# Enough silver to make a small ring...



## reganhimself (Aug 10, 2016)

Hello People, 

I have been saving up RAM and CPUs for years for the gold which i am looking to harvest soon and looking to use that gold to make a ring. 

I would also like to see if i can get hold of some silver from scrap too use in the rings design.

Do you have any suggestions what scrap is generally good to harvest some silver?

Thanks in advance for your advice


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## anachronism (Aug 10, 2016)

Hi Regan

If some of the processors are lidded ceramics there's a chance you have silver in those as well as gold. Do you have a picture of the ones you've saved up?


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## facesfromparadise (Aug 10, 2016)

Hi I'm new here as well, this will be my first post. As far as silver in e scrap goes keyboard mylars would be a good place to start. Really the only other things in them besides the mylar itself would be carbon. If I were you I would start collecting these and keep reading on the forum on processing them. Before you do process them you should have a good understanding of the process itself but also of NOx gas and how to mitigate risk of injury from it, ie fume hood/scrubber etc. There is a lot of information on keeping yourself save from it on here. Good luck with your ring! That's actually what brought me here too. I'm planning on making my fiances wedding ring. Study up.


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## reganhimself (Aug 10, 2016)

They are mostly the old Pent 2 slot processors I some ceramic and more modern processes too. I will try and get a pic or two up soon.

I will start harvesting mylars! Thanks for your suggestion! What kind of approx yield are mylers per KG in your experience - just so I know what to aim for!?

Any other suggestions?

As for the actual extraction of the PMs I will enlist someone who is experienced in the field to help even if i have to pay a % of the yield.


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## reganhimself (Aug 10, 2016)

Managed to convince work to give me access to their WEEE bins before they go off to china or wherever!

Wish me luck! 

Feel free to suggest tips on other PMs too. At this moment I am looking for Silver myself however may be educational to know what else could be lying about!


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## g_axelsson (Aug 10, 2016)

Obvious place to look for silver is relays, switches and contactors. Anything designed to break amperes instead of milliamperes.
And mylars as mentioned above.

Yields for mylars are low, around 0.1 - 0.3 g per keyboard and differ a lot between models. Just do a search to find out more.

For CPU:s the gold is what people are looking for, usually any silver will be converted to silver chloride and hard to easily extract. But then there are exceptions and some chips are brazed with silver solder.

For a beginner I would recommend breakers and mylars as a silver source and use any gold bearing CPU:s for gold recovery.

Göran


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## reganhimself (Aug 10, 2016)

Thanks for the advice.

I believe there are a bunch of relays and switches in them bins. Its from old railway equipment / computer equipment so fingers crossed.

I have a whole bunch (like 20-50) of computer power supplies / mobos (varying sockets) and HDDs a stack of laptops a huge box of CDrom drives and another one of old floppy drives anything else I should look out for in this bunch of E-waste?

I will keep an eye out for switches and anything bearing gold.


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## upcyclist (Aug 10, 2016)

g_axelsson said:


> For CPU:s the gold is what people are looking for, usually any silver will be converted to silver chloride and hard to easily extract. But then there are exceptions and some chips are brazed with silver solder.


So, if you are specifically looking for e-scrap silver, you could alter your processes a bit to separate the silver, but you'll be working less efficiently. Basically, after you process in HCl or a copper chloride leach, you can rinse and roast your material (to get rid of any remaining chlorides), then process in nitric acid, which will dissolve your silver. Then you can dissolve your solids in Aqua Regia (or your preferred alternate). 

The middle step (processing in nitric) is the added step. After the initial leach (depending on the source material), many folks "go straight to AR".

Edit to add: You may also incur some losses doing it this way--every step, especially transferring between vessels, has the potential to leave some gold behind.


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## reganhimself (Aug 11, 2016)

Do any of you guys have any other suggestions of things that has just silver in it like for example the mylers?

One of my mates told me to keep an eye out for titanium capacitors (not that i would know what they look like) 

Any other hidden treasures likely to be hiding in this lot?

Thanks for all of your guys help - its very educational!

Cheers.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Aug 11, 2016)

Relays and contact points in them.

Better than mylars


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## g_axelsson (Aug 11, 2016)

reganhimself said:


> One of my mates told me to keep an eye out for titanium capacitors (not that i would know what they look like)


Do a search for *TANTALUM* capacitors and you will find out.  

Göran


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## reganhimself (Aug 12, 2016)

Hahaha oh dear - that post really does show my noobness! 

Think I will stick to mylars and relays for now!

Really appreciate your guys help!


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## anachronism (Aug 12, 2016)

Regan, not necessarily. Could you post some pictures of the ceramics you have been collecting please?


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## reganhimself (Aug 13, 2016)

Hey Anachronism (Dresden dolls fan?)

I will post pics when I have moved house (currently in the process!)

Is there much gold on the old slot pentium 2/3 processors I have a huuuge box of them


Cheers


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## anachronism (Aug 13, 2016)

I've never personally refined the slot processors. Like you I stacked them up. I sent a high yield batch into a Tier 1 refinery in May, and as I know what the other two thirds of the batch should be yielding, I will have a reasonable idea of what they yield in a couple of weeks when my assays come back. I'll drop you a PM when I get the results. It won't be spot on but it will be a good ballpark figure, but do be aware that there were a lot of slot Xeon processors in there which yield differently to the Pentiums themselves.


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## reganhimself (Aug 13, 2016)

There may even be a few of them in there I havnt checked. 

I will have a nose when I get them out the otherside of moving. I need to reduce them down by ripping off the heatsinks etc.


Here is a pic of one one of the ceramics I found in a man draw (and some odd sticks)... They should all be the same as they came out a batch of computers aaaaaages ago.

Front:








Bottom:






Cheers


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## anachronism (Aug 13, 2016)

Roughly how many of those Pentium ceramic chips do you have?


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## reganhimself (Aug 13, 2016)

Erm from what I remember say 20 maybe even more its from school class room clear outs ages ago. 

When I unpack I will photo all of my loot.

How many is a decent amount to have? 

Where are you based Anachronism?


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## anachronism (Aug 13, 2016)

20 is going to give you a small but certainly not insignificant amount of gold. Should be a couple of grammes at least. The solder on the bases also contains silver if my memory serves me correctly and extracting it isn't going to be a big problem if you follow the steps laid out on here either. 

Believe me when I suggest that those processors alone are a good little batch to learn your processing skills in a number of areas, i.e. gold and silver, AR, filtering, and a whole bunch of the other processes you need to learn to refine well. Just don't get red mist mate. Take it step by step and you'll do fine I promise. I'm in the north east of England yourself?

Edit for context.


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## reganhimself (Aug 13, 2016)

Im in Hertfordshire atm but moving to bradford on avon soon. I got so much old tech when i settle in i will have to collate it all and post pics for advice. 

Tbh im not sure i could process it myself even following a tutorial i think i would prefer lookin over someones shoulders at first and asking questions! Plus its not just the process its all thr little techniques and equipment etc! 

I would like to one day be able to process stuff myself i appreciate your faith in me! The whole reason i want to get the gold isnt to turn a pretty penny but to gather raw materials to make an engagement ring. 


I really appreciate everyone's help on this forum!


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## anachronism (Aug 13, 2016)

Given that the average wedding ring has no more than 2g or so of pure gold in it before it's alloyed with silver or copper or other metals dependent on colour it's safe to say that you're well on the way.

Feel free to ask anything you like and I and the guys here would be happy to help.


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## reganhimself (Aug 13, 2016)

Thats super I really appreciate that. 2g thats pretty good... At least I will hopfully have a few attempts with this lot and all the other scrap I got. Its a shame you dont live a tad closer would be good to pick your brains over a beer!

How often do you process stuff? Do you always do it yourself or have you ever used a refinery?

Cheers.


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## FrugalRefiner (Aug 13, 2016)

Reganhimself, please keep in mind that this is an international forum with many members for whom English is not their first language. Many of them have to use translation software, and posts like yours do not translate well. We expect everyone to use their best efforts to write in a grammatically correct style. If you have difficulty with that, please use a spell/grammar checker, and use the Preview button before you press the Post button.

Thanks,
Dave


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