# Processing Populated PCBs



## enragedcow (Jul 11, 2008)

I have a lead on a *LOT* of the boards in the attached image, and some other telcom boards. The client is asking me to extract the values, then return them - so I'm not having to buy the boards outright. Ergo, I'm not horribly concerned with the yield on these boards, and yes, I realize they are likely flash plated and won't gain as much as it would seem 

I'm debating on how I want to handle these. My main questions are:

1 - Can I (or "should" I) run these in a quick AP bath to try and deplate most of the large gold swaths first, then try and process the rest of the board.

2 - Ultimately, depopulating the boards first would be great, but with the QTY and the effort involved, I'm guessing that's not going to work. So, in your opinion, if I use a large ball mill to just crush them up into dust, then do staggered acid treatments to dissolve base metals, then do AR to pull gold, do you think that will work best?

My concern is the solder, specifically the tin - I know that can cause headaches latter... but from a labor standpoint, just grinding the whole shooting match up in my ball mill would be easiest. 

Thoughts appreciated


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## tlcarrig (Jul 11, 2008)

"extract the values and then return them" ??? None of my bees wax but what value to him would they be after you get through clobbering them?


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## enragedcow (Jul 12, 2008)

tlcarrig said:


> "extract the values and then return them" ??? None of my bees wax but what value to him would they be after you get through clobbering them?



I mean return the gold, not the left over junk


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## enragedcow (Jul 24, 2008)

Well, we actually were easily able to depopulate these using the toaster oven trick - man that works like a charm.

We've got 15 whole boards in AP right now. I realize it's not ideal to treat the whole board, but I don't have much choice, as there's gold all over the stinking place on these. Just started our batch last night.


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