell this also.

24 days (8 hours each day), to pay 1 worker, you must have a total between...

150.72 Kg - 207.36 Kg of circuit boards ($300 - $500)

1885.44 Kg - 2,592 Kg of iron scrap ($300 - $500)

The smallest printer I have seen, has around 0.24 Kg of scrap Iron. Larger printers can easily be 5-6 Kg+ of scrap Iron. This can add up quickly. Very large printers from office buildings can have 50 Kg+
The smallest printer I have seen, has around 0.06 Kg of circuit boards. The very large printers from office buildings, can possibly have 1-1.5 Kg of circuit boards.

Afterwards, you will need to pay the landfill for the plastic.

If you have more after this has been completed, it will be your profit.

Looking at the pictures, if you can take apart everything you have in 24 days, you should have more than is needed.

If you are able to sell the iron scrap with small pieces of plastic still attached, break the printers with a big hammer. Then make a separate pile for Iron, circuit boards and plastic. This will not take much time.

If you must sell the iron scrap "completely clean", or if the circuit boards can not be broken, it will take a lot more time. You might not make a profit from this.


I personally think that this looks like a lot of fun. If I had this much material, I would try to make money from it. By the off chance, if you did not make a profit, you would have a large empty space that can be used for something else. Also, by paying a worker for 24 days, you would be helping them and their family.

Edit - added

Edit - I took a closer look at the pictures. It is hard to tell exactly how many printers you have. There is a lot of paper and the bottom pieces of computer chairs on the bottom left of the screen. There is a large pile of CRT TVs (Box TVs) in the back right. I am not sure what is in the 2 large containers on the back left.

The "scanners" have glass squares on them. You may be able to sell them at a market. They can be used for many things, picture frames, small windows.

I do not condone this in any way, but if you break the CRT TVs, they have a heavy piece of iron around the glass, and also a piece of iron screen inside.

 

[Grelko]

HP Deskjet 6540 - C9052A

(Scrapyard)

7.83 lb steel shred

0.62 lb motor

0.09 lb ribbon/wire

0.46 lbs Aluminum sheet

(Refining)

0.24 lbs material

 

[ION 47]

Dear friends! I have a lot of garbage printers and scanners. I have to make a decision: to throw on the landfill of waste production (I have to pay $ 4 per cubic meter), or to disassemble the recovery of precious metals. Printed circuit Board can pass to the factory for $ 2 per kilogram. ABS plastic will not buy anyone, iron scrap buy 0,16 dollars per kilogram. A worker must receive 300-500 dollars for 24 working days (8 hours per day). Asking the advice of professionals, what should I do? Thank you for your answers! Eugene.

I am not a professional, but I will try to help.....

Grelkо, I am very grateful for Your advice! I'll follow your advice. This heap of wealth, I inherited a legacy from the former head of the firm (he left the earthly world). He was engaged in utilization of office equipment, but did not want to pay for burial of waste, and put everything that was unprofitable to sort (so he thought) , in the yard. He many printers and scanners crushed (press 20 tons), to reduce the size of the. Now I have to work hard hammer to extract a little money from this heap. Once again, thank you very much!

 

[Grelko]

Now I have to work hard hammer to extract a little money from this heap. Once again, thank you very much!

Best of luck to you, and I hope you make a good profit.

If you get a chance, post a picture when you are finished.

 

[Grelko]

HP Lazer Jet 4200 (4200/4300 Series)

Heavy, weighs almost 50 lbs

Contains LCD screen

(Scrapyard)

23.39 lb steel shred

0.59 lb motors

0.53 lb ribbon/wire

0.06 lb non-magnetic stainless

0.04 lb Red brass

0.03 lb Yellow brass

0.75 lb Aluminum bar (covered in rubber)

(Refining)

4.00 lb material

Up to 4 Ram cards, gold fingers (if Ram is included), and some gold pins.

 

[Grelko]

 

[TrinityTrip]

Hi y'all.
First time poster, long time butcher..of all things EEE.

I'm more interested in this forum from an 'broadening my knowledge and curiosity' point of view.
I have a keen interest in tech and love to pull it apart to find useful parts for other projects.
Lately I'm fascinated by the actual guts of IC's and am actively pursuing decapping and photographing of dies. And of course recovering gold where possible.
But that's beside the point...

I've pulled apart many printers and found that there is a goldmine of useful parts that can be repurposed and/or recycled. Besides some PM, for which I have this forum to thank for enlightening me.

To assist the gentleman in deciding what to do with his mountain of printers, I can suggest the following (although maybe too late for him, but applicable to all in this forum):
1. DC motors, gears, and belts - Very useful for making other machines or selling to hobbyists or other manufacturers.
2. Stepper motors - Good for precision movement of mechanisms. Hobbyists love these. Think-3d printers.
3. Sensors galore - All manner of applications requiring opto-couplers and position wheels, thermisors, temp sensors, humidity sensors, hall effect sensors, etc. If you get a pile of good condition ones, definitely of interest to online sales.
4. Steel carriage rods - Many applications besides scrap value. If they are not corroded these are good for 3d printers, laser marking machines, mini-cnc's, frame material for mini fume cabinet.
5. Ribbon cable - Primarily for gold on the edges, sometimes. Remaining copper wire/traces is pure. Although the plastics are either PVC or Polyimide which are difficult and hazardous to recycle.
6. Switches and buttons - Replacement value for other appliances.
7. Plastic - Mostly the difficult part to recycle. Some of these plastics are of a material that cannot be recycled. Usually characterized by breaking cleanly and having a rough edge. Generally black in color but not always. If there is indeed ABS this is a great opportunity to sell as feedstock to 3d printer filament makers. Or, making your own filament extruder. Best way to test is to rub acetone on the plastic and if it melts, to smell the fumes after the acetone is evaporated. If its a sweetish polystyrene smell it may be ABS. You will learn how to identify it.
8. Metal base plates and frames - These are good for making frames for other machines, such as 3d printers, extruders, or any other device you would want to build. And in the end, scrap value, or smelting for other objects if you are so inclined or capable.
9. Scanners are a special source of useful parts as above plus the glass beds. Good for a myriad of uses. It's usually not paper thin and quite tough. The scanner itself has a light source. I have found these very useful for making torches and lamps using old laptop batteries. Either fluorescent tubes or LEDs. And usually the ribbon cable can have gold fingers and the sensor IC is typically gold plated pins and sometimes the gold bonding wires exposed for easy dissolution into AR.
10. Power supplies - Good source for other appliances or projects, or a supply for your homemade lamp or torch as described above.

You can likely see a trend here towards up-cycling, and a predilection towards 3d printers. I'm a fan of re-purposing instead of discarding as this usually ends up in landfill and creates toxic waste.
There are, of course, PM in most of these EEE parts, but these days gold is at a minimum due to cost and planned obsolescence.

For the die-hard refiner, piles of PCB's offer many types of elements, but I would think the effort and toxic waste produced offsets any gains. Unless there are obvious sources of gold, I would personally not waste too much time recovering elements. Rather send these to dedicated recyclers for proper disposal.

Anyway, that's my take on printers/scanners.
Hope it helps someone.
Thanks for the great forum!

T

p.s. If anyone has piles of ceramic IC's that do not contain valuable metals, I am interested, in the dies. I am interested to create 'electronic art' or jewelry. Even if you have smashed the ceramic and have relatively intact dies, I am interested. In volume, of course. I cringe when I see refiners smashing the chips and the lovely die flying off. Each to their own treasure I guess...

 

[butcher]

TrinityTrip,
Thanks for the printer recycling Ideas tips welcome to the forum.
I have an old printer that I thought of trying to use the wifi circuit to use in a remote control project...

 

[AndrewSuperD]

HP Lazer Jet 4200 (4200/4300 Series)

Heavy, weighs almost 50 lbs

Contains LCD screen

(Scrapyard)

23.39 lb steel shred

0.59 lb motors

0.53 lb ribbon/wire

0.06 lb non-magnetic stainless

0.04 lb Red brass

0.03 lb Yellow brass

0.75 lb Aluminum bar (covered in rubber)

(Refining)

4.00 lb material

Up to 4 Ram cards, gold fingers (if Ram is included), and some gold pins.

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Pic 5 is a money shot for me. I had a chance to recycle five HP 4200 printers and those two chips in pic 5 gave me .15g gold from each card. I incinerated and hand pulled the bond wires under a microscope from the first set. Made my very first bead that way.