# Help needed lazersteve goldsilverpro or anyone



## kamranashraf (Oct 21, 2009)

Hello every one,
first forgive me for my bad English, i have a large setup to melt the different scrap like copper silver steel, and then we sell them to market i have 30 employees, I import many scrap type from Europe and USA i am reading this form for one years or more ,i purchased cpu motherboards scrap without ram ,processor with small quantity or hard disk and floppy board the total weight of scarp was 140 kg there is about 40 kg of floppy disk and hard disk and cd Rome board scrap, I heir my 5 employee to dismantle the boards and here i am describing of each step with pictures, we get small gas heater and a medium pliers they hold the board in front of heater and when they found the board is heat up they shake him with small hammer and everything is fell down board is clear you can see the board into picture no13 ,then they separate everything you can see the different pictures where every thing is separate in shopping bags, also they collect all solders and small pins with tiny small electronic ships i don’t know the name but you can find them through picture no1 and 2,
I give them order to burn the picture no13 board through our furnace where the heat temperature not more than 80C , the upper green coating is burn you can see some burn boards in picture no14 ,15,16 i found there is a thin ply of copper the board is about 5 to 7 ply of polyethylene or something, there is lots of copper metal into each ply you can find the each tear ply in the picture no16 according my research the copper sheet and small tiny wires all over the board mix with Ag and on few copper sheet places coated with Au, i order them to tear 5 burnt board and they collect the 6 board metal you can see picture no17 to get an idea what we found into the board, there are small copper plies with tiny copper and silver wires also found small tiny about 1 square mm tiny silver particles into the board they situated into edges of the board and some are into the third layer of board each layer of the board have copper mix wires and sheet and some small tiny 1mm square Ag particles which I cant get the picture because they are very small, I separate all things ,each picture there are questions how to process them and what are these what is the best method to process them? i have an idea to process the picture no3 pins, these have small coating of gold through electrolytic cell first I need to separate the all pins because they have solders and other tiny chips and some other electronic particles, also I have an idea to process the picture no12 stuff through electrolytic cell because there is medium grade coated of gold, I process some stuff of picture no1&2 as a experimental basis that what ,ll I get so I drop them about one litter nitric acid for tow days in a stain less steel bowl the solder was about 100grams with other small tiny chips and after tow days I found the picture no18 stuff sitting into the bottom, I don’t know about the clear process but I know lazersteve or anyone expert can help me as they helped many peoples, I am adding small comments with each pictures and need to know how to process them,
here into Pakistan there is lots of trouble to find pure acids but acids I can easily found but I cant find the H2SO4 of 90% concentrated all acids are impure about caro syrup I cant find it, even I cant find coffee filters every one don’t know about muratic acids,I find the SMB but I don’t know it is really or not so every one can feel how much I am confused, I need help step by step and I ,ll send all process pictures to the form it ,ll be very helpful for new comers that how to process them and what ,ll they get on the end, Noxx if do you find the picture sizes are big then forgive me because I don’t know how to edit them thanks for every one in advance,
I can attach only five picture so I use my personal site please click on each link or copy paste to get the picture,sorry forget to attach so I am giving you the links,

Here is the link of picture no6 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1147.jpg
The picture no11 is showing what we got through this stuff the heads of the pins are gold plated remaining is whit coated are these Ag or something else if the AG then how we can process them we can process them through electrolytic cell or not,

Here is the link of picture no7 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1148.jpg
What kind of this stuff is there any Ag or Au in these chips, how we process them,

Here is the link of picture no8 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1150.jpg
What kind of this stuff is there any Ag or Au in these chips, how we process them,

Here is the link of picture no9 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1153.jpg
What kind of this stuff is there any Ag or Au in these chips, how we process them,

Here is the link of picture no10 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1157.jpg
What kind of this stuff is there any Ag or Au in these chips, how we process them,

Here is the link of picture no11 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1158.jpg
Here is some pins which we collect through picture no6, how we process them,

Here is the link of picture no12 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1161.jpg
These are gold plated stuff can we process them through electrolytic cell or anyother method ,ll be perfect or them?

Here is the link of picture no13 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1162.jpg
Here is picture of board which is clean through gas heater when you find some smoke is appear immediately light hits through hammer to the board and every thing fell off,

Here is the link of picture no14 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1165.jpg
Here is burning board, you only need 60C or 80C to burn the green coating of the motherboard when you find the smoke is stop immediately stop the fire and let settle him when cool lie him for one day because hot board is difficult to tear but cold board is easily tear I think this happen because the poly ply of the bored is crushed easily when the board is hot the bad smoke rise so make sure you have safety equipments in hand, burn them through good furnace where you can set the heat manually and process the smoke through smoke chambers, or burn them in the jungle where every one cant see you if the law allow you.

Here is the link of picture no15 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1167.jpg
This picture is showing you the small copper sheet which is behind with the first poly layer of the board you can notice also lots of tiny wires some sheets are gold plated I also save all ashes because ashes also have lots of small metallic particles,

Here is the link of picture no16 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1170.jpg
This picture present the different layers of the board which can be easily tear when you burn the board but remember let him coal enough and don’t touch for one day through my experience the board easily tear after one day, there could be 5 to 7 layers into one board and each layer have small wires and copper sheets the research shows that the copper sheet and wires mix with Ag and some are coated through Au ,

Here is the link of picture no17 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1175.jpg
The picture present copper sheet and wires from the burning board about 5 to 7 burning board have 1kg these sheet and wires stuff, there is also lots of whit wires which I have doubt they are silver wire also you ,ll find small 1 square mm white particles which are Ag or else,

Here is the link of picture no18 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1179.jpg
I don’t know what kind of these stuff I drop first picture materials in the nitric acid into a stain less steal bowl and after one day these metal sitting in the bottom I filter them all and don’t know what are these,


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## g_axelsson (Oct 21, 2009)

It was a lot of different components and fractions. I will just answer on a few of them.

Picture 4 : This is electrolytic capacitors. Only contains aluminium in the components and copper in the wires in and out. No precious metals in them.

Picture 5, 6 and 11 : The pins are gold coated on the tip. The white metal is NOT silver, it is tin.

Picture 7 : This is power transistors from the power supplies. There might be some gold bond wires inside the plastic casing. The back plate of the chips are often copper as is the pins. The large plate it sits on is just aluminium.

Picture 8 : Various transformers and inductors. Copper wires on ferrite or iron cores. No precious metals in them.

Picture 9 : Looks like a mixture of iron and plated brass. Use a magnet to sort it. No precious metals here.

With the risk of being blunt I'm going to give you some advices. You seem to have put in a lot of effort, time and money into this without knowing what to look for. If you have read the forum for a year you should know that a lot of this have already been discussed a number of times. You are running around blindly if you don't know what to look for.

What I suggest that you will do is to learn how to test for different precious metals. To check for silver is really easy. Put a small piece of your item in a glass, add a few drops of nitric acid to it so it will dissolve. Then add some salt water to it. If there is a lot of white fluffy stuff of it turns white as milk then you have silver. If not then you don't have silver.
To test for tin, just rub it against a paper. If you get a gray streak then it is tin.

Muriatic acid is the same as hydrochloric acid or HCl.

I leave how to process the gold plated pins to others.

/Göran


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## kamranashraf (Oct 21, 2009)

thanks g_axelesson you give me lots of precious information, they are not expensive for me as we are doing scrap business for years into Pakistan there isn’t anyone processing them they are exporting escrap to Europe and USA,i already have a large scrap recycling business, so i have regular workers so I didn’t hire extra workers for them, my workers dismantle them in tow days, also I purchase these stuff on cheap price but i think money isn’t worth able more than your hobbies, thanks for your reply, k ashraf


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Oct 22, 2009)

Kamranashraf:

Well,you said anyone..here I am.

Look,you are on the right boat but in the wrong river..let me explain myself:

You have got to look for the golden color in e scrap,I mean,just the microprocessors,pins,fingers and conectors have gold in a PC computer.Silver is inside the keyboard(a plastic maylar),the rest are base metals and plastic.

Take a look to the posts about gold content from PC computers,the processes are posted too,you will need the Aqua Regia process for microprocessors,AP and CLOROX process for golden plated items and Karo syrup process for silver,by the way,do not worry about Karo syrup,you can use common sugar instead of it,I have posted how to do it.You can make nitric acid with sulphuric acid,this acid is used in car´s batteries so it is available in Pakistan.By the way,where do you live?,Islamabad,Karachi or Lahore?

Do not despair,gold recovering bussines is a process.If you have the will to do it, we have the will to help you.This is what the Forum is for.

God bless you.

Manuel


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## kamranashraf (Oct 22, 2009)

Manuel
thank you very much for your help, I am very pleased with your information and thank you to give me such good directions i am now tracking your all posts and sure i ,ll find good information, would you tell me where the possibilities of silver beside Au on mother boards? You can see the solder picture so i think i need to save all tiny chips and solders are useless? i am from Lahore we purchase copper ,aluminum ....etc scrap and recycle it to reuse,


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## qst42know (Oct 22, 2009)

Solder in decent quantities can be scrapped as well.


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Oct 23, 2009)

Kamranashraf:

In old motherboards solder there is no silver,newer motherboards solder has silver but these computers are still working.In a few years they will become obsolet so we could recover that silver.

The gold is in microprocessors,fingers and contacts.The silver is in the mylar keyboard and multi layer capacitors.In all your pictures I did not see any microprocessors or contacts,where are they?

Have anice day.

Manuel


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## Barren Realms 007 (Oct 23, 2009)

Juan can you give example of this with possible pictures

*multi layer capacitors*


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## kamranashraf (Oct 23, 2009)

is these micro processors or contacts ,is the synide/peroxide method is good to collect any gold on fingers or contacts etc?


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## resabed01 (Oct 23, 2009)

Interesting and informative thread. I'm new and learning here and i'm in my hunting and gathering stages....for both e-scrap and information. This picture intrigues me.







I'm aware that computer motherboards are made of several layers of sandwiched fiberglass and copper. These copper layers are etched with a pattern to carry signals or power to different areas of the board. Also, layers of copper are used as a groundplane between the other layers to prevent crosstalk of signals. This picture shows the copper minus the fiberglass. Am I seeing this correct? Gold plated copper foil? If it is, I can't see what purpose this would serve. Why would they gold plate the copper that would be embedded in fiberglass? And if it is plated with gold maybe it's just the outside layers?


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## Oz (Oct 24, 2009)

Resabed,

How was the “fiberglass” removed from this sample?


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## kamranashraf (Oct 24, 2009)

OZ when you read my post there is informtion which you are looking<

Here is the link of picture no14 http://kamran.comlu.com/goldpic/DSCI1165.jpg
Here is burning board, you only need 60C or 80C to burn the green coating of the motherboard when you find the smoke is stop immediately stop the fire and let settle him when cool lie him for one day because hot board is difficult to tear but cold board is easily tear I think this happen because the poly ply of the bored is crushed easily when the board is hot the bad smoke rise so make sure you have safety equipments in hand, burn them through good furnace where you can set the heat manually and process the smoke through smoke chambers, or burn them in the jungle where every one cant see you if the law allow you.

i also found that upper copper layer is gold plated but not ll boards only few i found,and only few copper places are gold plated not whole the board,

here is link of youtube video which say copper may mix with Ag and some parts may be gold plated>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdu5yS5q2so


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## LeftyTheBandit (Oct 24, 2009)

That big old bag of gold pins makes me drool.

The toughest part of recycling computer scrap is the price of labor to de-construct the computers on any scale. I think this fella could be a millionaire if he gets the right equipment to process his sorted scrap.

Hmmm, I wonder how much shipping is for 300lbs of pins from Pakistan to Canada... Hmmm. :roll:


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## Barren Realms 007 (Oct 24, 2009)

Shipping would be less than the amount of gold present...Look at how many pins are mixed in with the solder and the ones mixed in with small items..He will speed his process up dramacticaly when he learns this and selectivly removes items from the boards since his labor is cheap. :roll: 




LeftyTheBandit said:


> That big old bag of gold pins makes me drool.
> 
> The toughest part of recycling computer scrap is the price of labor to de-construct the computers on any scale. I think this fella could be a millionaire if he gets the right equipment to process his sorted scrap.
> 
> Hmmm, I wonder how much shipping is for 300lbs of pins from Pakistan to Canada... Hmmm. :roll:


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## kamranashraf (Oct 24, 2009)

Barren Realms 007 thanks for your reply the shipping to Canada from Pakistan is 50US$ per one square meter box with the maximum weight of three hundred kg and delivery to all over the world is 21 days, and air shipping is also very cheap, also the Canadian scrap custom is very cheap as we import the scrap from different countries so i know shipping very well, the pins usually cover with plastics due to language barrier i cant describe but we first remove any plastic attach with the pins like where you fit ram card that place covered with plastic we remove first all plastics through machines and then we remove chips etc through gas heater and pins already free from there plastic so they easily removed (forgive me for my lack of knowledge about the different parts of the motherboard because I really don’t know the name of them)and there is another technique when your board is heat up through gas heating don’t turn it back just shake him and hit him nicely through small hammer or screw driver the every thing is fell out and pins also drop on the board so if you don’t collect your pins may be the solder fell on them and cover the gold and the picture you seen the pins gold plated! head are uncovered there is no solder on any pins head also you can check this picture



Its shows there isn’t any solder on them, these are high plated gold,
Barren Realms 007 i sent you PM please check it, this is the best form which i ever see you all peoples are so nice, you are right that the labor is so cheap for me i have thirty men who separate all my scrap to different categories because most scrap we got are mixed so i already have men who can do everything for me this is the advantage that I don’t pay them extra so the labor cost is absolutely free for me, I am thinking to export escrape to Europe and USA like my so many fiends are exporting to other countries so if any one want to buy any e scrape from Pakistan I can help him also i ,ll dismantle the e scrap free of cost if anyone like to purchase it through me and ,ll send them in parts so the hobbyist can easily process them and they can negotiate the escrap rates with me may be I can provide them cheap and the biggest advantage is they ,ll get them in parts I am also able to burn the board and mine the copper of motherboard or any e board because I think the labor in USA and Europe is very high, and also if any friend want any part of electronics which he cant dismantle I would happy to help him free of cost, my first concern is learn how can I process the escrap, because it’s a good hobby I specially thanks for goldsilverpro (Chris) who guide me to right direction and also all of you my friend you give me such a brilliant ideas thanks a lot I ,ll also welcome any post which ,ll guide me to my destination,


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## Barren Realms 007 (Oct 24, 2009)

kamranashraf $50.00 for shipping 300 kilos(660 lbs.) that would be nice to have a box of pins and fingers to process..
In this last picture the flat pieces covered with gold are fingers seperate the fingers and the pins into diffrent catagories. You will process them about the same way but the fingers will be easier to process without the pins and because the fingers will process faster than the pins because there is less base metals to disolve in the fingers. The pins might look like they don't have solder but I bet they do have traces. 

The fingers you will want to process in A/P (HCL/Peroxide) check out Lazersteves website for the video on this process. 
And you want to keep the silver colored fingers out of the gold colored when you do your seperating.
http://www.goldrecovery.us

For the pins I run them in a crock pot of just HCL. I soak them in HCL with an aquarium air bubbler to keep the solution mixed. I just keep taking the copper saturated HCL out of the pot and replace with fresh HCL and more pins. *Do not add peroxide* to this or you will loose some of your gold in solution, correction you will not loose it you will just have a harder time recovering it because the copper will not let it stay in solution and it will come out in fine particals that you can loose if you don't pay attention to what you are doing.


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## resabed01 (Oct 24, 2009)

LeftyTheBandit said:


> Hmmm, I wonder how much shipping is for 300lbs of pins from Pakistan to Canada... Hmmm. :roll:




If memory serves me correct....you can stuff 20,000lbs in a 20' sea container

Even more in a 40 footer.


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## rfd298 (Oct 24, 2009)

Who's in for splitting a 40 footer of fingers? :lol:


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## dick b (Oct 24, 2009)

I question 660 Lbs for $50.00 Shipping. That sounds too low to me. Maybe that is to the POE. Port of Entry
dickb


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## patnor1011 (Oct 25, 2009)

hi...
if your labor is not costing much you have to consider dismantling nearly all of these. yellow arrows pointing in tips of pins which have visible solder on them. i will cut them off and keep only plated part. green circled are those which contains gold plated pins. well nearly all conectors in this picture have them but i will just toss away those circled red as they probably do not contain anything valuable.


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## patnor1011 (Oct 25, 2009)

if that is alluminium to get best price you need to take off all screws and plastic.


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## patnor1011 (Oct 25, 2009)

:lol:


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## patnor1011 (Oct 25, 2009)

when sorting pins, I am trying to cut and keep only part which is goldplated this will save me acids but if there is not solder present you can process them in cell whole as they are now. if they are taken off the board by heat - there will be good amount of solder still present on them.


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## patnor1011 (Oct 25, 2009)

from this picture I can say that there is about ten times more of solder that gold on your pins. on few places you can see big blobs of it. this will cause several problems when refining.

on my picture /not good quality taken by phone/ there are simmilar pins cut just in place where not plated - no solder on them.


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## patnor1011 (Oct 25, 2009)

i am leaning to that it is just discolouration of copper caused by temperature but i might be wrong.


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Oct 25, 2009)

Barren Realms 007:

The pics were posted by Steve ,see "Identification project".Here is some information about multilayer capacitors.
Regards.

Manuel


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Oct 25, 2009)

Kamranashraf:

Those items are not microprocessors.They have very little gold and you will need hundreds of kilos to get a few grams of gold.

Do you want to take a look to real microprocessors with gold?....let it be,here they are.

This file was posted some time ago,it is not mine but I think it is very useful.

Best regards.

Manuel


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## Anonymous (Oct 25, 2009)

Heres a hint, I shear off pins to keep the solder from getting in the mix as they are a lot easier to run for me when sheared.
Also, you can shear the boards flush and rough short with screens to sort by size.

Jim


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