cdrom and dvd drives?

[Exibar]

I have about 200 or so pounds of CD rom and DVD rom drives... some floppies mixed in too. What's worth salvaging in these buggers? I know I want the lasers out of any DVD writable drives for future laser projects, but other than that, hat's to be had out of them that's worth tearing them all apart?

should I separate the pieces or just send the whole lot over to the scrap yard where they'll only pay me .10 a pound (same as light iron basically)...

thanks!
Mike B

 

[patnor1011]

save pcbs as there are some gold plated pins. also subject often discussed on forum. use search function you will find lots of pictures and info...

 

[Exibar]

I guess my "search foo" isn't as good as I thought. I did perform a search for cd drives and dvd drives but with barely a handfull of hits. Do you have a link to any other threads that talk about cdrom drives?

I'm basically wondering if it's worth it at all to pull them all apart, I have many shelf full of them.

Heck, maybe I'll check what the ebayers are paying for the boards Maybe that will make it worth my time if I can get a hundred bucks or so...

thanks!
Mike B

 

[jimdoc]

I just pull the boards off and get $1.70 per lb for them. It all adds up.
Jim

 

[silversaddle1]

Like the others, we just pull the boards off the cd drives. Turn them over, take out 4-5 screws, pop the back off, remove board, screw back together, throw the drive in the mixed drive box with the floppy drives. Throw board in board box.

A cordless drill is a must.

 

[gold4mike]

When selling some steel (empty computer cases) and copper (with insulation on) at my local scrap yard last weekend I saw that they also buy electric motors. I have started keeping all of the small motors from cd-rom & floppy drives as well as those from printers. I've found that the scrap value is more than compensating me for the labor I hire when I get a truckload of computers to recycle and that makes the gold a bonus!

The wires from power supplies are going for $0.85 per pound with insulation on. Multi-insulated, such as ribbon cables, monitor cords, power cables, bring $0.30 per pound and 580# of empty cases brought $32.00.

Many of the older floppy drives have a partial aluminum case also. :mrgreen:

 

[Chumbawamba]

Hi Mike.

CD/DVD-ROM drives rarely have that much gold on them, but as others have suggested, putting the labor into extracting the circuit board is worth the effort at current prices. I did find one CD-ROM with a board that had a huge gold ground plane, so I took that off for extraction, but otherwise I just throw my drives into a gaylord and sell them for around $.10/lbs. I might start extracting the boards in the future as labor is becoming cheaper by the week.

Some older floppy disk drives (both 3.5" and 5.25", and all 8") have cast aluminum frames, but cleaning them up takes a bit of time and effort, so cheap labor is in order. I now sort all my aluminum framed floppies from the steel ones and hold out for a higher price from my buyers. If they won't pay, I'll do the labor myself for the aluminum.

Older hard drives (MFM types, from the 1980s) usually have a gold edge connector. I have a huge pile I have to go through to remove the PCB and snap off the gold edge.

Some older floppy drives (usually the 5.25" variety) sometimes have a small amount of gold plating on their control boards, and the older ones also have the gold-plated edge connector.

As always, the rewards are justified by the amount of labor required to extract the rewards. The more you value your labor, the more your labor will return to you!

 

[Anonymous]

Hello all. Im new to this but also i was gonna add that the laser in a cd-rom has gold plated cylinder looking things in most of them also. Some even have gold wire posts sticking out from them that are plated. so far it takes a while for the acid to get through the gold to hollow it out. But it is thick and worth saving them also. I just break them all off when tearing them down and beat them with a heavy hammer and then pick them out. Works good for me. haha

 

[patnor1011]

yeah and some zip drives have chip there on board which is packed with gold...

 

[gold4mike]

Patnor,

Thanks for that find! I have been saving up all of my floppy and zip drives to disassemble this winter when boredom sets in. How did you break that chip apart? You have done a great job of exposing the gold. 8)

 

[patnor1011]

it was pure luck... i dont like to use heatgun as there are some fumes involved when board gets overheated and also solder become smeared over parts I use chisel-like knife and I am "cutting" flatpacks or chips from board. I have managed to accidentally cut it open and I am glad for it. It was nice to see that little chip shine in the sun...

 

[gold4mike]

Thanks for the quick response. I have tried a sharp, wide chisel and abandoned it for heating to release all the mounted components from the board. I have simply been storing all the parts for later processing, but now that I've seen all the posts relating to problems associated with the components of the solder I think I may go back to the chisel method. If I can cut the tops off (on purpose) like you did in your example I'll have a much better handle on what to process and what isn't worth the trouble.

Thanks again!

Mike

 

[patnor1011]

well, I am planning to crush them in ball mill or some grinder anyway. i am using chisel and knife becouse I want to reduce amount of tin or solder as much as possible and i am not doing it on large scale so bit of work from time to time is not scaring me... i have heat gun and that was used to desoldering pins from boards but then there was much of solder still left on them so now I am using small knipex precision snips and cutting them one by one... that is time consuming but it will save me problems later when procesing. I have to tell that I am cutting pins mostly in work as I am working in nights and my job is just to be in place with no special requirements and it is on my decision if I am going to surf on net, watch tv or cutting pins for a few hours. so i am doing it and i am actually paid while cutting pins. my boss is laughing he preffer to watch tv or surf on net. i prefer to increase my income a little bit.