# Who keeps the backplanes seperate ?



## silversaddle1 (May 6, 2011)

With all the mainframe equipment I have been scrapping over the last few mounths, I have managed to pile up over 800 pounds of just backplanes. 1000's of gold pins on them, some in the 12,000-15,000 pin per board range. Some even higher than that. My question is will the backplanes bring more than average high grade boards link motherboards, etc? I know they can sometimes do quite well on E-bay, but what a PITA.


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## oldgoldman (May 6, 2011)

I'm in the process of refining my similar backplane lot .. PM me and we can share war stories. They will definitely be more than high grade boards, but there are some issues also.


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## silversaddle1 (May 7, 2011)

Most of the ones I have saved are the friction fit type where the pins are totally plated. There are some that are not totally plated, but the shear volume of pins on the board makes up for it. We just picked up a job that is going to yield over 100 large telecom type backplanes, the good ones with the huge copper buss bars on them. That will add to the poundage for sure.


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## oldgoldman (May 7, 2011)

I'd love to see a picture of those . here are a couple telecom pieces that are unique .. the huge one may be in the 10,000 plus pin range .. i keep it just to look at it.. i can't get the dang green connectors off cleanly on the 1981 Bytek ones.


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## oldgoldman (May 7, 2011)

picture for your review


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## oldgoldman (May 7, 2011)

sorry for the triple post ..


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## Militoy (May 8, 2011)

oldgoldman said:


> I'd love to see a picture of those . here are a couple telecom pieces that are unique .. the huge one may be in the 10,000 plus pin range .. i keep it just to look at it.. i can't get the dang green connectors off cleanly on the 1981 Bytek ones.



The green ones look like standard diallyl phthalate types. They should unsolder easily with a propane torch if you are inclined to pull them instead of just horsing them off. Diallyl phthalate is a lower-outgassing material - so roasting them to brittle them up shouldn't be more troublesome than most other injection-molded thermoplastics.


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## macfixer01 (May 8, 2011)

Militoy said:


> oldgoldman said:
> 
> 
> > I'd love to see a picture of those . here are a couple telecom pieces that are unique .. the huge one may be in the 10,000 plus pin range .. i keep it just to look at it.. i can't get the dang green connectors off cleanly on the 1981 Bytek ones.
> ...





It's been my experience the green connectors like those edge connectors in the photo are pretty easy to crush or break, then remove the pins from. That doesn't help in getting intact connectors out of the board, but you can split them in-place lengthwise by cutting through each end with a pair of diagonal cutters. Then just bend each side back and forth to break the pins off at the board surface. In contrast the dark blue edge connectors are a real pita since they are extremely hard to cut and they stretch and deform, not break. The blue plastic reminds me of a high density polyethylene.

macfixer01


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## Ocean (May 23, 2011)

We separate ours from the regular boards!

Got a stash started.


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## goldsilverpro (May 23, 2011)

I once assayed many Burroughs (a huge business computer company at the time) backplanes from the late 70s, early 80s. There were mainly 3 different types of pins on these: (1) gold plated only in the contact area; (2) plated all over; (3) plated at the contact area with a *tiny* 18K contact point. At today's prices, considering total board plus connector weight, (1) ran about $3/#, (3) about $26/#, and (2) somewhere in-between.

I've never seen these 18K points on any other brand of computer. They doesn't mean they don't exist. The points are tiny and easy to miss.


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## oldgoldman (May 23, 2011)

Here's a burly DATA GENERAL CORP backplane ..this got pulled out of the heap today ..


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