Electrical Water Meter device

[Ocean]

A company called me and asked me to recycle about 2000 of these Electrical Water Meter devices that are used for reading with a handheld device, so you don't have to open the meter box to get the info. they say: BLU: Tower on them


There are 2 LI Ion batteries and a PCB inside, as well as a copper wire running from the outside of the box to the inside to provide power.

EVERYTHING is submerged/covered in a super thick gel-like substance similar to silicone.

There is also a silver colored wire running around the outer edge of the device. It is soldered onto the board at each end, very close to each other.


I am wondering if that wire is actually silver. It is soft and malleable.

edited for spelling.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

I doubt they are silver probably aluminum.

 

[stihl88]

Ocean, don't bother with them. Too much work for almost no return.
The fact that it is encased in that resin is a major turn off.

Unless of course that is silver wire but highly doubtful as Barren said, you would expect some oxidation on the surface
if it were Silver.

Test if it's Aluminium by dropping some in a small amount of HCL, if it bubbles then it's likely Aluminium.

Edit: On second Glance it looks to be the Transmitter Antennae leads, I would have though that these would need to be Copper leads
or Nickel coated Copper leads but given the size, length and the application, Aluminium would be ok to use in this circumstance i guess.

 

[pinwheel]

That is a terrible product design from a recycling point of view.

 

[g_axelsson]

The wire is the antenna for transmitting information to and from the meter.My guess is tinned copper wire. Silver is too expensive and aluminium is too problematic to solder.

To test if something is silver or tin, take a piece of white paper and rub the object against it. If it leaves a gray or black mark then it is a soft metal like tin or aluminium. If there is no mark then it is a harder metal, for example silver or nickel.

There are a lot of other metals that this test would give the same result as for silver or tin so it isn't an absolute test, just a quick test to separate silver from tin

/Göran

 

[Ocean]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

[pinwheel]

You can test with nitric also using a cheap silver tester off of ebay. Silver turns dark red or brown for .800, aluminum turns black and nickel is yellow I believe. Copper turns blue.