Au/Ag? Solder on oscillator cases

[MvK]

I may have found some gold in my trash. I broke up a few cases of what looked to be oscillators.
After breaking them up and saving the base and other gold plated parts for later recovery, i threw away the metal cases.

Now, i have found the cases again and they have solder to fix the case to the lid and the base.
This solder looks like its worth to recover. It looks the same like what they use for cpu lids, so i suspect theres some PM to be found.

The cases are ferrous, some have rust coming trough the plating so im not really sure wich way to go now. Sulphuric cell? Nitric? Is it even worth it? Any tips are welcome!

 

[eaglekeeper]

Sulfuric cell is probably not going to work very well on circuit traces, once there's a break in the tracing it'll probably stop working.

If you can remove the ceramic sub straight from the metal cases, you can soak them in Hcl to remove the Tin, Mlcc and resisters. Then they can go into AR.

If you only have a few of them, you might get a couple Milligrams....maybe.

 

[MvK]

Sulfuric cell is probably not going to work very well on circuit traces, once there's a break in the tracing it'll probably stop working.

If you can remove the ceramic sub straight from the metal cases, you can soak them in Hcl to remove the Tin, Mlcc and resisters. Then they can go into AR.

If you only have a few of them, you might get a couple Milligrams....maybe.

Thanks for your input.

But sorry, it is just about the cases. The plated bottoms are being processed right now, the ceramics get stockpiled. Im just looking for a solution to take off the solder from the metal cases (second picture) before throwing them out. I have enough cases to get a few grams of solder.

I will throw a case in AR and post stannous results.

 

[stella polaris]

Forget the cases and the solder.The gold seems to be ENIG. But you migth have good MLCC, of good size, there.

 

[MvK]

Forget the cases and the solder.The gold seems to be ENIG. But you migth have good MLCC, of good size, there.

Thanks, i will not bother with the casing tops then. The gold on the bottoms is actually quite thick plated so i will recover that another time.

 

[Golddigger76]

All of the ones I have taken apart are silver plated brass. I have never tried to recover the solder but I would think that heat or hydrochloric acid would work well.

 

[MvK]

All of the ones I have taken apart are silver plated brass. I have never tried to recover the solder but I would think that heat or hydrochloric acid would work well.

I usually do base metal tungsten(?) cpu lids in dillute nitric to loosen the foils, maybe i can take the silver plating(?) as well with nitric. The downside to this is this brown mess in the picture below. Not sure what causes this.

 

[eaglekeeper]

Im just looking for a solution to take off the solder from the metal cases

Sorry, I misunderstood the question.

Let us know what you get from them.

 

[MvK]

Sorry, I misunderstood the question.

Let us know what you get from them.

Ive boiled a case in HCI. I tried to peel off the solder, that worked after the boil. I tried to collect the foils seperately from the solder to give the foils a test.

Put the foils in AR, liquid turned pitch black and after a few seconds turned orange. Stannous test only gave a small hint of gold, i guess some solder went with the foils. No presence for silver.

So i guess im recovering the solder anyway! Results soon.

 

[MvK]

Forget the cases and the solder.The gold seems to be ENIG. But you migth have good MLCC, of good size, there.

24 pieces of the steel gold plated bottoms yielded 1.7gram. Didnt process the ceramics and MLCC yet.