# Grinding Flat Packs



## Gold Nut (Dec 9, 2008)

I have 2 questions: Which of the flat packs are the ones that contain the PM's? and , Would anyone know if an old corn grinder would grind them up enough to refine?
Gold Nut :?


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## rainmaker (Dec 10, 2008)

As to which ones contain PMs, I am going to have to defer to others on this forum. 

As to the corn grinder, I doubt if it will do a satisfactory job. You will need something with hardened steel grinding surfaces. some of your higher end coffee grinders will do t he trick (commercial type). I have used one to grind/pulverize water softener salt pellets., did a nice job too. I would think you will need to grind to a -20 mesh to get good exposure.


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## lazersteve (Dec 10, 2008)

Unfortunately with flat packs there are way too many varieties to give an accurate answer.

Here's a ballpark answer of which types to look at instead:

The green ones with the gold tab on the corner;
The quads (pins on all four sides)
Any older very thick ones (may be hybrids inside) notably 144 and 288 Rockwell Modem chip sets.


Steve


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## Gold Nut (Dec 10, 2008)

Thanks guys for the information, it's a big help.
Gold Nut


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## Gold Trail (Apr 1, 2009)

in my experimental stages of refining i am always looking for more gold. 

i have peel and picked and crushed and examinded thosed flat packs with the gold corner, and asdide from the corner i see no gold.

is it that fine or did i miss some thing . i did find i 1 cm by 1 cm gold colored foil in the floor but dont know what it came out of during my "exam process"

any help would be great

Ryan


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## Despotic (Apr 3, 2009)

The flat packs are Ball Grid Array Integrated circuits or BGA IC's.
They are one of the high grade components on a motherboard, video card, etc. If you press down firmly on the green board, working your way around the black compound mold [the cap] it will separate reveling it's hidden gold trace bond wires.
Sorry for the under/over exposed picture quality.


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## burningsuntech (Apr 30, 2015)

I don't know if this has been expanded into another thread and I know my comment is 6 years old, but what I have found is the separation of the epoxy from the board is only half the battle. Some of the gold is bound up in the epoxy cover so those need to be incinerated and / or crushed or milled into a powder to get at it. As for the fiber part, I would incinerate the package, sieve the remains and process the metals in nitric. The fiberglass remains from the incineration would need to be powdered as much as possible then tossed into nitric as well. It is an unholy mess, but the results are ok if you have pounds of chips.

You can try processing, say a pound of chips and report back the results. It's on my calendar and when I get to it, I will post results.


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## MarcoP (Apr 30, 2015)

Incineration of boards in general in not recommended. It would be far better to toss the fiber boards into AP. Remember those contains tin, and nitric converts it into insoluble metastannic acid.


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## g_axelsson (Apr 30, 2015)

burningsuntech said:


> Some of the gold is bound up in the epoxy cover so those need to be incinerated and / or crushed or milled into a powder to get at it.


Some? I would say 90-95% of the gold is inside the black resin and totally free of tin also.

The fiber bottom parts contains circa 0.7g/kg compared to the top with closer to 10g/kg, this is some of my favorite components to process.... the top part, not the bottom.

Incinerate, pan, nitric to remove copper traces, dissolve gold, filter, precipitate.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=10973
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=9708#p93396

Göran


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## burningsuntech (May 3, 2015)

Hmmm. Thanks for the info. I have been saving these flatpacks for several months and studying the best methods to extract the goldies. I'll weigh up and process and let you know the results. If it even comes close to 10g/Kg, I'm sitting on a gold mine.  Thanks again.
Sam K


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## patnor1011 (May 4, 2015)

Follow last link in my signature.


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