# A Look Inside Some Routers and Switches



## war_child (Jan 15, 2022)

Hello to all Ewaste scrappers. I have had some good luck scrapping out these devices. Routers, POE, and switches offer a lot of nice components to cherry pick. I wanted to post a couple pictures of several devices that I have scrapped for reference. Hopefully it come in handy to some urban miners.

good luck!
mike


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## war_child (Jan 15, 2022)

A few more items. Of course, I'm sure these machines are more valuable to resell than to scrap. Be sure to test all equipment before scrapping!


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## DaddyD (Jan 15, 2022)

I do agree with you you can make more money selling but that's if you can find a buyer best to go ahead and scrap our


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## trdking (Jan 15, 2022)

All of the gear you have shown are way end of life. You are free to scrap that as you wish. THere is virtually zero after market potential in that gear.


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## war_child (Jan 16, 2022)

That's good to know guys, thanks. I was feeling the slightest bit guilty for not even plugging any of those in to see if they worked. I was far too eager to rip them open and see what goodies were inside. Some were better than others. I did get some nice cisco gold corner bga's & I'm pretty excited to process them sometime in the future.


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## silversaddle1 (Jan 16, 2022)

Srcapped 1000's and 1000's of them Just got a pallet of them in last week. Most the boards will go telecom, some high grade telecom.


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## ywctrade (Jan 21, 2022)

trdking said:


> All of the gear you have shown are way end of life. You are free to scrap that as you wish. THere is virtually zero after market potential in that gear.


I'm sorry, but I dont agree, there's a mrket for old and refurb ones. That's these kind of items I'm selling regurlarly through my own website.


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## glorycloud (Jan 22, 2022)

I try not to sell any switches or routers unless I am able to get 
at least $50 for them. The rest I choose to scrap. I guess value
is a relative term. There is a lot of effort required to properly
test, clean, pack, etc. items for sale. At least the way I do it.
So it's easier for me to justify my time and effort, packing materials,
shipping costs, eBay or PayPal fees by keeping to minimum sale price
standards.

I also have minimum threshold sales amounts for power supplies,
heat sinks, mother boards, cables, etc. Simplifies my life and that
way I am not chasing after $5 net profit deals and I get 99% of
what comes through the door for free.  

The way I overcome these minimums is to simply sell in bulk.
One sale for (20) items may be $100. But I surely am not going to sell 
one item for $5.


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## AMS-Pro (Jan 30, 2022)

I had so many of these at one point, only a couple pallets worth left now, but they are very easy to get. I pick them up 10cents/lb. occasionally, multiple pallets at a time. Something unique you can do with these is turn them into inexpensive smart home hubs. For most of what's in those pictures, I would rather just sell them as equipment. I average about $5 each, and sell them as a bulk deal. If it's the larger 16-32 port ( L shaped boards, 1.5 lb. board weight average), I'll break them down and stockpile those until I'm tired of looking at them. Edit* I will add that the Cisco switches and Firebox with ram/CPU are always a treat to get, those get held back as well.


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## shruli (Jan 31, 2022)

I've got about 30 of these that have been gathering dust for years, mix of 24 & 48 port. Does anyone know if the connectors in the ports have any worth? Tried searching but can't find much. Thanks


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## AMS-Pro (Jan 31, 2022)

Average, 65 cents-$1.00 /Lb.


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## shruli (Jan 31, 2022)

Thanks AMS-Pro...Is that the whole connector? or is that just the gold plated wire inside the ports, which is what I'm curious about. Sorry if I wasn't clear or using wrong terminology


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## AMS-Pro (Jan 31, 2022)

For scrapping purposes:
- Just take what is usually the metal box as you see it (metal shielding, internal plastic, and the gold wire/tabs in side that plastic). Depending on your methods of depopulating it from the board, it occasionally will fall apart. If this happens, out of decency, just keep the shielding separate in its own scrap pile apart from the collection of connectors and only add the pieces that have the gold contacts in them. If you were to just include the shielding by itself, in with the connector pile, you're likely to be devalued because it has no business in the pile. This would be similar to say... leaving the heatsink on the board, instead of removing them. The shielding will more often separate if your method is using pliers to remove the connector. You'll have better luck keeping the connector as one piece by using a hammer and either a taping knife with a capped end on the handle, or a larger flathead to go down both sets of contact points between the connector and the board. Take your time to not overwork the connector and you'll be golden. 

For advanced scrapping:
- A comfortable seat, a lot of coffee, and a lot of time, to collect a lot of little pins/tabs. There are various methods to remove the actual connector points from the connector, but it is very tedious and slow going. It really depends on how you value your time. If you're refining them yourself, then there's no way around it, and there are better raw materials to use. There are methods becoming more available now to better recover the gold without actually breaking down the connector (electrolytic/Eco-goldex and similar) but as far as I understand, the process of recovering the gold from connectors has always been quite tedious. 

Price/value of the gold from that point really depends on the amount of pins/ tabs, quality of the pins, whether they are solid or plated, if plated then the thickness of plating, and so on, and so on.

I'm sure there are some very well educated minds on here, that are able to delve much further into that part of the process than I. If your intention is to recover and refine the connectors yourself, I would seek out the information with the search bar first, as it's most likely already been discussed, or make a new posting in reference to the learning of that process, in the right topic area, as I fear we are on the border of high jacking war_childs post, and going way off topic. 

I hope this information has helped you.


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## shruli (Feb 1, 2022)

Many thanks AMS-Pro and apologies war-child for hijacking your post, just seeing your pictures made me think it's time to do something with the lot I've got. In the next few weeks, purely for curiosity, I will strip & process them all, recording with pictures & video. Starting a new post of course


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## war_child (Feb 2, 2022)

No worries shruli. I'm glad to see the thread is still alive. I will help out too. Here is a pic of the better type of phone jack pins I removed from some of the routers. I'm not certain, but I believe these were from the Cisco equipment. Other phone jacks were partially plated and/or made from flat wire. These pins were apparently made from a more rounded wire and have a nice looking shine all up and down. They were the easiest type to remove also. I don't have any idea what the gold thickness is, but I'm guessing they yield better than the flat, partially plated pins.


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