# Abrading Precious Metals IC's MB Pins



## rusty (Oct 24, 2010)

Almost an identical project here


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## Chumbawamba (Oct 24, 2010)

A friend wants to help me with a full board shredder so I'm going to go that route.

In the very least, if I can get it crushed up fine enough, say -0.5", removing the large metallic pieces, then I could take it directly to a refiner as ready to process "pulp". Or I could then feed it into a ball mill to come out with an even finer material that I could then send out for assay.


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## rusty (Oct 24, 2010)

If I did the flail would be my first choice.


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## samuel-a (Oct 24, 2010)

rusty said:


> The last time I incinerated IC's some had a tendency to explode disrupting the lot in the pan taking goods along with them when they flew out of the pan. My furnace is fired with an 800,000 btu liquid propane torch from a roofers tar kettle. Smoke is at a bare minimum if any at all



Yup thous IC's, that i don't know what are the casing made of, sure pack alot of energy in them, energy that is beeing released once turned to carbon (e.g incinration).


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## Barren Realms 007 (Oct 24, 2010)

samuel-a said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> > The last time I incinerated IC's some had a tendency to explode disrupting the lot in the pan taking goods along with them when they flew out of the pan. My furnace is fired with an 800,000 btu liquid propane torch from a roofers tar kettle. Smoke is at a bare minimum if any at all
> ...



It is because they are not a uniform thicknes where the silicone chips is and when it is heated up real quick it fracturs at that point. If they are heated up more evenly you can make a pile of them glow with not much of a problem. 

Paitence. 8)


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## pgm (Nov 14, 2010)

rusty said:


> I'm starting off with the IC's and pins from memory slots and those under the cpu sockets sheared from mother boards in hopes that the precious metals will be abraded off in the ball mill.
> 
> Almost an identical project here were I processed pins removed from able plugs via a hammer mill abrading the gold off in the ball mill.
> http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=8074
> ...



Hi Rusty

I am adding some pic's can you tell me if all the Ic's here have gold and are good for processing.


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## rusty (Nov 14, 2010)

Discard nothing.


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## pgm (Nov 14, 2010)

rusty said:


> When I was shearing off the IC's a lot of them broke from the abuse of the air chisel exposing gold inside chips I would never have expected to find gold.
> 
> The boards I recently sheared were telecom I would estimate that 50 percent of the chips had gold inside some of the older MB's have small chips that look like ram will have gold, you just never know until you crack open a chip or two.
> 
> Since most chips have silver and perhaps a bit of palladium I decided to process everything not to discard anything.



thanks for the feedback, it is very helpful, i thought i might be wasting my time. i was looking at stripping down over 700 boards. now need to find something to crush them i am bidding on a ball mill on ebay, here is the link

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180587007577&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

what do you think?


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## pgm (Nov 14, 2010)

rusty said:


> When I was shearing off the IC's a lot of them broke from the abuse of the air chisel exposing gold inside chips I would never have expected to find gold.
> 
> The boards I recently sheared were telecom I would estimate that 50 percent of the chips had gold inside some of the older MB's have small chips that look like ram will have gold, you just never know until you crack open a chip or two.
> 
> Since most chips have silver and perhaps a bit of palladium I decided to process everything not to discard anything.


 
sorry rusty wrong pic's let me change them


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## rusty (Nov 14, 2010)

Get the job done.


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## rusty (Nov 16, 2010)

Below is the powders incinerated


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## rusty (Nov 18, 2010)

The scum


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## rusty (Nov 19, 2010)

This evening when I unloaded my mill the balls had a silvery gray metallic metal that had plated itself onto the balls. Just wondering of anyone else has noticed this happening to them.


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## Harold_V (Nov 19, 2010)

rusty said:


> Harold when you used your ball mill, what was the purpose of the lime.


I processed an ore that was a sulfide. The discharge from the ball mill went to my agitation tank, where the ore was processed with cyanide and bromine. Had I not introduced lime, pH would have dropped to a dangerous level, resulting in liberating hydrocyanic acid. Death follows. 

I attempted to hold the pH at 10. Once that level was established (in the ball mill) the slurry appeared to be relatively stable. 

Harold


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