Copper from ancient fluorescent ballasts.

[Cryogaijin]

Hope everyone is having a good fall! Personally I just had a ton of work done out at my grandparents' estate. Replaced (or bypassed) every single fluorescent ballast on the property. So now I have over 40 fluorescent ballasts (Some over 50 years old) to "recycle." Anyone have suggestions for the easiest way to strip out the copper? Is there anything else I should be getting from these things? I doubt there's any meaningful amount of precious metals in 'em.

 

[scrapman1077]

Sell as is and move on, life is too short.

 

[butcher]

A lot of the transformer type fluorescent lighting ballast has a coated layer of tar, sometimes the tar is cooked hard and more brittle and can be busted fairly easily from the coil with the help of a hammer and chisel after prying the can open, other times the tar is softer and more difficult.
Some types of ballast were mainly plastic transformer types, and then some newer types have very little copper and are constructed with a circuit board of switching power supply type frequency ballast.


Bust one open and see if it is worth it, if so bust open some more.

 

[TommyA]

A lot of old ballasts contain an environmental nasty oil (PCB’s I think )
You may want to research a bit before tearing them apart and exposing yourself to known carcinogen

 

[silversaddle1]

Landfill. Period, no exceptions. Scrapyards will not take them either is they are that old.

 

[galenrog]

If marked as free of PCBs, most scrapyards will take them. If not, they are considered hazardous waste in most places.

In either case, not worth the time to recover copper.

Time for more coffee.

 

[butcher]

The lighting transformers we are talking about do not contain PCBs, as you can find in other types of oil-filled type transformers.

As with gold, every tiny bit adds up, Ohh how many days have I spent in freezing cold river water to pan a few tiny flakes of gold, that was not worth all of the time or trouble spent.
Over the years that little bit adds up, maybe not to be that much in total, but now, when I look at it and with all of that work is already done.
I have something today, to show for that wasted time spent, no I cannot say it is profitable, or really worth the time and effort spent.
Not everything I do is for profit, and many things may not be worth the effort or time spent, I do consider it worth it, besides look how much fun I had, spending my spare time on something not worth it, like stocking up a scrap metal pile, and a few metals which hold enough value to buy bread someday in possible hard times ahead, instead of spending my spare time sitting at a computer screen, or in front of a tv screen...

 

[silversaddle1]

"The lighting transformers we are talking about do not contain PCBs, as you can find in other types of oil-filled type transformers."

If they are as old as he says they are, they very well may contain PCB's.

 

[butcher]

Look on the tag, for the statement: "Contain no PCBs", most junkyards will take them as they are...

Large can-type electrolytic capacitors should be suspect, as they can contain PCB's in older units and when they would go bad the capacitor could leak into the tar of some of the old ballasts, capacitors sometimes contained in the ballast or as part of the lighting circuit

 

[kurtak]

Unless it says - "Contains no PCBs" on the (lighting) ballast/transformer most scrap yards will ether not take them at all - or will charge to take them --- same with landfills

If you try to "sneak" them into a landfill (throw them in a dumpster with bunch of other trash) & you get caught you will pay a big fine

Kurt

 

[dannlee]

Old ballasts? DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

Decent city/county/state hazmat collection sites are forced to accept them and they go to incinerators designed to burn render PCBs inert. Absolutely a forever hazard, you, your clothing, your shop & tools and wherever a trace or film of that oil gets tracked to turns into toxic waste…

So… ballasts produced before 1980 might cause a slow painful death - period.

And many ballasts made after likely have aluminum xfmr windings so would be profitable only to high-volume recycling plants that also recover the silica steel used in xfmr core laminations.

Light reading at Wikipedia. <- note they flag many of the 130 PCB varieties as an analog to Dioxin… think plutonium when PCBs or Dioxin is mentioned, zero parts per billion is the maximum exposure level!

 

[Cryogaijin]

Unless it says - "Contains no PCBs" on the (lighting) ballast/transformer most scrap yards will ether not take them at all - or will charge to take them --- same with landfills

If you try to "sneak" them into a landfill (throw them in a dumpster with bunch of other trash) & you get caught you will pay a big fine

Kurt

Yeah, but Portland metro takes them, and i was planning a run out there anyhow. I'll just binsort the ones containing PCBs, and let the experts deal with it.

 

[DaddyD]

I have scrap them out many times and have made much money time consuming but worth it

 

[MrDRE447]

FYI Fluorescent ballasts manufactured prior to July 1978 do contain PCB's. The PCB's will be found in an electrolytic capacitor on the circuit board within the asphalt pottage inside the ballast. These are regulated under TSCA. I do not recommend opening these up for the trivial copper values inside. The toxicity of PCB's is not worth the effort.