# How not to make a cold call on a business.



## user 12009 (Dec 16, 2015)

I do purchasing for my company and I guess the receptionist thought I also did selling. Some guy came into the lobby and said he buys scrap for recycling. Ok thats fine we fill a couple dumpsters everyday with waste paper and have hundreds of pounds waste aluminum printing plates every month.

He wanted to buy all my scrap and we started talking about my recycling business. (electronic only) He asked if I pulled out the gold myself and I said no I am just the middleman. Then he said there was a HUGE electronics recycling plant in central California. He said they grind everything up and use a magnet to seperate it. I tried to correct him by telling him the magnet just pulled out the ferris material. NO, he said he was right that they have "non-ferrus" magnets that pulls out all the gold and silver from the other stuff. 

I thanked him for stopping by and got his card. When I got back to my desk I tried to lookup his website. After typing 27 keys I got an error message that the site does not exist. 

His card said he was the PRESIDENT


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## justinhcase (Dec 16, 2015)

cyberdan said:


> Then he said there was a HUGE electronics recycling plant in central California. He said they grind everything up and use a magnet to seperate it. I tried to correct him by telling him the magnet just pulled out the ferris material. NO, he said he was right that they have "non-ferrus" magnets that pulls out all the gold and silver from the other stuff.
> 
> The chap has been getting his information form that"Cowboy's and Alien's" movie.
> They had a very cool device that could selectively melt and attract Au .
> ...


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## Grelko (Dec 16, 2015)

justinhcase said:


> cyberdan said:
> 
> 
> > Then he said there was a HUGE electronics recycling plant in central California. He said they grind everything up and use a magnet to seperate it. I tried to correct him by telling him the magnet just pulled out the ferris material. NO, he said he was right that they have "non-ferrus" magnets that pulls out all the gold and silver from the other stuff.
> ...



I've heard about this, but have no idea if it's real or not.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/422209-gold-magnetic.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electret

Apparently, by using static electricity with PVC piping etc, they can gather fine gold powder "dust". It sounds plausible because of the dimagnetic field, but I don't know. Some form of static cling maybe?


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## Geo (Dec 16, 2015)

All metal is magnetic. Each atom has a north and south pole. In iron, the atoms can be aligned using a magnetic field. Some material comes out of the ground magnetic. Some metals is too dense for the atoms to be manipulated. I saw a very cool experiment where aluminum rings were manipulated on a cylindrical electromagnet. With enough current, the ring was shot into the air with a lot of velocity. I said all metal is magnetic but I should have said All Matter is magnetic to some degree. If it wasn't, metal detectors wouldn't work.


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## silversaddle1 (Dec 16, 2015)

Maybe he was thinking of eddy current seperating.


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## solar_plasma (Dec 17, 2015)

> aluminum rings were manipulated



If it were rings, there is a reason why. The ring itself will get its own electromagnetic field via induction and this kind since it is nothing else but a coil.


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## kurtak (Dec 17, 2015)

silversaddle1 said:


> Maybe he was thinking of eddy current seperating.



That would be my guess as well - I want to build a small one myself for separating the non magnetic metals (copper bus bars & contact points) from the plastics after running circuit breakers through a hammer mill to bust them up 

Eddy current separation in fact uses magnets to separate non magnetic metals from organics - because it uses magnets the magnetic metals "first" need to be removed - then the non magnetics (both metals & organics) are run through the eddy current separator

It works by having magnets in rows across the length of a drum & each row is laid out with opposing poles (one row + facing up next - facing up then + then - & so on)

the drum is then placed at the off feed end of a feed belt & spun very fast which induces an eddy current --- the eddy current effects the non magnetic metals with enough force so that it "throws" them forward as they come off the end of the feed belt - but it does not effect the organics so they just fall off the end

the fast spinning eddy current drum is placed inside a drum that the belt rides around on - belt is driven (pulled around) from the in feed end 

next time I get an old treadmill in as scrap I want to play with it & refab it to make a small eddy current separator

Edit to add; - so yes the guy is right - magnets are used to separate the non magnetic (non ferrous) metals from the organic --- its a two stage process as the magnetics need to be removed "first" 

Kurt


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## kurtak (Dec 17, 2015)

Here are a couple of videos

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=eddy+current+separator+videos&view=detail&&qpvt=eddy+current+separator+videos&mid=B701A375BF73CE73A873B701A375BF73CE73A873&rvsmid=E9D57ACC9DCF1955908FE9D57ACC9DCF1955908F&fsscr=0

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=eddy+current+separator+videos&view=detail&&qpvt=eddy+current+separator+videos&mid=E9D57ACC9DCF1955908FE9D57ACC9DCF1955908F&rvsmid=E9D57ACC9DCF1955908FE9D57ACC9DCF1955908F#view=detail&mid=E9D57ACC9DCF1955908FE9D57ACC9DCF1955908F

Edit to add one more video - this demonstrates it working really well while the other two better shows how it works https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=eddy+current+separator+videos&view=detail&&qpvt=eddy+current+separator+videos&mid=4E69D06547F72515ABEB4E69D06547F72515ABEB&rvsmid=E9D57ACC9DCF1955908FE9D57ACC9DCF1955908F&fsscr=0#view=detail&mid=4E69D06547F72515ABEB4E69D06547F72515ABEB


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## 4metals (Dec 17, 2015)

The guy was likely talking about ECS in California and yes eddy current separation is part of their fine tuned process.http://www.ecsrefining.com/

But I think what Cyberdan was getting at was that anyone should be a bit wary of giving scrap to someone, president or not, that did not have enough knowledge of the process of separation to describe it a bit more technically.


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## Lou (Dec 17, 2015)

4metals,

Didn't the Taggart brothers sell out of ECS? 

I know we compete with Conecsus (formerly ECS) for the airfoils and I heard they were no longer owned by ECS.


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## Anonymous (Dec 17, 2015)

Heck yes.. Eddy current separation is widely used. I've been in more than one plant that does it. 

Maybe the guy didn't want to go into the details of how they did things.


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## Grelko (Dec 17, 2015)

kurtak said:


> Here are a couple of videos
> 
> https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=eddy+current+separator+videos&view=detail&&qpvt=eddy+current+separator+videos&mid=B701A375BF73CE73A873B701A375BF73CE73A873&rvsmid=E9D57ACC9DCF1955908FE9D57ACC9DCF1955908F&fsscr=0
> 
> ...



When I made my reply, the first and third videos, were the ones that I was trying to find. Also, about your other post, I just got a scrap treadmill a few days ago, but already tore it apart. :roll:


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## 4metals (Dec 17, 2015)

Lou,

I do not know, I haven't been there in 3 years. I have only dealt with Jim Taggart. He does have an impressive system but it is directed towards large volume, the shredders alone were taking in whole mainframes cabinets and all. Sure beats an electric screw gun!!!


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