# Dumpster sputter targets



## skippy (Aug 9, 2010)

I wonder if I will ever find this much gold so easily again in my life. Pictured is gold foil that I removed from sputter targets that ended up in a dumpster! 
I found three and thought it looked pretty thick. When I got home I removed the foil from the target, and realizing how much weight there was I went back, scoured the dumpster real good and found four more targets.
I wish I had a scale but from my crude ruler and pennies balance, it seems to be about 40 grams. 

edit: that aluminum thing is the sputter target, post pillaging. You can see some of the foil tucked under a crimped edge. I didnt know what the heck they were when I picked up the first few!


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## jimdoc (Aug 9, 2010)

Nice dumpster find!
Most people that work with that stuff know
exactly what they have.A big surprise to
find it in the trash.

Jim


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## joem (Aug 9, 2010)

what is a sputter target?


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## jimdoc (Aug 9, 2010)

joem said:


> what is a sputter target?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputtering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputter_deposition


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## Chumbawamba (Aug 10, 2010)

Wow, talk about the score of a lifetime. This rivals the $20 gold piece (Walking Liberty) my friend found in the median of the highway where he was working.

One man's trash is another man's treasure, indeed. Nice find!


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## skippy (Aug 10, 2010)

Chumbawumba, your friend had a good find there for sure! I'll keep my eyes open while I'm walking down the highway 8) 


Some more pics from the same bin


Highlights from HP workstation boards - I got 2 ancient workstation CPUs along with along with a mess of early-mid nineties motherboards, video cards, etc. I know what people say about gold plated traces, but I think some of this stuff is the real deal. 





You guys are right, resistance melters suck, but when they're free they are ok



Anyone recognize what the thing on the right is? Points to anyone who does, I know I wouldn't if I hadn't taken it out of its protective shell!




The thing on the left is a Varian scroll vacuum pump, very expensive, but if anyone needs one like it I'll make a deal for GRF members.


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## gold4mike (Aug 10, 2010)

It looks like you could use it to make a Van De Graaff generator?


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## joem (Aug 10, 2010)

It's part of a water heater for a large building
my work just did an upgrade of the heater system and recycled one of these.


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## turtlesteve (Aug 10, 2010)

I may be interested in the vacuum pump - is it fully working and what is the model # (and how much are you asking?)

I really can't believe this kind of stuff ends up in dumpsters....

Thanks,
Steve


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## skippy (Aug 10, 2010)

Sorry Joe! That's not it :evil: .


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## joem (Aug 10, 2010)

skippy said:


> Sorry Joe! That's not it :evil: .



It looks exactly what the scrapped from the boiler building at my work
I was considering hauling it away for scrap but when I returned it was gone.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 10, 2010)

joem said:


> skippy said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry Joe! That's not it :evil: .
> ...



You are possibly talking about a large water hammer arrestor.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 10, 2010)

In the 1st pic, those gray capacitors on the bottom left of the front board look like tantalum. If they're heavy, they're Ta. If they're light, they're Al. The all gold white 28 lead CPU's can run $250/pound. The white 40 lead will run considerably less, mainly because it doesn't have a gold lid. The top-hat TO5s (left board, bottom right) can run pretty good.

I hate those melters.

Vane type (I think that's one) vacuum pumps are very sensitive to acid fumes. The vanes rust easily and lock it up. You can usually take it apart and free the vanes, however. Best to use a caustic acid trap before the pump.


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## skippy (Aug 10, 2010)

It's a Varian SH-110, and it pulls a vacuum. I'll check to see what it pulls soon with my digital gauge. If it's good I can't let it go for free, as another used one sold on ebay for around $1000. However I still could give a good deal I think. I'm waiting to see what another one sells for on ebay, one that has even more hours than mine. They're desirable because they pull a dry vacuum and don't need any oil which eleiminates a lot of fuss in analytical aps. It would be wasteful to use it for all but the most exotic refining related applications.




turtlesteve said:


> I may be interested in the vacuum pump - is it fully working and what is the model # (and how much are you asking?)
> 
> I really can't believe this kind of stuff ends up in dumpsters....
> 
> ...


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## skippy (Aug 10, 2010)

GSP, thanks sharing info about what you see on these boards, I'm not really too excited about e-scrap generally, but stuff like this may be worth the effort. I might want to pick your brain on some more of the old boards I scored, if you wouldn't mind - but perhaps I should start another thread for it?

I already hate that little melter too, at least for melting gold, even covered up with insulating firebrick it didn't want to quite melt. Then I took off the brick and attacked the nearly molten metal with a propane torch, and that did the trick. I still might use it for the odd thing, but likely not for melting again. 
The pump is a little fancier than a rotary vane, it uses a oscillating scroll to pump air and create the vacuum. 
In fact it would probably die a lot faster from any acid vapors. I've got a big honking welch duo seal that I've got that I think will serve all my needs just fine. If I wanted another pump I think I'd get a teflon laboratory one. So I'll probably end up selling this Varian I found.




goldsilverpro said:


> In the 1st pic, those gray capacitors on the bottom left of the front board look like tantalum. If they're heavy, they're Ta. If they're light, they're Al. The all gold white 28 lead CPU's can run $250/pound. The white 40 lead will run considerably less, mainly because it doesn't have a gold lid. The top-hat TO5s (left board, bottom right) can run pretty good.
> 
> I hate those melters.
> 
> Vane type (I think that's one) vacuum pumps are very sensitive to acid fumes. The vanes rust easily and lock it up. You can usually take it apart and free the vanes, however. Best to use a caustic acid trap before the pump.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 10, 2010)

Skippy,

That broken gold thin film circuit on the left can run quite good if there is gold/silicon solder (likely) under the chips. The rectangular black plastic (they look plastic, rather than ceramic) DIPS on both boards can run $15/pound (especially the smaller ones) if there is gold on the inside.

The vane type pumps I was talking about were usually found in old mainframe cabinets. They look similar to your pump. Most refineries I worked for used the Welch Duo-seal pumps for filtering. Great workhorse pumps, but they can also be easily wrecked by sucking acid fumes into them.


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## skippy (Aug 10, 2010)

I peeled off some trace from one of the HP workstation boards. I disolved the copper all away with nitric , and sure enough there was a solid layer of gold adhering to the board's surface greeny conformal coat. I believe they are all gold coated. After disolving the copper, I took the gold out of the test tube and placed it by the spot I peeled it from. Then I took the picture below These boards are the fabled variety with the gold plated traces!







The next picture is of some memory readers and a stick of memory. The dips have some gold plating on their legs




The middle boards are from the keyboards and the one on the right is just a conducting board, no components




Here's a pic of the mystery thing along with the shell I took it from


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## skippy (Aug 11, 2010)

I like that idea, I also thought with some copper arms on it I could wire it up into a cool chandelier.



gold4mike said:


> It looks like you could use it to make a Van De Graaff generator?


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## skippy (Aug 11, 2010)

GSP, good call on the tantalum capacitors! I feel like I'll be able to recognize them in the future now. 
Yes, the dips, like you said, are plastic. I'll bust open a few and inspect for gold.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 11, 2010)

Skippy,

Every Ta electrolytic capacitor I have seen of this type was gray colored and heavy. The Al ones are much whiter and much lighter in weight. Easy to distinguish.

Some other similar shaped electrolytic capacitors to look for in that same era. If they have a very white silver colored tube (sometimes, though, they are tarnished) with a bright red or green plastic plug on only one end, they are very likely silver/tantalum. The tube is silver and the Ta is on the inside. I'm thinking that the red ones were 40% Ag and the green ones 25%. However, it's been a long time and I could be wrong. They generally have a clear plastic sleeve around them to prevent the silver from tarnishing. They come in various sizes and they are heavy. When I was working on escrap in the late 80s, early 90s, they were fairly common. I remember that I had collected at least a 5 gal bucket full - it was a very, very heavy bucket. 

You can put them in concentrated sulfuric (messy but effective) for a short time to degrade and wrinkle the clear plastic and expose some silver or, you can just scrape or cut through the plastic on one side, just enough to expose some silver - it's probably easier to cut or scrape them while they're are still on the board. The sulfuric is a lot faster and doesn't take near as much labor but, like I said, it is messy. After using either method, use about 25% nitric, or a little stronger, to dissolve the silver. As long as it has an entry point, the nitric will eventually leach out all of the silver.


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## machiavelli976 (Aug 11, 2010)

Something like that?


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## Chumbawamba (Aug 11, 2010)

Skippy, is that copper bulb and kennel a still of some sort?


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 11, 2010)

machiavelli976,

Those aren't like the ones I was talking about. They were smooth cylinders without those grooves. The red or green plugs were about 1/8"-1/4" long and of the same diameter as the tube.


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## jimdoc (Aug 11, 2010)

Are these the plugs a guy on Ebay is selling?
http://cgi.ebay.com/TANTALUM-High-Purity-metal-element-larger-discs-x-4-/380050271571?pt=UK_Collectables_RocksFossils_Minerals_EH

http://cgi.ebay.com/TANTALUM-High-Purity-metal-element-mini-discs-x-10-/330256759513?pt=UK_Collectables_RocksFossils_Minerals_EH


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## qst42know (Aug 11, 2010)

Just a guess on the tank but it looks somewhat like a modern liquid nitrogen flask.


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## skippy (Aug 11, 2010)

qst42know said:


> Just a guess on the tank but it looks somewhat like a modern liquid nitrogen flask.



You are correct sir! Pretty neat eh? I'm guessing it's 40 to fifty years old.


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## qst42know (Aug 11, 2010)

I have seen a couple of these turn up at auction. I never paid much attention to them though. What is the weight of the copper core?


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## skippy (Aug 12, 2010)

qst42know said:


> I have seen a couple of these turn up at auction. I never paid much attention to them though. What is the weight of the copper core?



I'll check, but I'd guess 20-30 pounds


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## Sodbuster (Aug 12, 2010)

Skippy: 
I can see in your 2nd picture that you been cutting open compressors. I know I prolly cut open better than a thousand of those things, I was after the windings and anything else that didn't stick to a magenet.
Keep an eye out for the overload switch laced into the windings, thay often have the gold clad silver contact points. 
Can I ask how you made your cut, was that a grit blade ?
Ray

PS: you left a little stub of copper sticking outta that shell. :lol:


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## skippy (Aug 12, 2010)

Good eye Ray! Yes I've cut open maybe a few dozen compressors in my scrapping career, they have a decent wad of copper in there. That one was from a central air system. I don't pick up scrap much anymore, but I picked up a central air system I saw because I was curious to see how it compared to the window units I used to scrap. I always used an abraisive disc, but it takes a little bit of time, consumes the disc etc. I liked to use the disc to slice one end off the windings too. I definately be interested to hear how you did it.

I never thought of overload switches. Very resourceful!


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## Sodbuster (Aug 14, 2010)

Skippy: 
As an HVAC installer for 30 years I was bringing home 4-8 pieces of old equipment daily. My scraping was like a hobby to me and I always broke things down to the bitter end. But those compressors where always like a by product to me. 
After I acumulated about 30-50 of them I would set up and make a day of it to saw them open. 
I cut a 30 gallon steel drum in half lingthwise to use as a tub to catch the oil. Use the tub on a stack of two old tires so I didn't have to bend over so bad, and kill alot of the noise and vibration. 
I would flop the compressor into the tub on it's side and stand on one end of it with my left foot to stabilize it wile I cut it next to the rib or weld. 
I just used an old Milwaukee Sawszall with a course tooth metal blade. The cut was always slow till it broke through the shell because of the shallow blade angle but went faster soon as you could straighten it up a little bit. 
I was cutting about 4 maybe 5 compressors open with a single blade if I didn't have to much trouble butting the blade into the block or hit the internal mounting springs. 
Most of my compressors were 1.5 to 5 ton in size and I would be on the trigger maybe 8-10 minutes each. 
Most of the smaller compressors from a refrigerator, drinking fountain or window unit were to small to cut cause they would bounce around to much when ya took a saw to them. I would pass on the small ones.
This was some killer back breaking work and you have to be a fool for copper like I was to even consider cutting compressors.
Back when copper was selling for 80 cents a pound I was making 6K+ loads of just motor winding. If I had only sat on it for 10 years.

I had an idea for cutting compressors using a grit blade that never materialized for me as I no longer scrap like I did. or maybe explain how I got the wires out of a winding, or even how to obtaine the gold contact points out of the back side of a water heater gas valve if anybody is interested. 
But not here I've already cobbled this thread off topic as it is. Sorry Skipper 
Ray


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 14, 2010)

Sodbuster said:


> Skippy:
> As an HVAC installer for 30 years I was bringing home 4-8 pieces of old equipment daily. My scraping was like a hobby to me and I always broke things down to the bitter end. But those compressors where always like a by product to me.
> After I acumulated about 30-50 of them I would set up and make a day of it to saw them open.
> I cut a 30 gallon steel drum in half lingthwise to use as a tub to catch the oil. Use the tub on a stack of two old tires so I didn't have to bend over so bad, and kill alot of the noise and vibration.
> ...



I haven't seen any gold contact point's in the valve.


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## Lou (Aug 20, 2010)

Good score on the sputter target stuff.


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