# Adventure two... Mobile Mountain.



## Damien (Feb 3, 2017)

Hi everyone! 
Now that I've finished preparing my CPUs for processing, I'm moving on to the next chapter in my urban mining story.

I'm getting ready to take apart 130lbs of old mobiles.

I'm interested to hear how you each would choose to proceed? Let's talk!


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## UncleBenBen (Feb 3, 2017)

In a word...Sell. :lol: 

I took apart about that same amount back when I was first lurking on the forum. I enjoyed it for the most part, but then I just love to take things apart. It's almost therapeutic in a way.

But by the time I got down to the last 20 pounds or so it all went into a box and got shoved to the back of the line. It had turned into a chore and wasn't fun any more.

I'll get back to them eventually, but I think if I had to do it all over again I'd forget the little screwdrivers and have at them with a good hammer!


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## Topher_osAUrus (Feb 3, 2017)

Yep!

...unless you have kids that love to take things apart. :lol:


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## haveagojoe (Feb 3, 2017)

Hi Damien,
First sort the phones into piles according to the type of screws which hold the plastic together. Get yourself the right types of screwdriver tips for your electric screwdriver. The tiny watchmakers ones- cross-head, star head etc.

Remove all the batteries and store them in a safe way - not in a metal container. Lithium batteries can catch fire or cause explosions if they are punctured or short circuited. You may be able to sell them to a scrapyard. Definitely keep them well away from your acids.

Unscrew the plastic cases with the electric screwdriver. Put all the plastic in a bag to be recycled. All the boards can go in a box, remove the sticky-backed plastic bit which is behind the keypad as you go. This exposes the gold 'bullseyes' as some call them. Also remove the screens and any loose components. Get them as clear as possible manually. 

Make a small wood fire perhaps in an old barbeque. Put an old baking tray full of sand on the fire. Lay the boards about 6 at a time on the sand when its hot enough, and use metal tongs to remove them and tap off the surface-mounted components as the solder melts. If you tap them off into some kind of container you can sort through for any gold parts later. Geo has a good video of how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn5LjwnmYFg

When the boards are cool, let them sit in hydrochloric acid for about a week to dissolve as much remaining solder as possible. Minimise the amount of oxygen available by keeping them in plastic tubs with lids, full to the brim, with the lid closed loosely. This is to reduce the chances of the HCl making Copper Chloride II solution too soon. You want the gold plating to stay attached to the boards at this stage.

When the boards are free of solder, you can put them into AP to release the gold flakes. You can make AP with fresh HCl, a few strands of electrical copper wire and a tiny tiny bit of peroxide to get it started. Peroxide gives the solution oxygen to start the etching process. Once it starts dissolving the copper in the boards it will not need anything else except air to keep going. Personally I do AP without using a bubbler. This makes it slower but I don't mind waiting and I prefer that any gases will be released at a much slower rate which is less of a hazard.

When you can see all the gold has come off as flakes into the solution, pour off the acid through a filter to collect the gold. What I do is to rinse the filter off into collection jars using water from a spray bottle. Keep the acid as it can be used many times. Also keep the used filter as these can be incinerated later and any remaining fine gold can be recovered.

See the forum for how to refine your flakes later. Be sure to read Hoke and as much of the forum before messing with more chemicals. For now just store the flakes in water in collection jars. Don't worry if there's bits of green solder mask in with them as this gets filtered out later.

Be safe


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## Tndavid (Feb 3, 2017)

Sell em to Jack man. I believe he pays pretty good. Invest that money in gf or karat scrap. Trust me believe me you'll do a lot better that way. I believe his screen name is Ocean.


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## rickbb (Feb 3, 2017)

If you want quick cash, sell them.

If you have lots of time on your hands and don't get bored then start the long and tedious task of dismantling and de-populating, soaking in HCL, then use the AP process on the now clean depopulated boards.

After weeks or months you may have a few hundred dollars worth of gold to show for you labors.


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## Damien (Feb 5, 2017)

I'm thinking I'm going to keep em and process them. Starting to put together a business plan for what I want to do with the gold I recycle, so everything I have collected to this point will be converted into investment for my plan.


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## Damien (Feb 9, 2017)

It's amazing to see how much area in phones are plated. It's a lot of fun taking them apart and seeing what's in the next one.
Rather enjoying myself!


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## everydayisalesson (Feb 10, 2017)

Some of them are beautiful but remember, most of your gold is in the chips. A lot of info on here about cell phones. I would look up all the different posts using the search function. I believe several members have even posted yields of cell phone boards. Take care and take your time.

Mike


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## Damien (Feb 11, 2017)

I've been hard at work... this is fun! I just love exposing the pcb on each phone, coated in plating.
I know it's not much there, but it looks awesome! Much more fun than motherboards!
Lol.
Anyway, getting through all of these phones is going to take forever. I've been grabbing em by the handfuls and still have barely put a dent in the first box.

Mission engaged - Mobile Mountain!


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## UncleBenBen (Feb 11, 2017)

It is a lot of fun isn't it! You've about got me wanting to dig my big box of phone stuff back out and start finishing it up.

I've also got a box somewhere with a bunch of digital cameras partially dismantled. Some were just junk, but most had some pretty little boards all stacked really tight inside. But talk about time! Some of those cameras had, and no exaggeration, easily 3 to 5 dozen screws. TINY screws. Some had even more. It was quite the exercise in patience!

But still fun if you are the kind of weirdo that enjoys that kind of thing! :mrgreen:


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