# ebay item number 330229148023



## donald236

item number 330229148023
i was wandering how much yeild i should expect to make from these ?


----------



## Rag and Bone

Those look nice, very photogenic.

I've included some boards with traces like those in AP batches. They always strip very quickly and kind of dissappear. I think it goes to powder or very fine foils. It seems to be a very light coating. My quasi-educated guess is 0.3g per pound (2.7g total).

How do you plan to deal with them?


----------



## lazersteve

Those boards are pretty, but produce very little gold. I can strip one with fresh AP and a toothbrush in less than 5 minutes. I used a large sized plastic cake carrying pan to hold the AP as I dipped the boards and scrubbed with the toothbrush.

I sampled a huge variety of them from an ebayer a few years ago and they were very disappointing. The ones in the auction are some of the worst type. The better ones have a completely plated gold backside, and even those type don't produce enough to measure.

Steve


----------



## donald236

thank you rag&bone i'm planning on useing a fresh ap bath
i kinda figured it would not bring much but hey i got them cheap though .


----------



## Rag and Bone

I'm not sure you will recover your investment with them, especially after Lazersteve's assesment. You might get more selling them back on the ebay in smaller lots or individually. I've spent alot of time on some low yield items and in the end, there is so little gold there is nothing to capture. It just slipped through my fingers (or filter, or minute powder on the edge of a vessel). You would need about a 1.5g to break even, not including time and materials. 

Keep us posted on your results. 

Best of Luck to ya!


----------



## SapunovDmitry

The plating thickness is 3-5 micro''. So you can measure the yield.

Btw. Steve, can you tell the procedure of stripping them. You just put some peroxide with the toothbrush on them and then they strip? I thought the best way was to cut them in pieces and do the same, shown in your videos. I never used AP before.


----------



## lazersteve

Dmitry,

For the boards in question I use a large rectangular plastic cake carrying pan. I put enough HCl in the pan to cover the bottom about 1/2-3/4 ". I then add in a board and sink it under the HCl. Next I pour in 3% peroxide making sure to move around the pan while pouring so the peroxide mixes with the HCl. 

Then I rock the pan a few times to mix everything nicely.

Within a few minutes the solution will begin to turn yellow green.

At this point I take an old tooth brush and buff the gold plating off the board. When the gold comes off it typically is so fine that it immediately dissolves. 

After doing both sides, I pull the board out with a set of plastic or wooden tongs. Rinse the board into the pan with a spray bottle and insert a new board.

If the solution doesn't react quick enough or quits working quickly with the gold, I add more peroxide. 

This process is different than your typical AP reaction in that the goal is to dissolve the gold, not the base metals. Since the gold is so fine, it's very easy for the strong peroxide mix to attack the gold.

Once all the boards are processed, I add enough peroxide to dissolve any remaining foils. The solution appears a clear yellow green when it's all finished.

Drop the gold with SMB.

Here's some photos:







*
The card on the left was stripped using this variation of the AP process, the card on the right is what it looked like before stripping. The solution in the lower portion of the photo has the gold from 35 of the circle cards stripped in it. I did these tonight in about 1 hour total time. I soaked them in batches of 15 at a time and used a toothbrush to remove the light gold plating. Each batch took about a 1/2 hour. The discs were too lightly plated to process via the standard AP route so I opted to use the quick AP method*

This next photo is of one of the stripped communication boards I mentioned:






*I processed this batch about a year ago.*

I did several types of these boards and all of them really sucked. They are plated exactly as the cell phone boards are... barely.

I want to thank Johnny for the circle cards.

I hope this helps.

Steve :wink:


----------



## SapunovDmitry

Cool!! Is this done after taking off small surface elements or they strip in the solution and then filtering everything?
Thank you very much.


----------



## Anonymous

Thank you Steve for your constant help and input with problems.To Donald and the rest of you,I purchased a total of 4 auctions from that seller and have yet to see a penny from the boards.Maybe it was a fluke, maybe not.But thanks to those boards I wasted about 2 weeks of time and materials.Not too mention the $160 I paid for all 4 auctions.I am not bashing the seller,just trying to educate the next potential victim.
Johnny


----------



## lazersteve

Dmitry,

The boards were all unpopulated.

Steve


----------



## SapunovDmitry

Thanks,Steve.


----------



## malfeces

"Drop the gold with SMB."

OK, clear example of how new I am, what is SMB? I am stil trying to keep track of all the acronyms but my notebook is already full after only 4 days of reading and taking notes off the forum!! lol


----------



## etack

""Drop the gold with SMB."

OK, clear example of how new I am, what is SMB? I am stil trying to keep track of all the acronyms but my notebook is already full after only 4 days of reading and taking notes "off the forum!! lol


Go up two post from yours and read all of Steve's signature. your life on the forum will be much easier.

Eric


----------



## Golddigger Greg

SMB= Sodium MetaBisulphite


----------



## malfeces

Thanks gold digger!


----------

