# Circuit boards with gold traces.



## jerrycranium (Sep 5, 2007)

What is the best way to get the gold out of these and the ribbon cables with gold inbetween the plastic, BURNING?

Also, is it needed to remove the resistors or everything off the board and soak it in something before burning?

What metals are in the Resistors, Capicators, Ect....

Jerry.


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## macfixer01 (Sep 6, 2007)

Hi Jerry,
I had the same sort of question. The last couple years I've been just collecting scrap boards and chips and concentrating them where possible, but have yet to process any of the gold. I'm about to get started though.

Typically what I've been doing is peeling off the gold traces and fingers with single-edged razor blades. It's hard on the hands though and very time consuming. After seeing Steve's video of processing fingers with AP, I don't think I'll bother peeling any more fingers anyway, just break or cut the finger area loose from the rest of the board and save them up.

I'm not sure what's best to do with the gold traces though on say HP or Tektronix circuit boards for example. I always clip off all the discrete components first, but the solder is still left behind. I'm worried the solder might muck up the AP process if I dip the full board. I could continue to peel the traces off the boards but it's very tedious and time consuming. I have also run into certain boards where the gold must be extremely thin or something, because it goes to dust as you try to peel the traces back and ends up stuck to everything.

So if any of the more advanced members are reading this, can I use AP on a board to remove the gold traces and fingers if it has solder on it? What sort of problems will I have to look out for?

Regarding your other questions... Those transparent plastic cables would probably have to be burned. Use adequate ventilation and avoid the fumes. There is a plethora of different metals, plastics, and ceramics in discrete components. Resistors can contain carbon, metal film (aluminum?), or can be the surface mount variety. Capacitors can contain aluminum as in electrolytics, tantalum, or even a little palladium for the surface mount types. Other than possibly saving the palladium, I don't think the rest is worth much unless you have some gold containing chips, transistors, crystals, SAW filters, and so on worth saving. Some info I bought off Ebay once mentioned tantalum caps as being worth saving, but it's a lot lower in value now than it was a few years ago. I believe they contain a little silver too. Anyway I through them all in a box if somebody knows what to do with them?

Thanks,
macfixer01


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## jimdoc (Sep 6, 2007)

Macfixer01,
I tried some of those HP boards like you have and
wasn't happy with the results, I think the solder does
mess up the results. Also the boards are now rusted
where the gold traces where, so it must be steel under
the gold? If you try them, try them by themselves so 
you don't screw up some clean material with it.
Jim


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## dwt9999 (Sep 6, 2007)

I would try putting it into a HCl by itself first, that should get rid of the solder.(unless it is silver) 

Then rense it and soak it in AP. I have a few boards I have done this way and it seems to work OK.

Lew


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## macfixer01 (Sep 6, 2007)

Hi,
Those are both good points guys, thank you!

macfixer01


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## lazersteve (Sep 6, 2007)

If you heat the boards first and bang the card on a table or bucket edge to remove the bulk of the solder and components they process in AP without any problems. I've got lots of these and have posted pictures of the clean boards in another post.

Here's a shot of the one of the stripped boards:

[img:422:294]http://www.goldrecovery.us/images/hpboard.jpg[/img]

Steve


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## PhillipJ (Sep 6, 2007)

What I do with those boards is cut them to fit into the recovery cell. Then take a pointed 12 guage copper wire, connect it to my positive "anode" and touch the traces. The gold comes right off on all interconnected traces.


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## jerrycranium (Sep 7, 2007)

Thanks alot for the info. It was very helpfull. 

I have had hard time looking up data on resistor or capicator material. I did find that Tantalum was used in some capacitors and some Germanium, Cobalt was used in hard drive platters but i hae yet to find anything on PGM on them.

What about you steve, every process any resisotrs or capacitors?

Jerry


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## lazersteve (Sep 8, 2007)

Jerry,

Yes, I've processed monolithic capacitors using AP. Never processed any resistors. My posts and videos dealing with Palladium all show the solution which I used to extract 2 reels of capacitors. The experiment is not yet completed, but I'll post more on the capacitors as time permits.

The acid peroxide works on the monolithics but takes a very long time to fully dissolve them. I ended up with a mixture of red liquid, fine white powder, and fine black powder mixed. From my initial testing it appears as though the white powder is titanium dioxide, the black powder is platinum, and the red liquid contains barium titanate and palladium. I have not confirmed 100% the white powder as titanium dioxide, but it lack of reactivity and physical characteristics lead me to believe it is the compound that I'm dealing with. The manufacturers datasheet on the capacitors puts me in the right ballpark for the compounds used in the capacitors. The ceramic material used can vary so the white powder could be another unreactive compound.

Steve


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## Never_Evil (Sep 9, 2007)

Does the powder separate as it settles or does it need a filter step to separtate the white powder from the black?


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## lazersteve (Sep 9, 2007)

They separate a little, but not completely. I stir the whole thing up really good with lots of water, wait about five minutes for the heavier stuff to settle then pour off the bulk of the white stuff. I repeat this process two or three times to get the bulk of the white stuff out then process the gray powder with AR. After dissolving in AR I filter the last of the white stuff off with a packed neck funnel. I pack a tight wad of unscented Charmin in the neck of a funnel and let the solution slowly drip thru. The filtered solution is then crystal clear and ready for precipitation. It's slow but effective. A centrifuge would help speed things up considerably.

Steve


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