# keyboards



## geonorts (Jan 5, 2010)

I want to ask about the keyboard mylars, in particular I know some are silver and I have looked at a few and found some that are silvery and some that are a darker grey colour, I want to know if anyone knows what other metals are used i am particularly concerned about lead.


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## butcher (Jan 5, 2010)

lead would only be in the solder of the wire, and on the small circuit board, lead does not make a good switch, it oxidizes to easily, keyboards need to be good switchs, and since the current of these switchs is very low, they use materials in the switch for low current, and reliability, for some equiptment run by a computer with keyboards reliability is very inportant in that case you can find some of the more valuable metals, the silver on mylar is usually a dull gray, black can be carbon, I have not seen any silver sulfide in them, some of the key boards you find can have switch's with gold or palladium spring disks, some of these have many switch's soldered (with lead to a circuit board a propane torch to remove) open the switch for goodies.


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## pinwheel (Feb 20, 2010)

Those mylars are silver. You will need a whole lot of them to recover any value. I save mine in lifetime retirement mode. In other words, save them until you are old and cash them in one time.


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## gold4mike (Mar 6, 2010)

It seems that most keyboards have two mylar sheets that contain silver. Occasionally I bump into one that has one mylar sheet and small rubber cups that have a black dot that contacts the mylar. Does anyone know if that black dot is silver also?

If not, I'll try to test some in the near future and post my results.

Thanks in advance for any help!


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## qst42know (Mar 6, 2010)

Most of the keyboards I have opened (and there hasn't been a whole lot) have had three sheets. The top and bottom sheet have silver traces facing each other and the center plain sheet with holes holds the area that makes contact apart at a fixed distance. I wouldn't expect this type to make electrical contact with any part of the key. The other type has a flat sheet spring with a touch of gold plate on them. I in my limited experience haven't seen any other style.

This is the spring type.


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## butcher (Mar 6, 2010)

some have individual switchs soldered to PC board just flash gold on contact.


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## redtogreen (Mar 10, 2010)

Just out of interest I am working on processing a couple of hundred keyboards so should have some reasonable data soon


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## glorycloud (Mar 10, 2010)

When all is said and done, if you choose to include all of your time and 
material costs required to process and refine keyboards you may find that
selling them 2 cents a pound for the keyboards sans their cables and 
70 cents a pound for their cables may be the way to go. :shock:


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## redtogreen (Mar 11, 2010)

The interesting thing for me is I get free labour. It would be more of a retirement fund thing as previously stated rather than any sort of commercial venture.

As most folk on here, I like the metal


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## gold4mike (Mar 11, 2010)

It's the same for me. I never spend change when I buy anything - I'd rather throw it in my jar each evening before I go to bed. My jar is full 4 or 5 times a year and it usually comes out to around $105-$110 when I count it out and roll it up. When money gets tight I have a "rainy day" fund of several hundred dollars in change to draw from. 

I go about my scrapping the same way. I work on boards for an hour or so each day when I get home from work. I set aside connectors to pull pins from. When I sit and watch the usual hour or two of TV with my wife I pull those pins. I've accumulated roughly 45 pounds of pins this winter that I'll process this spring when it warms up enough to work outside. My mother-in-law has grown bored with puzzles and I give her all the connectors pulled from floppy/IDE/SCSI ribbon cables to pull the pins from. She's pulled almost a full gallon jug full of those for me. 

I scrap all the empty computer cases on Saturday and get $60 to $80 for the steel which pays for any expenses I've incurred accumulating my scrap, as well as the small tools I use to remove the components. I'm saving all the copper, brass, stainless steel & aluminum for the day (it's coming) when those metals are more in demand - another small savings account.

If I wasn't playing with this hobby I would be doing something that costs money rather than accumulating a small hoard of gold and and other valuable metals. I can think of much worse things to do with my time!


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## g_axelsson (Mar 12, 2010)

gold4mike said:


> Occasionally I bump into one that has one mylar sheet and small rubber cups that have a black dot that contacts the mylar. Does anyone know if that black dot is silver also?


The black dot is made of rubber with carbon added to get it conductive, no PM:s in it afaik.

/Göran


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## gold4mike (Mar 12, 2010)

Thanks Goran, I won't waste my time testing them this weekend.


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## Chumbawamba (Mar 18, 2010)

glorycloud said:


> When all is said and done, if you choose to include all of your time and
> material costs required to process and refine keyboards you may find that
> selling them 2 cents a pound for the keyboards sans their cables and
> 70 cents a pound for their cables may be the way to go. :shock:



I get $1.30/lbs right now for the cable, plus another $.25/lbs for the ends, then I get $.06/lbs for the plastic. So that more than pays for my labor to disassemble the keyboard to get at the silver. Sure I could just chop the cable off and chuck the rest in a gaylord for the $.02/lbs, but no thanks. Like Mike, I like it. And like RTG, I want the metal.

Nothing is more rewarding than extracting maximum value from raw materials that other people might consider junk. It is an honor to be able to earn as honest a living.


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