Sky,
For one I don't mix cpu types (no fiber with 486, no 486 with pentium, etc). I have mixed AMD and Intel 486's with no problems.
Secondly, I never break apart my cpus. Just remove the lids and toss in the AP for a few weeks.
I check the cpus every so often and give then a little prodding with a long shish-ka-bob stick or piece of plastic and a toothbrush to see if I can help any of the gold along. As the cores loosen up and fall off they come out and get rinsed. I save them to be added to a piece of art work I'm working on. It's a mosaic collage of cpu cores.
If the cpus are really stacked thick I move them about so each gets a fair amount of exposure to the AP.
I keep the AP mix strong on the HCl so it maintains more of a clear brown color also. I add peroxide only if I don't see any loosening of the foils after a few days of soaking. Check each day of the soak and test each leg to see if it's ready to flake off.
If you run cpus that have the iron or steel legs they should be treated with hot HCl in a crockpot to remove the foils.
The sludge you see is a result of including the fiber cpus or cpus with solder on the legs. The solder that connects them to the legs is a mix of base metals that don't mix well with AP. That gray sludge is a sign of possible tin, lead, or silver in the mix (or all three). Generally silver will show purple silver chloride if in a lighted area.
The legs of most fiber cpus are also kovar which is another alloy AP has trouble with. CPUs with kovar legs should be processed with AR.
Overall the mash of gold foils in the photo looks very similar to what I have when I do ceramic cpus (aside from the gray sludge). Wash the foils just like you would finger foils from AP. Start with HCl until the wash is clean. Then dissolve the foils in HCl-Cl to get the gold into solution. My cpus don't come out of the AP until all of the legs are gone and all of the cores are free from the ceramic housing. The toothbrush helps this process complete. The shish-ka-bob stick is very handy to remove the cores once they loosen.
The housings are saved to be crushed very fine and leached with AR or HCl-Cl.
The above works fine on small 1 pound batches. If you process more than that at one time either set up several small flat dishes with a small batch in each or use AR to process them all at once. Keeping the cpus fairly exposed to the solution helps a lot.
Steve
