# Gold in cable ends and connectors?



## powerbuy

I am a new to this community.... looking for any information on the gold content of cable connectors and ends. I own a computer company and end up with all sorts of scrap cable and such. Normally I clip off the ends (VGA, DVI, HDMI, SCSI, old ribbon cable IDE and card edge.... ect. many of which are gold plated). I sell the actual cable as scrap copper to scrapyards, but have saved the ends and currently have several large boxes full, many of which have visible gold plating. I would say the total weight is in excess of 300lbs.

Anyone have any experience with potential yield in this material? Would it need to be ground or crushed for best results? If it is even worthwhile, what method of recovery would be suggested in this case?

Any input would be appreciated!


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## Smitty

I did a few of those ends before and the ones with visible gold plating at the ends were usually flash plating and very lightly plated. I ran them thru the cell without removing the plastic because there was not enough gold on it to waste my time removing. It took literally second to de-plate. But gold is gold. You might get an ounce of gold if all 300 pounds were gold plated though. No yield data can be figured due to the variety of connectors that are being run.


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## Rag and Bone

I found a buyer who pays 35 cents for ribbon cable (complete). He's a middle man so I'm not sure what he's getting when he kicks it up the chain. I hold back the older cables that have heavy plating.


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## Gotrek

.35 for ribon cables? there are 5 cents of aluminium in those. Not sure what the plastic and minute amounts of gold on the end make it worth 30 cents.


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## Smitty

Gotrek, I think when Rags and Bones said complete, he's meaning cable with ends uncut and cable in one piece. Probably not scrapping, but selling as re-useable parts. Other than that you are probably right about the metals value.


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## agpodt77339

Are you sure that they are AL, and not tin plated copper? I tested a couple ribbons, and they gave a copper colored streak on my stone. Maybe some are copper and some are aluminum.


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## Gotrek

There was another thread, I contacted one of the biggest ribbon cable manufacturers in canada and they stated it was copper fro regular IDE cables. Some SATA cables are tinned copper.


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## Rag and Bone

I sell them as copper. They buy them as copper. They are buying them for scrap, not resale. I think it is the tin plated copper that is throwing people off as aluminum.


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## Gotrek

Thank you for your inquiry! *Generally*, the conductors in these cables are made from aluminum, around 30ga. 

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Sincerely,
Andrew McIntosh
Technical Support, StarTech.com
Tel: 519 455-9675
Tel: 800 265-1844
Fax: 519 455-9425

StarTech.com "The professionals' source for hard-to-find computer parts."
P.S. Need to place an order late in the day? We are now open until 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time!



With that said tinned copper is possible but I don't think it makes much sense. aluminium is more then sufficient conductor. Power cables in a PC are also aluminium. In know what does the power requirements of a PC come close to needing copper conductors over aluminium.

Sata cables tend to be copper however.

And like I said in the other thread,if they're buying it at the price of copper then that's their problem.


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## Anonymous

Has any one tried extracting plated gold by disolving
the gold plated items in cyanide and then seperating the
gold from the cyanide?
The only way to gold plate copper or brass is to first plate
the surface with nickel. For allumnum they first plate
with copper then nickel and then a final layer of gold.
It seems to me cyanide would instantly disolve only the gold
in liquid form. Then a little murcury would seperate the
gold out of the cyanide and heat would remove the murcury
leaving only the gold all ready refined. 
It is food for thought. Though i would recomend extreeeeeme
caution for health and safety!


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## Harold_V

Cyanide is commonly used for recovering precious metals, but it is somewhat beyond the ability of the home refiner to obtain. It is not without its problems, and is extremely toxic to humans and wildlife. It can be absorbed through openings is one's skin, and the fumes can be deadly. 

Care must be exercised with cyanide when stripping from base metals, not only for one's well-being, but because it isn't as selective as you suggest. When items are plated without the nickel layer of which you spoke (it's not common, but it does exist), cyanide tends to attack the base metal once the precious metal layer is perforated, then you struggle to remove all of the gold. I have experience in this very arena, and ultimately abandoned the process because it was difficult to overcome. 

In defense of the process, there are buffered compounds available that help overcome the recovery problems, but they, like cyanide, are unlikely to be available for the common man. 

Mercury is not to be used, not under any condition. It is NOT necessary, and is a serious hazard. Values are routinely recovered from cyanide via the use of zinc flour, among other methods. Electrowinning is a solution, as is the use of actived carbon. With zinc, the conversion is instantaneous and, for all practical purposes, complete. It is far more friendly as far as the environment is concerned, and is not expensive. 

Welcome to the forum.

Harold


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank

Harold_V is always right and wise...but all of you,guys,are eager people so I am sure you are going to try the cyanide process and we (Harold_V and I) can not stop you...so I suggest you to go to

www.cyanidecode.org

and read all about the cyanide process BEFORE you start to use it.I post for you the Cyanide Code,please,read it.

Have a nice day

Manuel


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank

More about cyanide handling...


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## GeeDub

Gotrek said:


> Power cables in a PC are also aluminium. In know what does the power requirements of a PC come close to needing copper conductors over aluminium.


No..., they are not. They are shielded with aluminum, but the actual wiring is copper.
-G

I'm going to edit this to say they are *usually* copper shielded with aluminum. At least the ones I cut open, all were.
-G


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## pesco

Gotrek said:


> With that said tinned copper is possible but I don't think it makes much sense. aluminium is more then sufficient conductor. Power cables in a PC are also aluminium. In know what does the power requirements of a PC come close to needing copper conductors over aluminium.
> 
> Sata cables tend to be copper however.




Over the years I've seen many damaged SCSI ribbon cables, most, if not all, were copper. Not even tinned.
Most, if not all of the IDE ribbon cables I've seen damaged were silver in colour. Some did show copper in the centre when cut.

I must admit, that I was never interested in material they are made of.
Just some loose observations from time when I was working with the stuff on daily basis. :mrgreen:

Haven't done any research in that field and I might be totally wrong, but it seems unlikely any ribbon cable conductors would be made of aluminium.
Aluminium is not very resistive to bending, bend it few times and it breaks.
Even if ribbons are just sitting in a case for most of their life, still it is flexible connection.

Also, aluminium has higher impedance than copper and as ribbon being parallel interface it could cause much more noise reducing usable frequency.


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## pcecycle

I proccessed roughly 20 lbs of ribbon cable connectors awhile back and the yield was very low, about 0.5 gram. They were done in AP and were a big mess. A cell would be the way to go. However, Chris at boardsort.com is currently paying $3.25 per lb for ribbon and cable connectors.

Mike


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## Bizness4you

I can tell you the recovery is bad on them, but I can tell you that export price is around .90 a lb right now. I have found that the US non ferrous dealers do not like them.


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## dtectr

pesco said:


> Gotrek said:
> 
> 
> 
> With that said tinned copper is possible but I don't think it makes much sense. aluminium is more then sufficient conductor. Power cables in a PC are also aluminium. In know what does the power requirements of a PC come close to needing copper conductors over aluminium.
> 
> Sata cables tend to be copper however.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Over the years I've seen many damaged SCSI ribbon cables, most, if not all, were copper. Not even tinned.
> Most, if not all of the IDE ribbon cables I've seen damaged were silver in colour. Some did show copper in the centre when cut.
> 
> I must admit, that I was never interested in material they are made of.
> Just some loose observations from time when I was working with the stuff on daily basis. :mrgreen:
> 
> Haven't done any research in that field and I might be totally wrong, but it seems unlikely any ribbon cable conductors would be made of aluminium.
> Aluminium is not very resistive to bending, bend it few times and it breaks.
> Even if ribbons are just sitting in a case for most of their life, still it is flexible connection.
> 
> Also, aluminium has higher impedance than copper and as ribbon being parallel interface it could cause much more noise reducing usable frequency.
Click to expand...

Cutting off ends to sell to Chris at Boardsort, with old tin snips, the cables are clearly copper, though the appear to be tin plated, thus maybe the "aluminum" confusion.

I bought a roll of #6 primary wire, for shop use, which is also tin-plated copper. Not to sidetrack this thread, but - As I'm no electrician, could someone explain the benefits of the plating?


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## pesco

Few resons for Tin plating:
1) cables in electronics - to improve solderability, eliminates the need of dipping the end in tin melting pot, as cables (including ribbon) come on a reel manufacturer can't know what length client would require and where to plate the tips, so they plate whole length; it does increase price only marginally
2) as cables (and especially ribbons!) are great antennas Tin plating somewhat reduces EMI spread around; it does act as a cheap screen
3) on electrical connections, cable lugs, to form gas-tight connection what improves corrosion resistance
4) on cables, connectors, earth terminals - protect copper from corrosion
5) funny one - some companies states that one of the reasons to use Tin plating is to hide presence of Copper and thus prevent theft :mrgreen: , used on earthing electrodes on lightning protection of buildings


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## gold4mike

My local scrap yard is now giving me $0.70 per pound for the trimmed ribbon cables. I'm keeping the connectors to sell to Boardsort. 

I see that Boardsort has reduced the payout to $2.50 per pound but I'm sure that's better than I would do trying to process them myself.


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## BOMBOVA

300lbs, from my experience and that of my buddy in Tacoma Washington. hand over, price is spot minus half karet and minus fifteen percent of processing at recovery potential of 1/10th of one percent. it may be better, " of course " but processing time and charges are true overhead, as is recovery effiency. say 85 percent tops. on slow acid digestion and filtration of chlorides. taht is all there is. yet i would buy your 300 lbs. for above. Cheers. just letting you know. Thomas gx, in Vancouver Canada. FOB Burnaby BC.


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