# GOLD WIRE inside those little lights



## 61 silverman (Jul 30, 2008)

I don't know if I just look too deep or if there is just about no end too where GOLD can be found in the computer's. If you take one of the little lights from the face plate or the disc drive, don't through it away.!! You will need too use a good magnifing glass or my preference a jewelers loop 10X. inside the bulb conecting the pos and neg is a small gold wire that is gold soldered at both ends. these lights are- clear ( the easiest too see the wire )- yellow or green, these are the ones that I have seen, there is gold wire in other areas also Hard drive's have a very small chip at the end of the reader fingers, there too is a small amount, all these other little bit's are adding up, along with the more traditional and obvious areas.


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## Anonymous (Jul 30, 2008)

:roll: 

I am sorry to say but you are miss informed. There are no wires inside led diodes. The inside of a led is two electrodes separated by a dielectric junction.

The color emitted by an led is determined by the alloy tips of the electrodes, which are a combination of the elements gallium, arsenic and phosphorus to name a few.

The light is cause by these elements being excited when the voltage reaches the required threshold to cross that junction. Which is a empty space. 


What your mistaking for a wire is a small nanometer channel is the resin shell.

At least thats how modern leds are made.


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## lazersteve (Jul 30, 2008)

JD,

According to this LED patent he's right:

LED Construction Patent

I'm certain there are many variations on construction and some may not have the interconnecting gold wire, but all the LEDs I've seen that are made like his drawing have the wire.

Here's a better image of the type he speciifed:

[img:409:388]http://www.goldrecovery.us/images/traditional_LED.jpg[/img]

Steve


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## NuggetHuntingFool (Jul 30, 2008)

I can't even begin to imagine how many LED's required to equal 1 Troy Oz...

WoW.


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## 61 silverman (Jul 30, 2008)

Steve , Thank you for the actual picture ( much better than my scribble ) I was pretty sure that what I was seeing was <is> GOLD,there are some more interesting pieces that I have found.. For instance the Disc Drive in all towers have a little part that also has GOLD wires on it, usually round, gold in colour and on the back of it, it has a little post that has 2 and upto 12 pieces of the same gold wire, the number of pins that solder too the circiut film will determine how many wires on the back side, there is always a metal shield covering the back, tin I think.. more *** micro *** gold locations too follow..


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## Anonymous (Jul 30, 2008)

> *A light-emitting diode for large current driving* (1) is provided according to the invention. It comprises a metal substrate (4) having an upper surface and provided with an electrically insulated distribution circuit (4a) formed on the upper surface. A metal base (3) is directly attached to the metal substrate (4) and provided with an LED chip (2) mounted thereon. A gold wire (5) is arranged to connect the distribution circuit to the LED chip. A resin lens (6) is arranged to cover part of the metal base over the LED chip including at least the gold wire (5). Therefore, the metal base with the LED chip mounted thereon and the metal substrate can contact the atmosphere in a large area to dissipate heat efficiently. While keeping this construction, the LED chip can be wired with a small amount of heat through the distribution circuit separated from the metal substrate.



The led you mentioned is for high current systems like Cars and stop lights the newer "Super bright" varieties

if anyone here has ever attempted to construct a N2 Lasers would be familiar with the Inductor wire which it appears to played by this small gold wire in newer patents.

I am pretty sure you won't find gold in the typical run of the mill led, but even if you did your looking at possibly thousands before even half a gram would be recovered.


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## lazersteve (Jul 30, 2008)

JD,

In my 20+ years of work in the electronics field, I've seen more LEDs with the internal gold bonding wire than without.

Here's more proof the gold wires are used in the typical everyday LED :

LED Gold Wires

Granted you won't get much gold, but it is in there.

Steve


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## Harold_V (Jul 30, 2008)

The point that gold wire is found in LED's is the very reason why I have admonished jdwisnie to not encourage readers to address him privately for information. Like all of us, he is capable of being misinformed, as he is in this instance. 

This particular matter may be of little consequence, but I caution readers to avoid asking instructions on ANYTHING privately, unless you are assured that the person in question has expertise. Too much misinformation is and has been propagated through ignorance from well meaning individuals. By posting publicly, readers have a shot at seeing corrections to misinformation. 

Harold


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## Lou (Jul 31, 2008)

It's not his first time being himself corrected in correcting others.

Oddly enough, this thread didn't tickle my humour:

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3015&highlight=strontium


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## lazersteve (Jul 31, 2008)

JD said:


> if anyone here has ever attempted to construct a N2 Lasers would be familiar with the Inductor wire which it appears to played by this small gold wire in newer patents.



Having built a few homemade N2 lasers myself, I can assure you the inductor you speak of in the N2 laser does not even closely function the same as the gold bonding wire in the typical LED. The typical LED wire provides a connection to the electrode that is not connected to the opposite side of the die of the LED. 

The inductor referenced in the N2 laser serves to charge the two positve plates of the laser while the spark gap is not conducting and to provide a high resistantce path between the two positive capacitor plates on either side of the cavity while the spark gap discharges through the cavity. The lower charging frequency is passed by the inductor while the high frequency discharge is blocked by the inductor forcing the discharge current through the laser cavity.

Steve


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## Anonymous (Jul 31, 2008)

Your right I was wrong. Please excuse my ignorance.


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## Anonymous (Aug 11, 2008)

This might actually be a little off topic, but I think I read somewhere, that LED's are made in a platinum crucible, could this mean that they contain any platinum? if so it would most likely be such a small amount it wouldn't be worth it, but i'm curious. I"m pretty sure my info comes from johnson mathey.


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## texan (Sep 12, 2009)

Actually many times there is more gold involed in LED's than just the connecting wire...I have over 100k of the little buggers. Has anyone on the forum tackled de-encapsulating any?


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## lazersteve (Sep 13, 2009)

Several years ago I looked into ways to dissolve the epoxy and hot sulfuric acid seems to be the best way I could find.

Of course, incineration with flux may also work.

I have not tried either of the above methods.

Steve


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## qst42know (Sep 13, 2009)

I did incinerate a couple of these and they end up as a pellet of light weight white ash in the shape of the LED it came from. However I don't have enough LED's to try to recover anything from.


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