Estimation of yields per ton of boards

[anachronism]

you are both correct but Jon you may be missing the 3 year part of the equation - take that 26.01 and divide it by 3 years

Jon you are getting soft in your old age

Gah I know mate. I'm obviously getting mentally feebler every passing month.

 

[Darkthirty]

Nothing about free or cheap 10 oz a year of gold from electronics is a hobby, it would be flat out luck. I had it happen once. I paid $200 for 2 oz of gold because I got lucky. That luck kept my house out of foreclosure and allowed me to build. But that wasn't even circuit boards, those were industrial yag lasers.

Over a decade of constantly looking for free or cheap gold. I've probably read a good majority of this forum looking for untapped local sources. I've wore the fingers out of countless pairs of leather gloves on computer boards. I've got a titanium screw in my wrist after falling while loading my truck.
The only reason I'm still collecting e-scrap is because I'm scared to quit. I have good relationships with my suppliers, and I know how hard I worked to build them. It pays the bills when other things don't, and life is unpredictable.

I've got an optometrist's laser in my demo pile. Haven't got around to breaking it down yet, where are the PM's ?

 

[snoman701]

I've got an optometrist's laser in my demo pile. Haven't got around to breaking it down yet, where are the PM's ?

Won't be much in a laser that size. These were made to cut and etch metal. However, they will be in the actual laser diode.

 

[Darkthirty]

Won't be much in a laser that size. These were made to cut and etch metal. However, they will be in the actual laser diode.

Thanks

 

[icejj]

I this thread, @icejj. showed his results from 3 years collecting and refining. If this came from scrap he acquired very cheap or free he is approaching the 10 oz per year estimate I gave for a hobby refiner. He said it is 809 grams or 8.67 ounces per year. I would like to get an idea of how much and what type of scrap yielded that beautiful image and how many hours a day or week he works at it.

The goal of this thread is to show by example what can be done by a serious hobby refiner rather than one who collects, disassembles, shreds and ships to a refiner to turn a profit. I realize there are many here who do this for a living but there are likely more who want to dabble in this because they have access to circuitry or other scrap. This is just to show, by example what is possible for a reasonable effort.

The vast majority of the material was gold filled scrap. I'd say about 85% of the total amount of material was gold filled. The other roughly 15% was mainly gold fingers and ceramic processors from circuit boards, and a very small amount was karat gold. For the record, and possible discussion points of how much one can yield per year as a hobbyist, the first year of the 3 years did not yield much (roughly only 40 grams) as I only processed gold fingers and ceramic processors during the first year. The vast majority of the yield was done in the last 2 years of the total 3 years, pretty much when I started processing gold filled material. Keep in mind that although I did try circuit boards, and was not successful, none of the yield presented in my post was from processing whole circuit boards. The amount of time spent disassembling boards outweighed the yield for me, as I couldn't find a steady supply and the supply that I did find was minimal and lacking, so I stuck with gold filled and gold fingers when I can find them. As far as time goes, in the beginning I spent many hours searching for scrap per day, and then it would take a few weeks before I finished processing. Over the last year or so, I spend about 10-20 hrs a week searching for material online, and when I accumulate at least 5lbs worth, it takes about a week to process.

*Edited for spelling and clarity

 

[kurtak]

The vast majority of the material was gold filled scrap. I'd say about 85% of the total amount of material was gold filled. The other roughly 15% was mainly gold fingers and ceramic processors from circuit boards, and a very small amount was karat gold. For the record, and possible discussion points of how much one can yield per year as a hobbyist, the first year of the 3 years did not yield much (roughly only 40 grams) as I only processed gold fingers and ceramic processors during the first year. The vast majority of the yield was done in the last 2 years of the total 3 years, pretty much when I started processing gold filled material. Keep in mind that although I did try circuit boards, and was not successful, none of the yield presented in my post was from processing whole circuit boards. The amount of time spent disassembling boards outweighed the yield for me, as I couldn't find a steady supply and the supply that I did find was minimal and lacking, so I stuck with gold filled and gold fingers when I can find them. As far as time goes, in the beginning I spent many hours searching for scrap per day, and then it would take a few weeks before I finished processing. Over the last year or so, I spend about 10-20 hrs a week searching for material online, and when I accumulate at least 5lbs worth, it takes about a week to process.

*Edited for spelling and clarity

Thanks for posting

That helps put things in perspective

Kurt

 

[ssmontecarlo]

That sounds about right (when talking about actual computer towers) once you get "good" at tearing towers down you should be able to tear down right close to a ton in an 8 hour day

On average it takes "about" 65 - 70 towers to make up a ton

When I was doing this for a living both the guy I hired & I could (each) tear down right close to a ton of towers in a day

When I was doing this for a living I had 3 scrap yards I was buying "whole" electronic scrap from by the ton

on average I would pick up 5 - 7 tons per month from "each" scrap yard - then every once in awhile I would get a load from one or two of them that was 10 tons - 15 tons - even 20 tons --- I think the biggest load I ever got was like 25 or 30 tons

When I got some of those bigger loads I would hire another guy - he could only tear down about 3/4 ton in a day

Bottom line here is that in order to make money (as in make a "living") at this you need to process this stuff in HIGH volume

Kurt

Wait a minute...while searching for a bga process I found this. It takes 65-70 computer towers to make a ton? Towers...you mean desktop computer towers?

 

[kurtak]

Wait a minute...while searching for a bga process I found this. It takes 65-70 computer towers to make a ton? Towers...you mean desktop computer towers?

Yes - desktop computer towers - on the "average" a desktop computer tower weighs "about" 28 - 30 pounds

2,000 pounds (one ton) divided by 28 pounds = 71.42 towers

2,000 pounds divided by 30 pounds = 66.66 towers

So between 65 & 70 towers to make a ton of towers

From that you will get "about" 1.5 to 1.75 pounds of circuit board - this is talking about more modern computers such as computers that have the "small" CPU sockets &/or small no pin CPU sockets

Mother board = "about" 1.15 pounds

Then you will get (average) 2 RAM - hard drive board - CPU - 1 maybe 2 finger cards & 1 or 2 CD-Rom boards bring the total circuit board weight from modern desktop tower up to "about" 1.5 - 1.75 pounds

Older computer towers - with the "large" CPU sockets will have more circuit board weight in them because the mother boards weigh more (they have way more IC chips on them & more pin sockets) as well as more & bigger finger cards bigger hard drive boards etc. etc.

Bottom line - to get one ton of circuit boards from tearing down desktop computer towers you have to tear down a few/several tons of towers

Which is why I say if you have any hope at all of "making money" at this you MUST deal in LARGE volume - at which point this is no longer a hobby but in fact becomes a FULL TIME job/business

Kurt

 

[snoman701]

Just remember that those are "old towers". New computers have a 3/4-1 lb motherboard, a single piece of ram, a pinless processor and no cd rom drives. The hard drives are usually still the 3.5" ones, and if you have a competitie buyer, and they have the triangle boards, it won't make sense to tear the boards off.

It is quite impressive how small computers have gotten. Not great for the scrap though.

 

[Shark]

I looked at a new computer the other day with an I7 processor, single stick of memory and an SSD hard drive. No cdrom but a single slot for a pen drive. The whole system was in an 8x10 box about 2 1/2 inches thick. Compared to my first tower and monitor that took two people to load in my truck.

 

[snoman701]

I looked at a new computer the other day with an I7 processor, single stick of memory and an SSD hard drive. No cdrom but a single slot for a pen drive. The whole system was in an 8x10 box about 2 1/2 inches thick. Compared to my first tower and monitor that took two people to load in my truck.

Funny how they've changed isn't it.

The SSD hard drives are good at least!

At work (vet tech) we still occasionally get a pet transferred to us that has had xrays taken and burned to a CD ROM. We have one computer with a working cd rom drive now. Everything else goes straight to the cloud. The actual computers we have for a medical office are about the size you mention, which is equivalent (actually smaller) than one textbook.

 

[Alondro]

Gotta lurk around those old smaller abandoned warehouses in the outside of the big cities. I hear tell that many of them have hidden troves. A guy I know did a cleanout and got MASSIVELY good stuff. That's where I got the 1970 Tektronix oscilloscope. I nearly died when he mentioned all the stuff he just THREW AWAY!!!

 

[Ayham Hafez]

Last year I processed 1 ton of telecom boards (with hydrometallurgy process) that contains a lot of NEC and RF IC's , recovered about 15 Oz of gold within 2 months only, after that I shifted to smelting, smelted about 500 kg most of them are computer motherboards with one BGA chip, I got only 60 grams per ton, was very disappointed, but didn't know if the yield is simply 60 grams or I missed a lot?

Now am trying to build 200 amper copper refining cell, cause there is no way to process low grade motherboards without it, nitric acid cost too much, my first step is to have good skills with purging oxygen to get the proper copper anodes for the cell, but am not sure if I will compete factories that pay about 6 USD per kg of computer motherboards that have 1 BGA chip or not, I asked my friend about the maximum yield he got from such pcb, he mentioned only 65 grams per ton so gold gives only 5 USD per 1kg of such pcb, and about 0.15 kg copper (about 1 usd yield per 1 kg of pcb), silver will not give more 0.5 USD) so Total yield is 6.5 USD, I doubt if we can get profit from processing them cause operation cost will be more than 0.5 USD per 1kg pcb unless if the gold yield is more than 65 USD per ton, hope it is and hope I will get much higher yield with oxygen degassing and copper electrolysis refining.

 

[4metals]

@Ayham Hafez , what type of lab do you have for your assays, is it a classical fire assay lab, an instrumental analysis like Atomic Absorption or ICP, or is it XRF scans?

 

[Ayham Hafez]

@Ayham Hafez , what type of lab do you have for your assays, is it a classical fire assay lab, an instrumental analysis like Atomic Absorption or ICP, or is it XRF scans?

I don't have any analysis tool except normal fire assay

 

[4metals]

For smelting, a classic fire assay running a doré bead for total precious metals can tell you what percentage of the smelt anode is precious but to determine the other metals removed by smelting and oxidation an Atomic Absorption is useful for real time monitoring. Excessive base metals remaining in the anode from not bubbling oxygen long enough will shorten the useful life of your electrolyte.

 

[Ayham Hafez]

For smelting, a classic fire assay running a doré bead for total precious metals can tell you what percentage of the smelt anode is precious but to determine the other metals removed by smelting and oxidation an Atomic Absorption is useful for real time monitoring. Excessive base metals remaining in the anode from not bubbling oxygen long enough will shorten the useful life of your electrolyte.

As a beginning or alternative solution I think we can count on the color of the molten or slag while smelting isn't it? For example, keep oxygen degassing run till we got red slag and red molten.

With 99+ Copper anode, we will not face any issues with electrolyte isn't it? Cause I don't have an experience with titration so I'm focusing on oxidizing base metals and get proper anode to avoid any other issues related to the copper cell.

One quick question, since I don't make oxygen degassing till now, I make labors remove aluminum capacitors from PCB before even start disassembling other components to make sure that I will not get aluminum while smelting, since with lead precents, aluminum oxidize gold (Parkes process), but am not sure if this is right, so is it necessary to remove aluminum capacitors or it will not effect the gold yield if we will oxidize base metals in later steps?

 

[4metals]

It is always best to remove whatever base metals you can before smelting, especially if labor is cheap. But the remaining base metals will oxidize in the smelting sparging process.

I seem to remember from my electroplating days that there is a titration for copper sulfate in solution so that could be used to determine the percentage of copper in your anodes to infer purity. I am not home for a few weeks so I cannot look through my journals for that method until I am home.

 

[Ayham Hafez]

Anyone has a record for gold yield in small socket p4 green motherboards? In boardsort they buy it for 2.9 USD per pound, so I wonder what exactly the yield of it.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Anyone has a record for gold yield in small socket p4 green motherboards? In boardsort they buy it for 2.9 USD per pound, so I wonder what exactly the yield of it.

The yield will be somewhat more than that, how much I don't know.