# Stripping motherboards - pins per socket yeald experiance



## vovikk (Jun 24, 2011)

Hi everybody!

Want to share my experience of stripping various motherboards and riser cards from SMDs.

Have had a pile of different MBs and cards, i've organised an outdoor natural gas kitchen owen, put a sheet of steel on one furnace, burned it pretty hot and roasted each board, simply shaking out all SMDs, port slots, etc....

stripping is FULL and pretty clean.

Then i put an experiment on PINS yeald per 1 slot of each type.

Have 3 digits for now:

ISA full length slots - 5 grams of partially-plated pins per 1 slot
PCI full length slots - 3 grams of partially-plated pins per 1 slot
IDE slot - 1 gram of FULL-plated pins per 1 slot

Hope this info would be interesting.
I am ready to answer any questions on how did i stripped PCBs

Vladimir


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## vovikk (Jun 24, 2011)




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## micronationcreation (Jun 24, 2011)

Thanks for the info, how long do you cook the board for?


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## patnor1011 (Jun 24, 2011)

Just to soften solder. You achieve same result using heatgun and strip only parts you want. 
Did I mention everything is here on forum? :lol: 

:arrow: http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6169


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## micronationcreation (Jun 24, 2011)

I used a blow torch, but find the cpu sockets near impossible to get off (in one peice anyway).


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## patnor1011 (Jun 24, 2011)

You will not succeed with heat removing newer type of cpu sockets. For that I use sharp chisel. Pictured sockets are older type these you can take out with heat without problem. 
Oven-heating-banging-out-components nethod is not good for me. It is faster but you desolder everything - good stuff with junk and you get tin splatters on most of good stuff. I like to get rid of as much tin as possible so I prefer slower heatgun method or stripping only plated areas of pins directly from board with small knipex precision snips. This is extremelly slow but hey - it is a hobby so I enjoy every moment of it and I can do that while watching TV :mrgreen:


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## vovikk (Jun 24, 2011)

Hey, guys, i might have written all in not a straight way....

I can describe all the process step-by-step.

 i never fried all the components... All ports were desoldered and then disassembled MANUALLY 
all SMDs went to a sort bucket and were sorted same evening after processing ~25 motherboards and ~35 ISA/PCI/SLOT cards...

SHOULD I POST THAT STEP-BY-STEP description????
It's NOT hard for me - but does anybody interested???


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## micronationcreation (Jun 24, 2011)

Thanks for the link patnor, good thread.

I would be interested Vovikk, get typing :lol:


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## johnny309 (Jun 24, 2011)

Simply?
You can describe....all this because it is a "learning from experience" forum(don't you agree? ),and ....after all...maybe between us you can find people who allready done this in another(much faster and less hazzaourds) for the same pourpouse.
I learn much from this forum....you hopefully you did the same....
So.....enough said....up to you...


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## vovikk (Jun 24, 2011)

Hehe...
Well, let's go..

Start piont was that i had a pretty good pile of MotherBoards and Riser cards (LAN/Modem/video/ports/etc.) left from my "Vintage CPU/FPU reselling Ebay business"... 

I have NO MONEY to buy an airgun, which - i have no doubt - will be pretty marvelous to strip PCBs from SMDs

That's why i made a little try on a modem card - and it worked just great. Then i got ready for processing the whole pile...

*It's night here now - please do not judge my photos...*

1. I have this old standard kitchen owen standing outside the house to avoid stink inside, connected to my natural gas pipe with a flexible pipe...

2. I took this steel jacket from an old CD-rom drive and put it on one of these 2 flames (sorry, i do not know a correct word for this torch flame)


3. I burned up the gas burner and let this steel "table" get heat... I mentioned that the flame should be regulated not to be too big to avoid the overheating of PCB itself (it starts simply awfully smoking when overheated).
4 PCB (whole riser card or a part of motherboard) is placed on this heating table and let heated for 40-60 seconds.



5 then - a pretty good trick i found accidentally ... : *i am taking the whole PCB with pilers and smashing it gently 1-2 times over the sheet of plywood *- 80% of the solder , that ordinary stays on PSB/SBDs 50%/50% pretty sweetly stays on this plywood ... (i harvested 9 ounces of solder - see melted bars on pics).


6 PCB goes back to the heattable and all components are demounted with a surgerist's bloodstopper (those that stuck heavily - 20%) and by simply turning the whole PCB upside down over an enamelled rectangle flat bucket (80% are falling freely by themselves)

7 if the processed area stripped - just turning the Board with unprocessed area and starting a new turn.

the boards were stripped 95-100% from SMDs...

Have to move to next post - 5 pictures limit exceeded...


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## vovikk (Jun 24, 2011)

Well, there is a lot of little organisation stuff to be made to make the whole process faster.

*I used protective glasses* all the time - solder uses to fly wherever it wants sometimes and i had about 10 electrolithic capacitors blow up and flew on a high speed through the whole process... !!!

I had a process going on a windy day - it protected me from *fumes* ....
Doubt i could do the same job if there was no wind or ventilation....

Well, now - the results:

all MALE/FEMALE sockets (COM/LPT/PS2/USB/VGA/IDE/FDD/CPU/memory) were sorted and dePINNED manually in a free time.

all other SMDs were sorted too, packed and put on a shelf.
Never want to throw anything away... heh...









Well, it's the end, i suppose.
All the stuff is done "for sciense" ...
I have not finished processing ISA slots , but i already have a pound of sorted fully and partially gold-plated pins...

Vladimir


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## Sodbuster (Jun 24, 2011)

Pat :

You said " For that I use sharp chisel "

Have you used a carpenters wood chisel?
I use an old wood chisel about 1.5" wide with the tapered side down to remove just about anything from the boards. The one thing that the wood chisel will not remove to well is some of the heat sinks. The ones that have the pressed in 14-16? gage steel pins, on the extruded type heat sinks. A wood chisel has a really nice shearing effect and even a dull wood chisel will keep on cutting. 

I know you got this whooped Pat, just curious if anybody else uses a wood chisel? And before anybody scolds me for using my wood chisel like that, I must say that it is an old chisel that weren't fit for any carpentry work anyways.

vovikk :

I haven't tried it, but I have seen mention here on the forum someone was using a large cake pan filed with a layer of sand to heat the solder faster and more evenly. I would guess any steel baking pan, cookie sheet or even a pizza pan will work if its big enough to fit the board flat into the sand.
I wouldn't use an aluminum pan as you risk melting a big hole in the bottom of it. make sure it's a steel pan. 

Any solder lost into the sand could be sifted out and when melted remove the remaining sand as you poured your solder bars.

Those solder ingots look nice, but what are you going to do with them? Do you plan to refine them for the silver content? 

Just some ideas guys , rambling again

Ray


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## patnor1011 (Jun 24, 2011)

That is exactly what I use. When I feel it is not going well I just sharpen that chisel again.


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## dtectr (Jun 25, 2011)

Those "ancient sockets" are plated through-holes - the plating is thick enough that the "tubes" & the Flare" usually come out as complete foils. So, plating thickness likely over 30 microinches, in my opinion, closer to the 100 microinch range.

I just drop them into HCl-H2O2, & let them work.

I'll post some photos later.

Thanks for the tutorial, vovikk, very thorough.
dtectr
Edit: I originally wrote "HCl-Cl" but meant the solution for AP (Acid Peroxide) Corrected above.


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## vovikk (Jun 25, 2011)

Sodbuster said:


> Those solder ingots look nice, but what are you going to do with them? Do you plan to refine them for the silver content?



Dear Ray!
I have no idea what to d with the solder. It came as the back-product of my process. I had this plywood with a solder "volcano" rising from the edges to the center.... i gave it to my father. He took a bakery form for coolies and cooked the whole solder pile. those ingots came out....

I doubt there is a silver in this solder..... 
A couple of threads down there waas a topic where a guy wanted to process his solder for silver. 
Everybody told hem not to start the process... 
What do You think....?

Vladimir


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## patnor1011 (Jun 25, 2011)

Most of solder is tin/lead type. Only newer things contain tin/silver solder. Amount of silver in solder will never even cover cost of chemicals not to mention time spent by trying to do it.


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## vovikk (Jun 25, 2011)

patnor1011 said:


> Most of solder is tin/lead type. Only newer things contain tin/silver solder. Amount of silver in solder will never even cover cost of chemicals not to mention time spent by trying to do it.



I was thinking pretty the same way - without any proofs....


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## vovikk (Jun 25, 2011)

Have just bought 35 motherboards different Socket 3/4/7 for 15$ 

Will do the stripping work again.
Maybe , i will even be able to make video


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## Palladium (Jun 25, 2011)

patnor1011 said:


> That is exactly what I use. When I feel it is not going well I just sharpen that chisel again.



I use a 1 inch putty knife to remove most of my stuff. It's thin and it slides right under stuff with just a small tap. I use a wood chisel for harder stuff but have found that sometimes it breaks things into smaller pieces that my thin putty knife would just shear right off.


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## Sodbuster (Jun 26, 2011)

I can't argue with that guys. Just curious as to what vovikk intended to do with his solder. I have to agree that it will never be profitable. 

I also save my solder that I accumulate (byproduct) but have no idea as to what to do with it. But your little bars have inspired me to just dore them up and hoard on to them. I would guess quantity should get a better price for the lead at the scrap yard if nothing else.

Have your dad dore up that bag of solder beads, they do look nice. Just make sure you pick out the firecrackers first.

" Have just bought 35 motherboards "
" Will do the stripping work again "

That will keep you going for a wile. Try that cake pan full of sand for heating your solder. 
And do keep this thread updated with your progress. Nice tutorial.


" it is a hobby so I enjoy every moment of it " 

Me too Pat I wouldn't have it any other way, can't get enough sometimes.
I tend to break things down to the bitter end. If I don't now what it is and see a bunch of it, I will start another bucket.

Palladium :

Thanks for the tip on the putty knife, probably slide that rite under them chip sockets.

Ray


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## patnor1011 (Jun 26, 2011)

You can cast environmentally friendly fishing sinkers from tin. :mrgreen:


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## Sodbuster (Jun 26, 2011)

Pat : 
We can't even do that, still got plenty of lead to deal with. Although it is still higher in tin or bismuth that lead is still at better than 30%. Silver isn't even mentioned. We would likely find cadmium before any silver. 
I guess we could make a boat anchor with it, :lol: just have to make sure we pulled up and took it with us. To me it will always be dirty tin i guess.

Ray


( clipped out of Wiki )

Common solder compositions 
Different combinations of tin, lead and other metals are used to create solder. The combinations used depend on the desired properties. The most popular combination is 63% tin, 37% lead. This combination is strong, has a low melting range, and melts and sets quickly. Higher tin compositions gives the solder higher corrosion resistances, but raises the melting point. Another common composition is 11% tin, 37% lead, 42% bismuth, and 10% cadmium. This combination has a low melting point and is useful for soldering components that are sensitive to heat. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_soldering


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## Goldfinger4 (Jul 4, 2011)

Silver solders melt above 650 °C, you would destroy your board with that. I think electronic stuff is always soldered with tin/lead solder (before 2006 in Europe).
I don't know American laws but if your old boards are already lead-free the solder contains >90% Sn and max. 4% Ag.
But Sn bars also look nice, I always collect the tin filling from silver knives 

Btw old silver solder is often sold on ebay..


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## vovikk (Jul 10, 2011)

Hey, everybody!

Got my 30-pcs mothermoards purchase arrived .
They are all now ready (all detachable parts are taken off - ICs, memories, jumpers, batteries, etc.)

Hope to do my processing job for this lot in a couple of days - doing some foto-video reporting stuff.
Also hope it will be interesting for somebody to have some more info on my method.

Will get back as soon as i will have something to post....


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## TigWiz (Jul 15, 2011)

I'm looking forward to an update.


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## nivrnb (Jul 15, 2011)

Vladimir,

Really like your post reminds me of how I used to collect parts, but I never took photos of what I was doing. The bad part for me when I used to do this is that I would have the heat up to high and the boards would burn, and the smoke would just follow me. I would stand in different location away from the oven to see if I was just me or not. The smoke always followed me. Then I got a fan to blow it away from me. I think I am feeling the effects of those days or maybe its just old age. I hope old age :mrgreen: .


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## vovikk (Jul 15, 2011)

nivrnb said:


> Vladimir,
> 
> Really like your post reminds me of how I used to collect parts, but I never took photos of what I was doing.



:_) thanx 


nivrnb said:


> Vladimir,
> 
> The bad part for me when I used to do this is that I would have the heat up to high and the boards would burn, and the smoke would just follow me. I would stand in different location away from the oven to see if I was just me or not.



oh, that's absolutely true!
I am trying to choose windy days (i even worked when a pretty thunder rain felt for an hour at least....)
Otherwise the smoke (often unvisible but .... ) is making me sick.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 15, 2011)

nivrnb said:


> Vladimir,
> 
> Really like your post reminds me of how I used to collect parts, but I never took photos of what I was doing. The bad part for me when I used to do this is that I would have the heat up to high and the boards would burn, and the smoke would just follow me. I would stand in different location away from the oven to see if I was just me or not. The smoke always followed me. Then I got a fan to blow it away from me. I think I am feeling the effects of those days or maybe its just old age. I hope old age :mrgreen: .



Repeat 3 times: I hate white rabbit's, I hate white rabbit's, I hate white rabbit's. And the smoke will go away. 8) 

It an old trick we use to use around the camp fire.....


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## g_axelsson (Sep 22, 2013)

Goldfinger4 said:


> Silver solders melt above 650 °C, you would destroy your board with that. I think electronic stuff is always soldered with tin/lead solder (before 2006 in Europe).
> I don't know American laws but if your old boards are already lead-free the solder contains >90% Sn and max. 4% Ag.
> But Sn bars also look nice, I always collect the tin filling from silver knives
> 
> Btw old silver solder is often sold on ebay..


The silver solder found on circuit boards are based mainly on tin with only a few percent silver. Ordinary tin - lead solder (Sn 60% - Pb 40%) melts at 183 C while tin silver (Sn 96,5% - Pb 3,5%) melts at 221 C.

I got an idea, maybe Parkes process would work with tin too? I did a search and found this report which uses zinc to form silver zinc alloys that solidifies while the tin phase is still liquid. With four repititions they recovered over 70% of the silver in an experimental setup. Maybe it could be used in an economical way to recover the silver from old solder. The resulting tin should be pure enough to be used in an electrolytic tin refining cell, the anode sludge would contain the rest of the silver. I wonder where the dissolved gold ends up, with the silver or the tin?
http://www.jim.or.jp/journal/e/pdf3/51/07/1350.pdf

Göran


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## gmandoit (Oct 21, 2013)

Just jumping in guys but the tin solder ingots I believe you can reuse for future stannous solutions I'm excited to be on here and hope to soon show some bit of work I have been doing with success of precipitation but I have yet to put the flame to the pudding


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## solar_plasma (Oct 21, 2013)

I wonder if it would make sense to electrorefine solder tinbars, maybe not today, but in some years. Electrolyte SnCl2, if it is cold enough, most of the leadchloride might stay in the anode bag,together with any silver, - if there is silver at all. A fairly pure tin gives about 9€ (purest tin even more, since spot is 22€), while lead only 0,60-1,10 (spot 2€) €.

Not a new idea, but the tin prices are still raising and even ESG in germany is interested in tin also in smallest amounts.

I see a big problem in the poisonous vapors released from a PCB at 200°C.

Another maybe dumb idea: Maybe collect the solder with cheap lead. But again vapors....

Any thread I read about approaches of wet processes ended with a great mess...


Any assumptions or experiences?


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## Pantherlikher (Oct 21, 2013)

Years ago I used a kerosine/ air fired tube heater, torpedo heater. It worked great with alittle practice. A large metal sheet pan caught solder as it dripped.
Another flat pan caught everything when I smacked the board against the pan.
When practiced, you could melt the solder and drop every 5-10 seconds. Any longer in the flame and the board started smoking to burnning.

The wet way is messy. I was mass dissolving in poor man's AR before finding this site. Was major volume and alot of lost PMS. But as I finished with dropping from the AR, I would put some Aluminum in the solution slowly as it is violent and gets extremely hot. This dropped everything above it, copper +.
Then I'd pour into a large plastic square bucket that fit mother boards. After a day in there, everything fell off the boad and then rinsed in HCL and water and seperated.

The whole project worked but there ended up being several 5gal. bottles with spent solution and alot of water. The book I bought to learn had nothing for dealing with the waste. Unfortunately, the now "X" desided it was ok to demolish and remove the garage and it's contents... Dumped went everything including a large jar of powders.
So, under the new parking lot of my 1st home is a nice treasure waiting to be found. With alot of nasty Chlorides.

B.S.


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