DirectTV LNB Disassembly - Updated

[Capteo]

Found a free dish on Craigslist the other day. Spent an hour taking it apart. Filmed my findings after the fact.
Will post video to YouTube within the hour. Video contains a slide show of photos at the end since my camera battery was dead DURING the disassembly.

http://tinypic.com/r/55kz2h/8

Hope this is useful for anybody interested in finding scrap.

YouTube Link: http://youtu.be/zQy04nV0zEA

 

[pimpneightez]

Those things are tough to disassemble. Took me forever. It's all held in with those weird star bit screws and there was about 50 of them holding it all together.

 

[Capteo]

I found mine to be loaded with only Phillips screws.
The only thing I took apart was the feedhorn / LNB.
I needed an adjustable wrench to take the feedhorn off of the parabolic mounting bracket.
After that, flathead and Phillips screwdrivers all the way.
Sorry to hear you came across one with torx(star) bits all over it. I can imagine that would be a pain.

 

[sharkhook]

I torn down a dozen of them a few months back and all but one had torx bits. Fortunately I had them on hand, as I now have another 6 and all with torx screws. Most of mine were older pieces, wonder if they changed them at some point, or maybe they used a different manufacturer to produce them.

 

[g_axelsson]

The capacitors you pointed out in the video are all of the MLCC type, not tantalum.
MLCC:s could possibly contain palladium and silver, test if you want to know if it's worth to pursue them. I usually only collect the big ones and throw them in a bucket. If it isn't a lot of capacitors to remove it goes faster to just pick them off than testing them, but if you have a lot of similar scrap it could be worth testing first.

Göran

 

[etack]

They are not worth the time to tear them down unless they are hughesnet LBN. Those are well worth the time.

Eric

 

[Capteo]

Thank you g_axelsson/Göran, I'm still very new at looking for specific items on the board. I'm mainly getting into this hobby for the gold, silver, and copper because I feel that those might be the easiest to separate and process individually. That is my current impression. Still reading Hoke and watching many people's videos here and there.

Eric, I'll definitely keep my eyes out on Craigslist for those Hughesnet LBNs then. In the last week I've seen 3 dish network.

 

[sharkhook]

I don't know what service mine came from, all of mine were all ready off the dish, and donated to the bed of my truck. I didn't complain. Most folks around here despise hughsnet. I had bad experiences with them as well. Guess I need to watch for those a bit closer.