# Depopulating boards



## rusty (Feb 10, 2013)

i use a 1/4" flat plate with an angle iron backstop welded to it, when the board is backed up against it, makes chiseling easy. To save on body parts use a small pneumatic hammer.

Profile your chisel sharpened one side only, this is the side that goes towards the board under the chips using this profile the chisel skates rather than gouge itself into the board. When I do those long plastic sockets which have gold plated pins the plastic covering usually lets loose first then i come back over the pins at a more vertical approach.

Stand alone plated pins seen in groups use the same angle, chips more horizontal, I cup my hand over the chisel to keep things from flying away on me but then this is why they sell brooms. 

I have not done this job in over two years so as my user name implies a bit rusty.

A short video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuV8snN8Tsw&list=UUisCclhYzYd2NOSEm1AyTdg[/youtube]


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## srlaulis (Feb 11, 2013)

That is an excellent idea, Rusty.


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## resabed01 (Feb 11, 2013)

I depopulate boards with a air chisel too and like this method. But watching your video I think there is something wrong. Maybe your air gun is old and tired because I can clean off a motherboard in about half the time it took you. Smaller ISA cards takes me about 15 seconds or less. I'm feeding my gun about 100psi and most times that's too much and have to modulate the trigger to ease up on the action. But then there are times when I need to give it all to get something stubborn off the board. I've found the chisel needs to be ground straight and must be sharp to cut the parts off otherwise a dull bit will try to knock the parts off the board. After about two hours of stripping I can tell the chisel is getting dull because it slows down which tires me out.

I'm also selective on what I take off a board. Some connectors are tin plated or have so little gold I'll just leave them and zip the board bare around them. This reduces the pile of junk to sort through.

I like the idea of the plate of steel. I going to try this. Standing seems to be a comfortable position to do this. Thanks for sharing the video.


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## Geo (Feb 11, 2013)

i went and bought a Blue Hawk compressor and Kobalt air gun tonight. ive used these to cut electric motors and the steel ends off of air conditioner coils.ive steered away from this because of GSP's warning about BeCu on mother boards. i have a good respirator though so i think if i set up outside it should be at least as safe as processing outside.

the whole setup only cost $125 at Lowe's. i need to get a wider blade.


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## rusty (Feb 12, 2013)

Geo said:


> i went and bought a Blue Hawk compressor and Kobalt air gun tonight. ive used these to cut electric motors and the steel ends off of air conditioner coils.ive steered away from this because of GSP's warning about BeCu on mother boards. i have a good respirator though so i think if i set up outside it should be at least as safe as processing outside.
> 
> the whole setup only cost $125 at Lowe's. i need to get a wider blade.



BeCu would be a safe bet on motherboards the metal plays an important role in our everyday lives, the guys who are exposed tot he most danger are those who insist on using cut off wheels in dremals and die grinders that would be exposed to the fine dust particulate. I see no real issues shearing the metal.

I got a sweet 5 HP Devilbus on an 80 gallon tank, the air pump is all cast iron, with a pressure fed oil system to the con rods and taper bearing mains. It's a two stage compressor that will safely pump 300 PSI this is actually the factory specs, I run mine at 175 with regulated air at 90 psi.

There are DeVilbus compressors same model as mine that have been plugging away for over 50 years with out an overhaul.


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## patnor1011 (Feb 15, 2013)

It looks cool but how do you remove pins from sheared sockets? Can somebody who do this upload pictures of sockets - how they look like when cut off board with this method?


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## rusty (Feb 15, 2013)

patnor1011 said:


> It looks cool but how do you remove pins from sheared sockets? Can somebody who do this upload pictures of sockets - how they look like when cut off board with this method?



No problem patnor, the best part is ninety percent of the sockets lift off leaving the pins behind for another shearing. Only this time I use the reverse side of the chisel.

The sockets where the pins came off with it, no sweat removing the pins, i tap the socket on the rim of the pail most fall right out those that do not pull out easy. 

Pins left in metal jackets, incinerate.


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## rusty (Feb 15, 2013)

resabed01 said:


> I depopulate boards with a air chisel too and like this method. But watching your video I think there is something wrong. Maybe your air gun is old and tired because I can clean off a motherboard in about half the time it took you. Smaller ISA cards takes me about 15 seconds or less. I'm feeding my gun about 100psi and most times that's too much and have to modulate the trigger to ease up on the action. But then there are times when I need to give it all to get something stubborn off the board. I've found the chisel needs to be ground straight and must be sharp to cut the parts off otherwise a dull bit will try to knock the parts off the board. After about two hours of stripping I can tell the chisel is getting dull because it slows down which tires me out.
> 
> I'm also selective on what I take off a board. Some connectors are tin plated or have so little gold I'll just leave them and zip the board bare around them. This reduces the pile of junk to sort through.
> 
> I like the idea of the plate of steel. I going to try this. Standing seems to be a comfortable position to do this. Thanks for sharing the video.



And some pins are plated with palladium.

Re: tired pneumatic gun, I'm operating at 60 psi for a reason. The hammer I'm using has a very short stroke, I call it my putter, I also have another hammer with a two inch stoke that can actually break through a cast iron engine block at 125 psi using the right chisel.

The putter is the right tool for this tedious job, after doing a few hundred boards your body will thank you.


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## rusty (Feb 15, 2013)

Using the chisel with the unsharpened side towards the board will gouge into the board while the sharp side skates across the surface of the board.

Don't buy cheap chisels the ends will hammer out mushrooming inside the gun making it impossible to remove. For the dedicated user of this method you could have a bead of Stellite welded onto the cutting edge then profile it to shape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellite


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## patnor1011 (Feb 15, 2013)

Nice.
I do not want to think how much time I lost in last 6-7 years I did everything with pliers in hand. :mrgreen:


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## resabed01 (Feb 15, 2013)

rusty said:


> And some pins are plated with palladium.



Do you have a example of Palladium plated pins? It's been my understanding the silver color on pins is tin.

Maybe I'm throwing values in the garbage when I shouldn't.


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## patnor1011 (Feb 15, 2013)

Pd plated pins will be only in high end telecom or military boards. Not on motherboard from desktops. However desktops may contain Pd alloys plating inside IC chips.


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## rusty (Feb 15, 2013)

patnor this is how it goes when you use the larger air hammer.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0rIecfAAxo&list=UUisCclhYzYd2NOSEm1AyTdg[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuXcYEJ8F4k&list=UUisCclhYzYd2NOSEm1AyTdg[/youtube]


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## rusty (Feb 15, 2013)

patnor1011 said:


> Nice.
> I do not want to think how much time I lost in last 6-7 years I did everything with pliers in hand. :mrgreen:



Hard work builds good character


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## Keith1973 (Feb 15, 2013)

Rusty , the larger air chisel seems to work pretty quickly. Have you any thoughts on trying to attach a 12" planer blade to the chisel shank? I know that there is a BIG difference in the types of metal both the planer blade and the chisel are made of therefore making it a difficult task of attaching one to the other.but think of how quickly a person could depopulate boards after that.
Or would this type of apparatus be to uncontrollable to be of any use?
Just throwing it out there.
As always your videos speak volumes to a lot of us that frequent this forum on a regular basis,thank-you for posting them!


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## rewalston (Feb 15, 2013)

rusty said:


> patnor1011 said:
> 
> 
> > Nice.
> ...



Now comes the question, what do you do with everything after the board is depopulated? And what do you do with the boards? Over all I love the idea. Although mess/scatter control would be interesting.

Rusty


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## rusty (Feb 16, 2013)

rewalston said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> > patnor1011 said:
> ...



Scatter, I would suggest a hood, since I do not prepare a lot of boards have no desire to dedicate space to the project.

Pins are pins, process them same as everyone else does, as for chips and fingers they get tossed into the same incinerator then ball milled before being turned into concentrates in the centrifuge, which you can read at the following thread.

Ignore the shop fire the thread goes beyond that incident.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=16975


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## resabed01 (Feb 16, 2013)

Nice! Thanks again for the video rusty. The bigger gun sure does speed things up but it also increases the parts scatter and possibly dust too. Did I mention I always wear safety glasses when stripping boards? :lol: 

I was thinking perhaps a large old rubbermaid tub, one that's cracked and no good for anything else.... Cut one whole side out and it could be used as a improvised hood to keep the scatter contained. Would need to rig something up so there is enough light to work by.

The method I use is I hold the board in my left hand and the air tool in my right. Gives me lots of control but can be tiring after about an hour of stripping. I need to take breaks. I do this sitting down in front of in a rubbermaid tub that's tilted about 30deg towards me.
It catches about 98% of the scatter and I still need to sweep up after.

I also like to prep my boards before stripping. I think it will make the end product easier to work with..... Garbage in equals garbage out. What i do is...
1) Remove heat sinks, CPUs, Memory and batteries
2) Pull any ICs that are in sockets ---> bucket
3) Cut out the larger flatpack ICs with a knife ---> bucket
4) remove any screws or nuts that may be holding down ICs or transistors
5) with a pair of side cutters, I'll pull off all the aluminum electrolytic capacitors ---> garbage

I think this helps with sorting and reduces the amount of trash in the mix.

But one could do it whichever way they prefer.


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## Captobvious (Feb 18, 2013)

patnor1011 said:


> Nice.
> I do not want to think how much time I lost in last 6-7 years I did everything with pliers in hand. :mrgreen:



/glances down at the pliers in his hand
//cries


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## kane333 (Feb 23, 2013)

I've thought about using the Air Chisel method but tried another method and it seemed to work fine. 


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxUbwDZCaSY[/youtube]


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## Captobvious (Feb 26, 2013)

kane333 said:


> I've thought about using the Air Chisel method but tried another method and it seemed to work fine.
> 
> 
> [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxUbwDZCaSY[/youtube]



Personally I would think the dust coming off of everything would be dangerous without using some kind of facemask / respirator.... dunno for sure


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## butcher (Feb 26, 2013)

Captobvious,
Thanks for the demo, safety equipment would be a must, I have not tried it but I have the same tool and thought of trying it, I was wondering how long the blade would last, and actually I was concerned with the dust it may form and was not sure how to contain it safely.

lead dust from the solder, as well as fiberglass and other very toxic dust, would be all over the area were you have done this at, you also would not want to carry that back into the house on your cloths or un-gloved hands especially if you have small children, take extra precautions.


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## Geo (Feb 26, 2013)

Be would be my most major concern. http://www.cubealloys.com/images/beryllium_copper.pdf


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## rusty (Feb 26, 2013)

The only devices on the board I've been able to identify as having beryllium_copper are the dip switches and those gold plated pins from the telcomm connections.

Sawing or grinding action would create dust whereas shearing would not.


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## nh6886 (Apr 6, 2013)

This is my method for depopulating boards.
Equipment:
Sand blast cabinet $125 at Grizzly tools.


Fein tool Multimaster $200 you can get lots of other models down to $50 from Harbor Freight tools. The very high BPM of these type of tools reduce the kickback or jerking of the board to a minimum.


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## nh6886 (Apr 6, 2013)

The process is straight forward I ground a one sided bevel onto a metal cutting blade.
I put a piece of canvas in the bottom half of the cabinet, below the screen to catch all the components and dust. This also makes the components easy to recover.
I start in the middle and work to the far edge then flip the board around and repeat. It takes less than five minutes to do a motherboard. I am going to try using a large pair of vise-grips to hold the board and think this will improve that time.
The telecom board was less than a minute


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## nh6886 (Apr 6, 2013)

I load 5 or 6 boards into the cabinet knock all the components off then use a paint brush to clean the bulk of the dust off the walls. Before opening the door I hook my shop vac with a HEPA filter to the exhaust port to clear any airborne material.
This method eliminates most of the safety concerns and makes recovering your parts a snap.

I hope this is helpful and welcome your input.

All the Best,
John


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## solar_plasma (Apr 6, 2013)

Not everything I do is quite intelligent, but making dust of boards isn't either. Even if the ceramics not should contain beryllium oxide, which I am doubting, there are plenty of other poisonous materials like fireprotecting organics and brome, some that even penetrate skin.

To do that safely in greater amount continiously, you would need some kind of inverse decontamination place and a working suit, you don't take into your living rooms and don't wash it together with your childrens clothes. Just my two Pfennig.

*EDIT:*


> Re: Depopulating boards
> I load 5 or 6 boards into the cabinet knock all the components off then use a paint brush to clean the bulk of the dust off the walls. Before opening the door I hook my shop vac with a HEPA filter to the exhaust port to clear any airborne material.
> This method eliminates most of the safety concerns and makes recovering your parts a snap.



*  Oooops, I should have read the last posts deeper! Very nice,invention!*


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## butcher (Apr 6, 2013)

John,
I like the sand blast cabinet is a great Idea to contain dust, and to keep small part from flying all over the place, and you have to wear the gloves to use it :lol: 
Thanks for the pictures,


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## nh6886 (Apr 7, 2013)

Thanks Butcher,

I like the way it works and you are right on about the gloves, I am a lot more likely to use them when I don't have a choice.
By the way I think all the air tools already shown in this thread would work great in the same application. I already had this tool so it was a no brainier.

Solar Plasma,

No harm at all, I was trying to figure out if you were replying to me. More to the point though if you thought I was promoting sand blasting the components off of PCB' s you would be right to say something.
Nice to meet you and welcome to the forum.

All the Best,
John


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## solar_plasma (Apr 7, 2013)

> Solar Plasma,
> 
> No harm at all, I was trying to figure out if you were replying to me. More to the point though if you thought I was promoting sand blasting the components off of PCB' s you would be right to say something.
> Nice to meet you and welcome to the forum.
> ...



Thank you, John. No,didn't reply to you. I just did the most irritating thing on a forum this time by myself: Responding without having read deeply all posts. I know exactly how that feels. :lol: A good lesson to learn.

Best regards
Björn


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## Auful (Apr 7, 2013)

I think it's a great idea. I only wish I had the equipment to do it. It would save tons of time!


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## g_axelsson (Apr 8, 2013)

rusty said:


> The only devices on the board I've been able to identify as having beryllium_copper are the dip switches and those gold plated pins from the telcomm connections.


You could also find beryllium copper in the holder for the CPU, especially in holders for modern pinless CPU:s. I've written about it before. Search my post for beryllium and you will find it.

Göran


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 24, 2013)

Genius concept there, once the slot pci sockets removed how do you plan to remove the pins from them to be processed?


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## nh6886 (Jun 16, 2013)

Sorry I didn't see your question. I plan to pyrolize them but for now I am just sorting and preparing material. I am working through a different project first.

All the Best,
John


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## Smack (Jun 16, 2013)

PCI sockets? You should have already removed the white PCI housing off of the pins while it is still on the board. They pull off too easy to do it any other way. Even AGP comes off easily, it's the black ISA sockets that don't come off worth a darn.


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## kane333 (Jun 17, 2013)

nh6886 said:


> This is my method for depopulating boards.
> Equipment:
> Sand blast cabinet $125 at Grizzly tools.
> 
> ...



I made my video the day before Rusty posted this thread and uploaded it to Youtube for a demo over at Scrap Metal Forum. It was interesting seeing the different methods used but using the sand blasting cabinet to contain the parts and dust never even crossed my mind. Now I have another use for my blasting cabinet. Thanks for the great ideas.


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## nh6886 (Jun 19, 2013)

Smack 
I'm far from 100 percent on the names of all the connectors however I agree that the ones that pull off the board leaving the pins should be approached that way. This small run was more a proof of concept than anything else but time saved on one end could cost you on the other so thanks for the reminder.

Kane333

Thanks I'm glad to share I've learned so many things here its an amazing site. 


All the Best,
John


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