# Processing boards???????\\\\\\



## rparks3rd (Dec 3, 2012)

Hello,
I have process CPU's, pins, eproms, etc sucessfully with a few differnt process. But I cant seem to process boards sucessfully... I am looking for some differnt processes that others use to process mother boards, ram cards, pci cards, ETC... and i am talking about processing these after you take the cpu off, cut all fingers off, etc.. the plain old boards...
Do you break them up in to small peices?
what types of solutions are you exposeing them to?
Is there any processes that are exclusive to processing boards?
what solutions work best and how do you go about it in your process?
ETC.........................................................................


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## cnbarr (Dec 3, 2012)

I will say whole heartedly, from personal experience, after you cut off the fingers and cpu's etc..., sell the boards, in the long run you will lose more money then it's worth to try and recover those values!!!!


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## patnor1011 (Dec 4, 2012)

Cut off or un-solder IC chip packages, gold plated pins from connectors and slots, monolithic capacitors, resistors and forget about the rest. Nothing in there for you. Big boys can recover copper and aluminium but that is why they are called big boys. We cant do it, unless you want to spend couple times more than you gain from it.


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## nickvc (Dec 4, 2012)

Good advice from the guys. You will not be able to recover any values profitably, the big boys fragment, crush, sort and then smelt into dore bars which are then shipped to the big copper refiners for final processing, this takes very expensive equipment and very good fume control and the money to wait till settlement is made,3 months plus.


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## Geo (Dec 4, 2012)

im thinking about trying something i have talked about before. run bare boards through old AP solution and then use electrolysis to extract the copper out of solution on a copper sheet. maybe this summer.


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## Pantherlikher (Dec 4, 2012)

Geo said:


> im thinking about trying something i have talked about before. run bare boards through old AP solution and then use electrolysis to extract the copper out of solution on a copper sheet. maybe this summer.



I'm guessing everyone with the bug would like to as well. Copper seems the best and most abundent in all "escrap". Good Luck and hopefully you can find a process. AP for collection seems the best start. After that, could you plunk AL in there to drop all copper? From there, you'd have everything dropped above AL in the reactive list...ie. Copper.

My first attempted disasterous mess years ago, I'd slowly put an aluminum piece into the spent Ar and remove to let it cool. It really gets Hot fast but dropped alot of Copper. After this, I put hard drive discs in the waste solution just to see what was left. After an hour of waiting for a reaction, I only saw tiny bubbles pushing through the layers. A week went by and it never reacted like AL would as the AL is inside and takes alot to work through the layers. I ended up with AlCl crystals, and the disc left over skin some say contains Pt.

My assumption being I'd rather have copper then aluminum for scrap.
The discs were just to see if anything else dropped and to see if it'd be feasable to clean the discs up enough to make it worth collecting. It also used the waste for something.

Just food for thought.
Bs.


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## Geo (Dec 4, 2012)

the problem that occurs is everything dissolves in AP. i want to find the correct voltage at the right amperage to selectively remove each metal in turn. i know it will be difficult if not impossible with what i have to work with.i tried the aluminum and it dropped everything. i was thinking it would just be contaminated copper at the most. so i melted a sample and took it to the scrapyard. the melt turned out to be red-yellow. it listed in this order, copper, tin, nickel and trace amounts of lead and other unknown or un-calibrated metals. they said they would pay me red brass prices for a hundred pounds at a time. at first i thought it was a good deal. but it made me feel that i would be ripping myself off. it may be only a couple of hundred dollars a year difference or a couple of thousand depending on scrap flow. this year was a good year and next year may be better. i have thousands of pounds of boards and for right now its not costing me anything just sitting there but its also quite a bit of money tied up in it. i would love to find the right combination to get clean sell-able copper from them.


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## ericrm (Dec 4, 2012)

Geo said:


> the problem that occurs is everything dissolves in AP. i want to find the correct voltage at the right amperage to selectively remove each metal in turn. i know it will be difficult if not impossible with what i have to work with.i tried the aluminum and it dropped everything. i was thinking it would just be contaminated copper at the most. so i melted a sample and took it to the scrapyard. the melt turned out to be red-yellow. it listed in this order, copper, tin, nickel and trace amounts of lead and other unknown or un-calibrated metals. they said they would pay me red brass prices for a hundred pounds at a time. at first i thought it was a good deal. but it made me feel that i would be ripping myself off. it may be only a couple of hundred dollars a year difference or a couple of thousand depending on scrap flow. this year was a good year and next year may be better. i have thousands of pounds of boards and for right now its not costing me anything just sitting there but its also quite a bit of money tied up in it. i would love to find the right combination to get *clean sell-able copper from them*.



simple just sell it with the rest of your copper 2 ....
you can selectively drop your copper with lead ,than tin, that way you recover the tin too (9$lbs)
but geo what you want to do will probably cause more probleme thant solution as your copper under the solder mak will not dissolve very far under that same solder mask... (you can test it with gold plated memory bar ,the copper is etching aroud the tiny hole about 1/8 of an inch than stop)


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## Geo (Dec 4, 2012)

i have no problem incinerating boards. i have a regulation burn pit. im not suppose to burn plastic but if you pile dry brush on top of it, it burns the smoke. it acts kind of like an after burner. i can spread out a piece of roofing tin and pile up a few hundred pounds at a time and cover it in brush and fire it up.theres never any black smoke like you would imagine. simple to scoop up everything and rinse out the wood ash and run everything left in AP.heck, i may even get some gold back out of it.


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## rparks3rd (Dec 4, 2012)

patnor1011 said:


> Cut off or un-solder IC chip packages, gold plated pins from connectors and slots, monolithic capacitors, resistors and forget about the rest. Nothing in there for you. Big boys can recover copper and aluminium but that is why they are called big boys. We cant do it, unless you want to spend couple times more than you gain from it.




CHIP PACKAGES???? Explain please...


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## Buzz (Dec 4, 2012)

An example of one of many types of chip packages, as found on most motherboards and some of the plugin cards.


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## resabed01 (Dec 4, 2012)

Geo said:


> i have no problem incinerating boards. i have a regulation burn pit. im not suppose to burn plastic but if you pile dry brush on top of it, it burns the smoke. it acts kind of like an after burner. i can spread out a piece of roofing tin and pile up a few hundred pounds at a time and cover it in brush and fire it up.theres never any black smoke like you would imagine. simple to scoop up everything and rinse out the wood ash and run everything left in AP.heck, i may even get some gold back out of it.



I have several hundred pounds of boards here I'm processing and I'm interested in what to do with the cleaned boards after. I'm cleaning them of all parts with a air chisel. It leaves the copper and solder mask intact.
Other than throwing them away I don't know what to do with them. And looking at them I'm sure there is value in the bare board. Seems like every time I log in and read here I learn about something of value I've been tossing in the past.
I know there is copper on them but I'm not really interested in trying to reclaim that. I'm more interested in the silver and any possible leftover gold.

Geo, incinerating the boards seems to me a unnecessary step. Wouldn't there be copper, silver and maybe gold losses from doing this? And wouldn't AP work just as effective on a board that wasn't incinerated?

I was thinking of other ways to reclaim any values, I think I read here somebody used a belt sander to strip the boards down to the copper removing the solder and any gold plating that may be there. Might be more effective than trying to digest everything then sorting it out after. I also read here that motherboards have multi-layers of copper traces embedded into the fiberglass board and there was gold in there as well. Not sure why embedded copper traces would be plated with gold, can't see the reasoning why.

Keep us informed if anything comes out of your boards.


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## patnor1011 (Dec 4, 2012)

Buzz is correct, they are the most valuable however I do collect all of these as I know there is gold in them 

:arrow: http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=11827&start=160#p161629


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## rparks3rd (Dec 5, 2012)

Buzz said:


> An example of one of many types of chip packages, as found on most motherboards and some of the plugin cards.



How do you process these aka extract the precious metals?


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## patnor1011 (Dec 5, 2012)

You have a lot of reading ahead of you 8) 
For start try thread in my signature line.
:arrow: http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=11827


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## bobby1999 (Dec 5, 2012)

Going to follow this thread .You are right some off us on here have access to alot of boards/Material even thou we are not to sure how to process everything ,I to would like to know ,I was selling off my boards and all other parts but now I am down to a clean board and will be keeping all parts for myself :lol: . I know people keep saying give it to the big boys , But why they are big because people like us are noy sure on how to do this ..
My thoughts only ........
If someone on this thread has a good idea would love to try and follow this thread ..
PS I have only started on stage one LOL 
Burning of chips first :lol: :lol: :lol: 
Was going to try the AP stage two of my plan 
Then move to the pins and then stage three
But will take my time and make sure stage one is done properly before moving on ......

MY THOUGHTS ONLY 

And thank you guys on here for all the reading


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## NoIdea (Dec 5, 2012)

Evening all, i have for a very long time worked on the complete recovery of metal with value, basically most of them.

Geo: your on the right track, me thinkith. Some of the PM's are still in the boards, gold will defuse into the solder upon soldering, and if you chisle the components like i do, then some of the gold platted pins are left behind.

My current work involves reducing the metals contained within the boards, pyrolysis followed by grinding followed by ashing, washing in water, followed by placing in a shallow tray, moisten with left over AP an leave out to dry, keep moist with water or more old AP.

Over time the tray will start to get a thick mud develop, at this stage you wash with water, pour off the mud, continue three to four times, let the mud settle and decant. Put more AP into the tray and start the process over

With the mud dry it, ash it, wash with water settle and decant, while wet remove the magnetic fraction with a magnet, wash/boil with battery acid, each time let it settle after each wash and decant, now your ready for PM refining which ever way you want.

keep each water wash and evapourate, i leave it out in the sun to dry, i do the same with the battery acid wash though electrolysis is for later.

I want to do a "how i do ..." series with pictures as this process is what i plan to use for most of my e-waste waste.

Hope it helps

Deano


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## Geo (Dec 5, 2012)

deano, i would love to see a "how to" from you. what ive done before is what i described above with a few hundred pounds of boards. i made sure the ash stayed on the roofing metal. i washed the ash out gently because some of the copper foils wanted to float.at the time, i wasnt worried about PM's thinking i had everything from the components. i melted everything together and came out with the same red-yellow metal i described before from from dropping copper from AP with aluminum. im thinking that the XRF readings from the sample i took to the scrapyard would have shown the PM values if it had been calibrated for them.from the boards i incinerated, there was almost 40 pounds of metal. if its a good mix of different types of boards, im thinking it should be about 400 pounds of metal from a US standard ton (2,000 pounds) of boards. if this is close to actual, then 2 tons may yield 800 pounds of mostly copper. i have over 2 tons of boards. just for the sake of dreaming, that may well be and ounce of gold in left over pins and maybe a pound or more in silver. i know it could be vastly less or even more but im not willing to send it to the landfill when it only cost me time and the benefit of clearing brush from my land.


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## Smack (Dec 5, 2012)

Figure on real close to 120 to 140 pounds of copper per thousand pounds of PCB's, unless you have some special boards with an extraordinary amount of copper in them.


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## Geo (Dec 5, 2012)

thats about right for PC boards and low grade brown boards. half of mine are military, though not all, but most have very little bare space thats not covered front and back. not only that but this stuff is multi layered.i incinerated boards that may have had like 15 layers is what it looked like. very thick and heavy with copper foils inside the board. ill get some samples and try to get a clear shot of the side.i know the scrapper or collector may not run across this type of material often. i live about 25 mile from redstone arsenal and marshal space flight center. theres alot of military and aeronautics scrap around and get some ever so often. thats why im seriously considering some kind of recovery.


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## bobby1999 (Dec 6, 2012)

Great all would like to see how it goes WATCHING LOL


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## MMFJ (Dec 6, 2012)

Maybe I've been spending too much time in the jungles, but in following these discussions about processing boards, I've come up with an idea where I'd like to see some feedback.

Note that this idea would not likely work for the typical US backyard person, but as I'm in Ecuador, things are different;
- propane is CHEAP (<$3 for 15l [around 4 gallons])
- labor is CHEAP (can get workers for $292/MONTH)
- chemicals are about the same in the US (perhaps a bit cheaper for some things - we can get nitric acid for $6/liter or $24/gal (oddly, they say that 4 liters = 1 gallon??), I haven't checked on everything, but for the sake of this discussion, let's presume they are equal
_[EDITED to add this]_ - there are no board buyers within reasonable shipping distance (until we get shipping container loads, which may be awhile) - if there were (like in the US), I would sell to them as I recommend all 'backyard' folks do!

With that being the case, what I'm considering is to build a simple desoldering plant. My 'vision' is to use propane oven burners (again, all parts for propane is pretty cheap here) in the center of two spaces (think about a typical oven with an 'above flame' area as well as one below the flame). If I can find some old ovens, all the better, but they tend to use stuff around here until it literally falls apart, so I think building it will be better, and fairly simple.

What I'm thinking is to put three or four 'ovens' in a line and moving the boards underneath the flames to melt the solder. Overall length of the 'plant' would be about 10 feet.

Using a tray (again, think oven catch pan) as a 'car' and placing the boards upside down on top of some supports (I'm thinking something like aluminum standoffs), as the 'car' is moved along through the 'oven' (I'm thinking of using a bicycle chain with some pins welded on at intervals), the parts should fall into the tray. In order to get them to drop, I'm thinking 'cobblestone path' to make a bumpy ride and shake things back/forth (lots of those roads around here - hey, parts could be 'free'! :shock: 

Powering of the 'conveyor' could be by hand (or old bicycle with rider), at first, until a suitable motor is found (from some experimentation on how fast it should move, etc.). OK, visions of "Gilligan's Island" come to mind, I know, but I am being serious!

The upper part of the 'oven' could be used for any boards that don't drop all the parts, etc., or perhaps other uses (TBD).

On top of this setup, I even thought about making a sand bed to remove parts from cell phones and such.

Now, considering this crude setup (which, as production increases could be scaled into finer machinery), what are your thoughts?

- Will the majority of the parts fall?
- Will they be simple enough to further process (separating them into bins - again, labor is cheap!)
- Is there any data on selling off the parts that are not 'valuable' 
- What are your thoughts on selling off the empty board?

Once the board is clean, I think there is not much value other than the copper and would hope to find a local recycler to take them. I'm not personally interested in processing them, for all the reasons discussed - however, we would process/sell the 'typical' stuff that is discussed on the forum.

Thanks in advance for your input on this!


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## etack (Dec 6, 2012)

MMFJ sounds like you need a pizza oven they are gas fires and most commercial ones have conveyor belts.

Several hot sheets of thick steal would also work like restaurant grills. Just heat and whack heat and whack. :lol: :lol: This is the way I would go with cheep labor.

in the jungle you should ask for old abandon military equipment and downed planes. I bet that's were your money is. I know that is where mine head would be.

Eric


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## MMFJ (Dec 6, 2012)

etack said:


> MMFJ sounds like you need a pizza oven they are gas fires and most commercial ones have conveyor belts.


That's pretty much exactly what I'm thinking of - though, such things are not only 'uncommon', I've only seen two places that sell pizza in mass quantities (that might need such equipment, but I know one of them uses large ovens, no conveyors) anywhere in the country. Getting a 'used' one is very, very unlikely! Importing any sort of equipment is quite expensive and if it has a computer controller - watch out(!) - the import tax on that stuff is crazy!

So, 'build it yourself' from 'super common' things is the way to go around here. And, remember, even 'skilled' labor such as welders and metal craftsmen is not expensive. For this project, one has to think "if I were in the '50s but had all kinds of e-waste showing up, how would I process it all?" - that is a pretty good description of "third-world" country living.



etack said:


> in the jungle you should ask for old abandon military equipment and downed planes. I bet that's were your money is. I know that is where mine head would be.


That's a good idea and I will pursue it. Not so sure there's tons of downed planes with great pickin' left, but who knows? Worth a shot (bad pun not intended, but left there!


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## Geo (Dec 6, 2012)

there are alot of documentaries out about electronics being scrapped in third world countries and none of it is ever shown in a good light. most show workers sitting over pans of melted solder tapping boards knocking components off. all the workers shown had no PPE's. as a board heats to the point that solder melts its releases some very nasty organics. it has a cumulative effect on the human body. dont let quest for better wealth cause harm to people trying to make a living for their families. i see no problems with a setup like that. i wouldnt enclose it in any structure, maybe just a roof over it. the vapor can be explosive and your using an open flame.when the solder reaches the temperature it liquefies, the components are free and any vibration will bring them off. an electric motor or gasoline engine with an un-balanced wheel or oblong shaped disc will set up a good vibration effect. you could mount it to the top "metal to metal", it should shake everything loose.


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## NoIdea (Dec 6, 2012)

Now my brain is a tinkn 8) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FR-4

Deano


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## MMFJ (Dec 7, 2012)

Geo said:


> there are alot of documentaries out about electronics being scrapped in third world countries and none of it is ever shown in a good light. most show workers sitting over pans of melted solder tapping boards knocking components off. all the workers shown had no PPE's. as a board heats to the point that solder melts its releases some very nasty organics. it has a cumulative effect on the human body. dont let quest for better wealth cause harm to people trying to make a living for their families. i see no problems with a setup like that. i wouldnt enclose it in any structure, maybe just a roof over it. the vapor can be explosive and your using an open flame.when the solder reaches the temperature it liquefies, the components are free and any vibration will bring them off. an electric motor or gasoline engine with an un-balanced wheel or oblong shaped disc will set up a good vibration effect. you could mount it to the top "metal to metal", it should shake everything loose.


Thanks for the feedback on this. I'm glad to know that a simple roof-over should suffice. That is pretty common around here as the temp is consistently 'tolerable' without A/C or heat. The system seems to me a decent solution to gather the parts from the boards - simple to implement and from your description, effective (it all remains to be seen just how profitable!). I'm not sure when I'll have enough boards to justify building it, but for now, stockpiling until I can tap into the 'flow' - we know it is here, just haven't found it yet (sounds a lot like mining in the dirt, huh?).

I never considered sticking people on a line to 'bang out' the parts as an option. Intentionally putting people in danger for money? Not on my watch!


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## sena (Dec 7, 2012)

i have tried in a kitchen pulveriser took depopulated boards 1kg and panned it in a bowl what i was left was some copper and tin , i would like to know whether ball mill would powder the depopulated boards.


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## Smack (Dec 7, 2012)

sena said:


> i have tried in a kitchen pulveriser took depopulated boards 1kg and panned it in a bowl what i was left was some copper and tin , i would like to know whether ball mill would powder the depopulated boards.



You would still need to shred the boards first before running in a ball mill for it to work efficiently.


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## patnor1011 (Dec 7, 2012)

What do you want to (or expect to) find in shredded and milled depopulated boards? This is kind of beyond my understanding. I understand that people want to squeeze out everything possible but word efficiency comes to my mind. I see absolutely no reason of pursuing milligrams of gold locked (mostly not) inside board. I do not even think that pursuing plating under solder mask is viable from motherboards. 
Firstly OP wanted to know how to monetize all metals from boards, if you burn, oxidize, pan or do whatever what was suggested it means you are losing most of metals in order to get ridiculously small if any amount of gold. You are talking about grams in tons of material. Same thing like mining so consider that people who mine tons of material must have heavy equipment, manpower, fuel and time. 
What you talk about here is like somebody come to copper mine and go for gold only discarding everything else back in the pit.


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## Geo (Dec 7, 2012)

actually Pat, if i can get what i want to try to work that may boost my annual income by at least a few thousand dollars. i know to some that is a minuscule amount compared to a years work but the material is already prepared due to other processes and the chemicals needed are waste from other processes. for me thats a win/win anytime. too, if i can make it work properly, i have the potential to make upwards of $5,000 from material i already have to start with.

check this thread out from awhile back. this was Rusty's project.http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=12654&hilit=ugly+anode

also here. even though he was working with a totally different material, its still the same concept. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=12205


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## patnor1011 (Dec 7, 2012)

I was actually addressing idea of precious metals recovery from already stripped motherboards. That look to me as waste of time and resources. I know very well about significant amount of copper in motherboard. Even stripped one still do have some copper inside.


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## NoIdea (Dec 8, 2012)

patnor1011 said:


> I was actually addressing idea of precious metals recovery from already stripped motherboards. That look to me as waste of time and resources. I know very well about significant amount of copper in motherboard. Even stripped one still do have some copper inside.



I have given this lots of thought over the years, for me it's the same as finding a single low grade slot pin (for example) and instead of just throwing it into the scrap metal pile which is close by, i will put it with the other low grade pins even though i have to walk to the other side of the workshop to do so. :?: It all adds up ......... butt do I? :mrgreen: 

Deano


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## patnor1011 (Dec 8, 2012)

I understand what you do Deano and I am a big fan of yours. I just cant see that hobbyist like you or me or most of members here will be available to recover all metals from motherboard with use of acids. Your method is focused on precious metals while rest of metals gets rusted and oxidized. Geo talks about recovery of copper, I just thought that we cant recover everything. Something will be lost or discarded along way.


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## Geo (Dec 8, 2012)

even for me, there are times when things get slow. i have material that alot of new guys would love to work with. i even go and look at it myself and just get overwhelmed sometimes. these boards are not good enough to warrant the the shipping cost to send to a refinery. the only other option i have is the landfill. im kind of like Deano, i will stop and pick up a lone pin if i see gold glinting from the ground. i cant see paying to toss even the smallest amount of recyclable material in the dump if i can reclaim it. Deano has a great system worked out with reducing the bulk down to the main parts, which is the metal. i wont incinerate anything else until i have a chain mill built and a furnace to cast copper Doré bars for anodes. i will use copper chloride as the electrolyte or even copper nitrate, which ever gives the best results. any precious metals will be a plus and im sure that all the back planes and bridges i sheared still have a fair amount of gold in them.


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## Palladium (Dec 8, 2012)

I was think today while i was out in my shop Pat about how you pan the fine wires from the ashes where you incinerate chips.
What got me to thinking was i had an old vibrating sander that the clips had broken off that hold the sand paper in place. I thought what could i do with that instead of throwing it away? Then it hit me! I wonder if i could use a gold pan or a cup of some sort and mount it to the flat part of the sander where the paper fits onto the pad. Then if i wanted to i could use a light dimmer to adjust the vibration potential. See where this is going?


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## patnor1011 (Dec 8, 2012)

Next week I am going to process few one kilogram batches to get an better idea and to confirm some previous yield/experiments. One will be chips from RAM only, eprom type chips only, tiny small 6 legged chips, s/n bridges and various things I clipped or desoldered from boards - I do not know what their name is. Unfortunately I will have to pan everything in hand but no problem I will have all week to sort that out. :lol:


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## butcher (Dec 8, 2012)

Pat, 
For larger batches you can make a small sluice box, one method take four foot of corrugated plastic drain pipe split it half long wise mount on wood set it at an angle, with a five gallon bucket sitting at the bottom for it to dump into (catching anything you may miss), run a small stream or flow of water from the top and let it flow down the riffles of the sluice, pre-wet you ash well making a very dilute slurry, with a few drops of dish soap, (to help most of the heavy sink in the bucket and sluice box, instead of trying to float, and pour this ash slurry into the top of the sluice box slowly with the water flow, much of the heavier stuff will stay in the bottom of the bucket you are pouring from, especially if you gave it a good shaking to get the heavier materials on bottom, the heavies that do not stay in the bucket should catch in the upper part of the sluice , when you clean out your sluice box add it to the material in the bucket and pan this heavier material, when cleaning the sluice if values make it too far down the sluice box you will need to adjust angle or water flow, the idea is to wash out the ash and catch gold in the riffles or carpet.

Other types of sluice boxes can be made out of metal wood plastic or whatever, you can make riffles and use things like outdoor carpet or miners moss to catch your values, you can experiment on what works best to capture your gold.


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## patnor1011 (Dec 8, 2012)

I do have nice small sluice but believe it or not I do enjoy every second of panning my incinerated chips. :mrgreen:


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## butcher (Dec 8, 2012)

Especially when the pan begins to glitter gold in the sunlight.


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## FrugalRefiner (Dec 8, 2012)

Palladium said:


> I was think today while i was out in my shop Pat about how you pan the fine wires from the ashes where you incinerate chips.
> What got me to thinking was i had an old vibrating sander that the clips had broken off that hold the sand paper in place. I thought what could i do with that instead of throwing it away? Then it hit me! I wonder if i could use a gold pan or a cup of some sort and mount it to the flat part of the sander where the paper fits onto the pad. Then if i wanted to i could use a light dimmer to adjust the vibration potential. See where this is going?


I like that idea! Kind of frugal wave table! I like the way your mind works Palladium.

I have a couple of old sanders around here...

Thanks,
Dave


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## vyper (Dec 8, 2012)

Geo... I may be on the wrong track here but if you are incinerating the boards, could u melt the remaining metal into dore bars. Then run through a electrolytic cell using the dore as anode, thin piece of pure copper as cathode in a copper II chloride electrolyte. I believe this would deposit the copper on the copper anode the less desirable metals should go into solution and the leftover "mud" would then contain any leftover Au/Ag/Pgm's. Which could then be kept aside until a sizeable amount was obtained for processing. Like I said I may be on the wrong track still new to this whole thing and have alot of info filling this chranium. Any thoughts on this?

*Edited - Typos


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## Golddigger Greg (Dec 8, 2012)

I tried a variation of this idea to seperate -100mesh gold from black sand concentrate in a gold pan and found the 'orbital' action of devices like this to be less effective than uni-directional 'bumps'. With straight 'bumps' the heavies stay put and the lights travel down the incline. Orbital motion tends to get things mixing and traveling together. You might be able to tune this to work for you though, I didn't take it any further than the initial test.


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## Geo (Dec 8, 2012)

vyper said:


> Geo... I may be on the wrong track here but if you are incinerating the boards, could u melt the remaining metal into dore bars. Then run through a electrolytic cell using the dore as anode, thin piece of pure copper as cathode in a copper II chloride electrolyte. I believe this would deposit the copper on the copper anode the less desirable metals should go into solution and the leftover "mud" would then contain any leftover Au/Ag/Pgm's. Which could then be kept aside until a sizeable amount was obtained for processing. Like I said I may be on the wrong track still new to this whole thing and have alot of info filling this chranium. Any thoughts on this?
> 
> *Edited - Typos



that is the general idea. the only problem is other metals that are more reactive tend to part first at lower amps. in other words, when the cell first starts and the electrolyte is cool and the resistance is low, tin will plate out before copper does. im not so much worried about a little contamination, but if the final copper bars are too contaminated to be #1 copper, it wont be worth the time and energy (electricity and fuel). i need a set temperature and volt/amps that each metal will plate out at. im sure there are charts but without someone speaking very slowly, im afraid i would never understand it.


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## NoIdea (Dec 9, 2012)

Geo said:


> im sure there are charts but without someone speaking very slowly, im afraid i would never understand it.



OK ..... from......what.....I.....recall...(is this slow enough for you) :mrgreen: its sort of like fractional distillation, only the lowest boiling point solvent will boil first, keeping the mixed solvent solution at that boiling point until its gone then the temperature of the mixture will rise rapidly to the temperature of the next solvents boiling point and so on. This only works for solvent solution mixtures that do not form aziotropic mixture(ethanol and water). For electroplating, raise the voltage until current begins to flow, as the metal whose voltagepotential is the lowest finishes platting out the current will drop, increase the voltage again until the current starts to flow again and the next metal will plate out.

This is a very simplistic example as electrolyte concentration, temperature and voltage play a very big part, there is a cell mentioned somewhere here that does just that, removes metals one at a time. Though i think this is for metals aready in solution and not for electrowinning.

Deano


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## Geo (Dec 9, 2012)

thanks Deano. at what intervals do i adjust the voltage, 1 volt at a time? it may be easier to go 1.5 at a time.


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## butcher (Dec 9, 2012)

Standard electrode potentials is very similar to the reactivity series of metals.

What acid or base electrolyte the metal is in can also play a big roll, as these will also react in the electrolysis of the salts in solution, and can determine how these salts split or what gases or byproducts can form.

This might help a little, study several articles on standard electrode potential and electrolysis of metals or salts. Also membrane and salt bridge cells are very interesting.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/electrode.html

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/electrode.html


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## NoIdea (Dec 9, 2012)

Geo said:


> thanks Deano. at what intervals do i adjust the voltage, 1 volt at a time? it may be easier to go 1.5 at a time.



Well if i owned one, variable DC power supply, i would wind it up slowly and keep an eye on current, keeping in mind the electrode potential of the overall reaction, oxidation and reduction, and as Butcher points out the electrolyte plays a major part in the final voltage, example, the difference between hydrogen vs. chlorine gas production, trial and error and observation im afraid.

Dont matter how hard one tries, murphy's law prevails  

Deano


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## butcher (Dec 9, 2012)

Not only will you have to be dealing with Murphy’s Law, but other laws of physics.

With electrode potential voltage of most of these metals so close together, it would be hard to plate out one metal from another if the electrolyte was a pea soup, controlling this with a solutions electrolyte changes may also prove difficult, small cells may change more drastically faster than very large cells, if you only had a couple of metals in solution with voltage potentials far apart from each other it would likely work better to separate the metals, or if one metals was not compatible with electrolyte, or may not pass through a membrane where the desired metal would, or where the undesired metal would go through the membrane and the values would stay behind as anode sludge or could not pass through the membrane (do not dissolve in this electrolyte or at this voltage), I think also some metals are just easier to plate than others the electrode potential is in relation to a standard electrode, and does not necessarily tell you if a metal would actually plate out well or not.

The more you think about it the more complicated it gets.


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## Geo (Dec 9, 2012)

while not over large, it will most likely be a plastic 55 gallon drum and the electrolyte will be copper chloride. since the anode will be a mix of the same metals that will be in a standard type AP process (for me) ill probably use left over AP solution.


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## butcher (Dec 9, 2012)

Depending on current and concentration chlorine gas is a posible reaction at the anode.


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## NoIdea (Dec 9, 2012)

As Butcher has pointed out, some metals will refuse to plate out, and if they do plate out they immediately react and going back into solution (sodium springs to mind) and Cl gas production is a highly probable, though if you were to combine platting out and using the Cl gas

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=16292

Then you could improve your overall efficiancy.

Many moons ago i recall reading that even iron can be platted out under certain conditions, the only problem was that Hydrogen gas was also produced at the anode and dissloved into the iron making it brittle and porous.

Deano


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## AndyWilliams (Dec 9, 2012)

I'm going to be processing a number of boards, about 400 of them, and thanks to this thread, I'm only going to cherry pick the worthwhile items off the boards. So while I understand the worth of the fingers, the monoliths, and the four-legged chip packages, I'm just wondering if someone can fill me in on a couple of the other SMD's. 

What are the yellow rectangles and are they worth saving? 
Same question for the blue rounds objects on the bottom right.

Thanks in advance!


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## patnor1011 (Dec 9, 2012)

AndyWilliams said:


> I'm going to be processing a number of boards, about 400 of them, and thanks to this thread, I'm only going to cherry pick the worthwhile items off the boards. So while I understand the worth of the fingers, the monoliths, and the four-legged chip packages, I'm just wondering if someone can fill me in on a couple of the other SMD's.
> 
> What are the yellow rectangles and are they worth saving?
> Same question for the blue rounds objects on the bottom right.
> ...



Not four legged chips - take all of them from biggest to smallest.
Yellow rectangles are tantalum capacitors, worth to collect can be sold when you will accumulate enough.
Blue round object just pry from board, crush and collect bit of copper wire from inside.


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## patnor1011 (Dec 9, 2012)

Here is break-up.

RED take all of these chips small and big
BLUE monolithic capacitors and resistors - take as much as you can good source of silver, possibly Pd
GREEN transistors take all of them some contain gold bonding wire, I regard them to be like low yield IC chips
BLACK - I do not take these they contain only small ferrite coils with copper in some filling - epoxy, or some kind of substrate I see not much value there
YELLOW ORANGE Ta capacitors
PURPLE - that black epoxy on top do have silicone chip and fair amount of gold bonding wires - they are essentially the same as s/n bridge and yield 5g+ from kilo. 

I did not marked all chips or all capacitors but now you know what to take and save.


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## AndyWilliams (Dec 9, 2012)

patnor1011 said:


> Here is break-up.
> 
> RED take all of these chips small and big
> BLUE monolithic capacitors and resistors - take as much as you can good source of silver, possibly Pd
> ...



Patnor,

Thanks! That's very generous! I have read your thread on processing chips. I thought I had read somewhere on here, that only the four-legged chips had gold, except on RAM. Am I mistaken that only the eprom should be excluded, as in the pic? Also, I have struggled in understanding how to identify the Ta caps, how can you be sure on these rectangular ones? Anyway, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, I much appreciate your input.

Andy


Edit: Oh, and just for the record, I'm ashamed that I asked about the blue things, I could have, and should have, attempted to break it apart before asking.


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## patnor1011 (Dec 9, 2012)

Eprom is rectangular chip with legs on 2 sides. They do have window sometimes covered with sticker. Some of them are ceramic. I call some similar chips "eprom type" or "eprom like" due to that they look similar. I do not see any eprom on your board. That 2 I marked black contain only some substrate with torroid coils with copper wire. Take one out and smash with hammer you will see what I mean. I see no value in them. On the other side all or most of chips no matter how small may have gold bonding wires so I do collect or harvest all of them. Even transistors, may have gold bonding wire so I collect those too. I saw some datasheets where even those pictured here:
http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/TransistorData/TransistorData-P1.html


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## patnor1011 (Dec 9, 2012)

The only thing I would not collect from your board are those 2 marked with black X. ll the rest are goodies, sort them properly do not mix material and when accumulate enough squeeze the money out of them :mrgreen:


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## AndyWilliams (Dec 10, 2012)

patnor1011 said:


> The only thing I would not collect from your board are those 2 marked with black X. ll the rest are goodies, sort them properly do not mix material and when accumulate enough squeeze the money out of them :mrgreen:




Thanks Patnor, I appreciate the help!


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## etack (Dec 10, 2012)

Good post with the colors patnor1011 thought it was great.

Eric


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## goldinsulator (Mar 13, 2013)

Geo said:


> i have no problem incinerating boards. i have a regulation burn pit. im not suppose to burn plastic but if you pile dry brush on top of it, it burns the smoke. it acts kind of like an after burner. i can spread out a piece of roofing tin and pile up a few hundred pounds at a time and cover it in brush and fire it up.theres never any black smoke like you would imagine. simple to scoop up everything and rinse out the wood ash and run everything left in AP.heck, i may even get some gold back out of it.





How would you process boardss that have gold plate on them ie cell phone boards?

John


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## Geo (Mar 13, 2013)

normally, i give them a soak in hcl to remove as much solder as possible and then rinse in water. next, it goes in the AP tank to remove the gold foils.the foils are then dissolved in hcl/Cl.


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## goldinsulator (Mar 13, 2013)

Geo said:


> normally, i give them a soak in hcl to remove as much solder as possible and then rinse in water. next, it goes in the AP tank to remove the gold foils.the foils are then dissolved in hcl/Cl.


 
What process do you use to remove the varnish to also strip the plated copper layers in the board itself? I have incinerated some but seems like I am burning up the gold plating.

Thanks for the help soon this nob wanna be shall be a small time e-waste precious metal recovering hobbyist.

John


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## Geo (Mar 13, 2013)

there should be NO gold inside the board.there are some "through holes" but they are not under the board substrate. copper traces will be found in some PCB's but not all.


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## goldinsulator (Mar 14, 2013)

i thought the cell phone boards had what looked like burnt gold on the inner layers of copper. maybe it was from the holes


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