# Processing SDRam fingers



## chrisv (Aug 27, 2010)

Over the past month now I have processed 5000 sdram cards. I started off the realy hard way by cutting the fingers off with a pair of plant cutter/pruners. After a week, I upgraded to a band saw, nothing big, just one thats nice and compact, fits ontop of a bench, blade length of 56", only thing, it has three wheels to turn the blade, thus, apparently causes to much tension on the blade and therefor, blade doesn't last all that long.
Now, I'm thinking of upgrading once again to what I was thinking, a bigger bandsaw, blade length of at least 69" but that runs off two wheels to reduce the tension on the blade. 
I've managed to find a supplier that I can get about 10 000 sdram from a month.

So, I'm asking if anybody knows of a better and less time consuming method of processing sdram?? :roll: 

I have been processing the fingers in a 50/50 solution of Nitric and water, filterring, then going onto AR, but lately, due to my gold purchaser only paying me for 22k gold, I have just been doing the 1st stage to lift the gold foils, rinse and then melt them into buttons. Thats what they get for not paying me true value :twisted:


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## goldenchild (Aug 27, 2010)

Sounds like you have alot of experience in processing fingers. I am expanding my horizons and starting to get into processing fingers. I will be using the AP method. 

Since youve done so many, can you answer some questions I have? Or anyone that feels like chiming in for that matter. My first question is what is the weight of the piece that you cut off the memory stick(nice clean close cut) with the fingers on it? Even better, how much do you average from a pound of memory sticks. I understand that there are many different types of memory sticks but what do you average per pound? I'm trying to figure out the fingers to memory stick ratio so I can have an idea of what to pay per pound.

Also what is your average gold yeild? I think lazersteve came out with about 3 grams of gold per 600 grams of fingers in his videos. Again I know that there are different types of memory with single and double sided fingers and differnt amounts of gold on them but just trying to get a ball park before I dive in.

Thanks


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## hemicuda (Aug 27, 2010)

Hey Chrisv, Have you tried using a regular run of the mill paper cutter at all? 
They are quick,quiet and relatively inexpensive and work really really well. If you shop at yard/garage sales you can find them there.

Good luck,
Regards,Keith.


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## chrisv (Aug 27, 2010)

I have found that if I melt the finger after they have lifted rather than putting them through AR, I am getting round about a gram of gold which is aparently 22k from 200grms of fingers. I cut about 600 sdram to get about 430grams of gold fingers.

Thanks for the suggestion Keith, I had a shot of a sheet metal cutting Gullotene, works ok, very quick, but the cuts aren't that neat, mind you I only tried it on 5 sdram, just need the practice to perfect the cuts I guess.
I was speaking to a steel fabrication engineer about building a attachment that could fit onto the band saw table that could possibly auto feed the sdram into the saw with a spring loaded kind of convaur belt. This sounds great, but no one seems quite interested in helping me construct it.

What might work in processing the ram to get the silver and gold out would possibly be to chcuk the whole load into a chipper, and then putting it through Nitric, filtering, presipication the silver and then put the filterred bulk into AR for the gold :twisted:


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 27, 2010)

> I have found that if I melt the finger after they have lifted rather than putting them through AR, I am getting round about a gram of gold which is aparently 22k from 200grms of fingers.



Why do you do that? Impatience? It's so easy to dissolve the foils in AR and end up with 99.95% gold instead of 22K. Once you melt it, you just make the refining more difficult.


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## martyn111 (Aug 27, 2010)

GSP, I think the point he is making is that even if he does refine to 99.95 he will only get paid as if its 22k, his buyer isn't being fair with the price so why bother refining when he will get paid the same for the quality he is producing


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## lazersteve (Aug 27, 2010)

goldenchild said:


> Sounds like you have alot of experience in processing fingers. I am expanding my horizons and starting to get into processing fingers. I will be using the AP method.
> 
> Since youve done so many, can you answer some questions I have? Or anyone that feels like chiming in for that matter. My first question is what is the weight of the piece that you cut off the memory stick(nice clean close cut) with the fingers on it? Even better, how much do you average from a pound of memory sticks. I understand that there are many different types of memory sticks but what do you average per pound? I'm trying to figure out the fingers to memory stick ratio so I can have an idea of what to pay per pound.
> 
> ...



Here's some data on memory sticks:

DIMM Yields

The entire thread has some good information in it.

Steve


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## qst42know (Aug 27, 2010)

You might consider changing buyers, or refine and alloy to 22k. Then you know how bad of a beating you were getting. :mrgreen:


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## goldenchild (Aug 27, 2010)

lazersteve said:


> Here's some data on memory sticks:
> 
> DIMM Yields
> 
> ...



Thanks Steve. I read the thread and it was a blast from the past seeing the gold price at 655.00 per ounce  I think there is one peice of data that I'm looking for and hope someone has data. From Steve's post I come up with this...

For every 25 memory sticks you get about an ounce of fingers(28 grams).
There is a yeild of about 2-3 grams of gold per pound of fingers(454 grams)
This means you need about 405 memory sticks to get a pound of fingers((454/28)*25)

So what I'm trying to come up with is how much of the memory stick's weight, before its cut, is from the fingers. This way when there is an auction on ebay for say 10lbs of memory sticks I know how much of the weight is fingers. Is this clear or am I going in circles like I think I am?

EDIT: Maybe I should have just asked this :lol: Can someone please take a dimm memory stick, cut the fingers off and give me the weights of both the fingers and whats left?


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## lazersteve (Aug 27, 2010)

goldenchild said:


> lazersteve said:
> 
> 
> > Here's some data on memory sticks:
> ...



I'll weigh a DIMM and let you know the total weight of 25 sticks.

Steve


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## Emmjae (Aug 27, 2010)

Hi folks, I'm a newbie thats been reading this forum for about a month now. There is just an unreal amount of very good information here, all for the willing to learn. I have been collecting computer scrap while experimenting with the AP process and mainly the washing and filtering process. I have gathered several pounds of DIMM so I thought I'd offer my input.

First off I have found cutting the fingers off of DIMM memory along with ISA/PCI cards is very easy with the use of a small, portable diamond wet saw. I purchased a DIY homeowner model about 3 years ago for under $80.00. It is made by "Plasplugs". Just google it. It has a recirculating water tank under the blade that allows you to recapture most of the cutting waste. I usually rinse and filter this after for later processing because I have seen some of the older memory chips have gold circuitry. I purchased this saw at "Menards" which is a store like Lowe's and Home Depot.

As for the quanity of DIMM's / lb. That can range all over the ball park in my opinion. There's single sided, double sided, some with metal heat sink's, along with many other types usually mixed in. However I did some weight tests to help answer this question. Here's what I've come up with using very similar sized DIMM memory sticks:

25 single sided 168 pin DIMM = 425 grams or 14.99 ounces

25 double sided 168 pin DIMM = 565 grams or 1 lb 3.95 ounces

Then for a random batch with all different sizes and types:

150 random DDR, EDO, Laptop types of DIMM = 3239 grams or 7 lbs 14 ounces

Hope this helps. I also want to thank everyone who has contributed to this forum. This has sparked an interest for me that I haven't had in years for a hobby. I'm sure you will be hearing from me again soon. :mrgreen:


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## dtectr (Aug 28, 2010)

Emmjae said:


> Hi folks, I'm a newbie thats been reading this forum for about a month now. There is just an unreal amount of very good information here, all for the willing to learn. I have been collecting computer scrap while experimenting with the AP process and mainly the washing and filtering process. I have gathered several pounds of DIMM so I thought I'd offer my input.
> 
> First off I have found cutting the fingers off of DIMM memory along with ISA/PCI cards is very easy with the use of a small, portable diamond wet saw. I purchased a DIY homeowner model about 3 years ago for under $80.00. It is made by "Plasplugs". Just google it. It has a recirculating water tank under the blade that allows you to recapture most of the cutting waste. I usually rinse and filter this after for later processing because I have seen some of the older memory chips have gold circuitry. I purchased this saw at "Menards" which is a store like Lowe's and Home Depot.
> 
> ...


WELCOME!


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## chrisv (Aug 28, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> > I have found that if I melt the finger after they have lifted rather than putting them through AR, I am getting round about a gram of gold which is aparently 22k from 200grms of fingers.
> 
> 
> 
> Why do you do that? Impatience? It's so easy to dissolve the foils in AR and end up with 99.95% gold instead of 22K. Once you melt it, you just make the refining more difficult.



There's no impatience in what I'm doing. Dont mean to be nasty or anything, but yet try defend myself on your comment. Rather you might of been a bit impaient when you read my post. 
The reason I just melt the gold foils is because the woman that buys my gold ONLY pays me for 22k and nothing more.
The first time I sold her a 5grm nugget that I refined by Starting off with Nitric and distilled water, 50/50 mix, untill gold foils lift, funnel, rinse, then put in AR, presipitate with Sodium Metabusulphine, leave for 24+hrs, rinse, clean presipicant, dry, then Melt. 
Takes a while to do, yes, but is well worth it to see such a pure bit of gold, BUT when you take your gold to sell, 1st time, she pays me for 22k. Then I think, well, very small chance of any impurities, so OK, next time, make sure I rinse, funnel, etc with even more care, take the 2nd 5grm nugget to her, same again, pays me for 22k. So I thought, what the hell. So I asked her, why you only paying me for 22k when on both sales I told you they where 24k. She replies," I can only test upto 22k." WHAT A LOAD OF SH!T. So now, She pays me with bananas, she'll get monkeys!!
I know what your saying, and please dont think I'm in it for any crapy bits of gold, I have always put my everything into doing my best as my father tought me to do, but when people try and take the piss out of me, by god I'll do the same to them.
After selling her those first two pure nuggets of gold and she payed me peanuts, it realy felt like somebody had taken my pride out of my chest and stood on it :evil:


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## Harold_V (Aug 28, 2010)

Do understand that I had a goal of 9999 when I refined, but I sold my gold to consumers, and was paid fair market value. Your circumstances are very different. You should fight fire with fire.

Frankly, if you're being paid for 22K, that's what you should provide. Were I in your position and I had no alternative, I'd insure it WAS 22K by adding 8% copper to the material when melting. Your end product will weigh more, providing the offset for her short payment. 

Like you, I have always taken pride in doing a job well. Perfect has always been my goal---even when I knew it was unreasonable. There are times (like this) when you have to set aside your pride and work smart----which I think you are doing. 

Harold

Edit: I suggest adding 8%, not more, because your gold, not being fully refined, already contains some base metal.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 28, 2010)

chrisv,



> The reason I just melt the gold foils is because the woman that buys my gold ONLY pays me for 22k and nothing more.


I didn't know that. Either I missed it or you didn't explain that earlier on the thread. 

Did we have this exact same discussion before? It's like deja vu all over again. It may have been someone else.


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## goldenchild (Aug 28, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> chrisv,
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think it may have been me that had this same exact situation. In one of my posts I explained that the jeweler said that he would only pay for 22k because "he couldnt test for higher". So I took the ingot back, alloyed it down to 22k and then sold it. I got paid what I was supposed to be paid. Either way you will get paid the same amount. Its just disheartening to have to alloy your gold down after spending so much time getting it to 24k.


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## eeTHr (Aug 28, 2010)

goldenchild---

I remember being in a discussion like that too. It was a real goat rope.

I searched for it just for the heck of it, but couldn't find it. I tried several combinations. Is there a time cutoff on these posts?


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## chrisv (Aug 28, 2010)

Thanks for all of your feed back and comments.
Dont mean to be fisety in my replies to some of your comments, but as mentioned, it takes alot of time to get your gold so pure and I'm sure alot of you's as im in the same boat, we take pride in our final product and have gone through alot of trial and errors to be where we are today, and then for some rotten jeweller to want to only pay you for 22k, makes me want to rip out my AK47 like things are done in South Africa(where I was Born) and in parts of the USA and blow there shop to specs :twisted: ... Just jokes fellow refiners  Its just realy disheartenning.
I realy take in what alot of you's say and wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for you lot, THANKS A MILLION.
Now it time to learn how to alloy my gold :twisted:


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## eeTHr (Aug 28, 2010)

Just for the sake of accuracy, the previous discussion mentioned was back in November of '09, and can be seen here: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=6070

I couldn't find it because I...um...well...I got my username wrong when searching. Please don't tell anyone.

:lol:


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## Harold_V (Aug 29, 2010)

goldenchild said:


> Either way you will get paid the same amount.



No, you won't. If you alloy the material to 22K, it will weigh more, so you will be paid on that weight instead of the weight of the original, refined material. It's worth the effort, especially if you add 8% copper to the lot before you start melting. Be certain to stir with a graphite rod (and don't hold it in your hands---it transfers heat rapidly). 

Harold


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## patnor1011 (Sep 5, 2010)

Goldenchild, I did weighting and played with RAM sticks few months ago. They are different as some have chips on one side, some on two sides, some are bigger some smaller but you will be safe assuming that they have cca 20g and clean cut finger 1g.


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