Gold in printed circuit board

Hi guys
today i discover something new for me
i search my question on google
And I don't find good answer
Anyway I upload video that show 2 pieces of printed circuit board
The pieces are same but they have one difference
The left piece I peel and the other piece(right) I don't peel
Now if you look in this video you see the left piece are have gold layer(I think)
And the right piece don't .
If I want to see the gold in this piece(right) I need to peel it like I did with the left piece

Link to video :

http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2l8x7wg&s=6

Now my questions is:

1. it really gold(24K)?
Because I have many circuit board like this and I think that if it gold I can peel them to

2.I can refining it?

Thank you


Ilya.

ilya25 said:

Hi guys
today i discover something new for me
i search my question on google
And I don't find good answer
Anyway I upload video that show 2 pieces of printed circuit board
The pieces are same but they have one difference
The left piece I peel and the other piece(right) I don't peel
Now if you look in this video you see the left piece are have gold layer(I think)
And the right piece don't .
If I want to see the gold in this piece(right) I need to peel it like I did with the left piece

Link to video :

http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2l8x7wg&s=6

Now my questions is:

1. it really gold(24K)?
Because I have many circuit board like this and I think that if it gold I can peel them to

2.I can refining it?

Thank you


Ilya.

Click to expand...

Ilya, you might find this video helpful....
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0285c2cbNws[/youtube]

Thank you this video help me understand things
So the circuit boards that I have planted with layer of gold

ilya25 said:

Thank you this video help me understand things
So the circuit boards that I have planted with layer of gold

Click to expand...

Yep, they are gold, yet "plated" is the key word! The plating is 24K, but it is really thin and plated (I think the word comes from stacking one metal on another, like plates, but then that may just be my way of thinking about it).

As it is put on electrically, the gold isn't melted into the other metal, it just 'sticks' on it (through atoms/ions, etc. - if you need a super detailed explanation, I'm sure there are folks on this forum with such answers).

To remove the gold, you can 'deplate' it, but as I understand, it is not as simple as doing it chemically, which is mostly what this forum discusses (and may I say "correctly" discusses it - much info you get online is just so much smoke!)

Good luck to you in your ventures!

I think you'r videos are great
Ttoday I got my gold test set.
I take piece from the circuit printed board
And put on here 10K acid and noting happend
But when I put 18k it start to bubbling and disappear
(The gold) that mean that the gold on circuit is 10K and not 24K?


Thanx
Ilya.

The gold is plated onto a base metal like copper, the gold will be as thin a layer of gold as the manufacturer could plate at the time and still do the job it was intended to do, the gold will be 24K, with your test solutions the acids can dissolve the base metal from the gold, if the gold plating is very thin it may look like the gold disappears, or in aqua regia (18K test solution) the fine gold may be dissolved only to plate back out onto remaining copper as a brown powder.

The test solution is made to test karat gold like jewelry, it would not be a good test for testing gold plated in electronic scrap where the gold can be a fine plate of gold on base metal.

The gold flash is about 5-10 cents a square inch. Not much.

I had a fellow contact me, he was looking to sell over half a ton a month of unpopulated circuit boards (never populated, rather than depopulated). I was interested in it because of the volume, if it was possible to process it and maybe make a buck a pound... However he was thinking he should be able to get $5 a pound, and based on the pictures he sent, the surface area was not able to provide five a pound, and I told him I could very well lose money if I bought them at a dollar a pound. Haven't heard back Anyway I don't know if there's even a way to strip this stuff with any ease, and if you couldn't strip it yourself you would either have to sell it to a board recovery place, which would charge fees which would likely eat up any profit, or sell it on a per pound basis to a buyer.

I was thinking it might be possible to chop the boards and run them through a tumbling AP setup... but thats quite bit of work, and if a cleaning step was necessary then you are working pretty hard for not a lot of money. Anyhow any thoughts on yields or processes for this stuff I would find interesting

skippy said:

looking to sell over half a ton a month of unpopulated circuit boards (never populated, rather than depopulated) $5 a pound

Click to expand...

Best way to process this is in "file 13" (a way my Mother always called the trash basket - though I never found out why....)

I'm not saying there aren't boards out there that would be worth this, but you are smart to get pictures and samples first (any legit offer of such an amount is happy to send samples - as long as you are legit!), but it sounds to me like someone 'fishing', which, sadly, there are a lot of them out there....

ilya25 said:

I think you'r videos are great

Click to expand...

Oh, did he have anything to say after that? :roll: 8)

MMFJ said:

skippy said:

looking to sell over half a ton a month of unpopulated circuit boards (never populated, rather than depopulated) $5 a pound

Click to expand...

Best way to process this is in "file 13" (a way my Mother always called the trash basket - though I never found out why....)

I'm not saying there aren't boards out there that would be worth this, but you are smart to get pictures and samples first (any legit offer of such an amount is happy to send samples - as long as you are legit!), but it sounds to me like someone 'fishing', which, sadly, there are a lot of them out there....

Click to expand...

Yeah, I told him to try EDI and they would give him a decent price for what the boards are worth. Of course I am not so naive as to think that the fellow might not already know the true worth of his boards.

My earlier post I said gold flash might be 5-10 cents a pound. That should be 5-10 cents a square inch.

skippy said:

My earlier post I said gold flash might be 5-10 cents a pound. That should be 5-10 cents a square inch.

Click to expand...

You should edit that post also. Edits are OK when they are to fix an error and are noted as so.

Jim

Ok, done, good suggestion.