first time with pins

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R

ritehere

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 13, 2012
Messages
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So I remove some pins from the mother boards I had ready. These pins were from the pci sockets.
I use AR for the process and ended up with a thick black sludge. So I have to ask is this the gold or have I made an error in using the AR process, and should have used another process instead.

The sludge is still drying as for now. I started with 500grams of pins (if this helps to know in any way).
 
You have made a mess. The pins should have been in warm HCl to remove any possible solder and then ran through the sulfuric cell to deplate the gold from the base metals.

Rusty
 
Alright cool. So now I know what to do, and I still have a great deal of pins for processing. Thanks for the feedback Rusty
 
I would wash out whatever is dissolved in your black mess, and sort out any material that didn't dissolve into solution, which could be gold foil or almost anything really, who knows what your pins were made out of, do you know?

rewalston is right though, warm HCl then sulfuric cell, at least that's how I do it. You should think of your process as being two separate processes. First, you recover and second, you refine. Only use AR to refine unless the type of material you are processing requires you to use AR before another recover process. You will save yourself the mess.

When I process pins, I use a sulfuric cell to recover the gold, I also put the Pyrex cell in another dish that has ice so I can keep it nice and cool, so long as the Sulfuric Acid is cool, it will only deplate the gold alloy from the base metal. Once it gets hot however, it will eat just about anything you put into it. You don't want that, so if you use a sulfuric cell, make sure you keep it cool, and if you have a lot of pins, I would be careful not to do too much at one time because you will create too much amp draw from your power supply and will probably blow a fuse. Using a regular sears 12v 10amp charger I do about half a pound at a time, it seems to work best.

There is a ton of information on the forum on this subject, you can search and find everything you need.

As for the mess you have made, you should read Hoke and what she says to do about waste, then reprocess the part that has any gold. I would also test your solution to see if there is any gold. Also, did you dissolve your pins in plastic? Or where they totally clean pins? The black color could be from plastic, specially if it's really thick.
 
a pound of pci pins will only be about .5 grams of gold (or less) depending on the pins and which slots. if you had any undissolved metal after the reaction stopped, the gold is still with the pins and not in the solution.if any of the gold dissolved (which it probably didnt) it would have plated out onto any base metal as soon as the reaction ran out of either acid or became saturated with base metal.
 
The pins that I used was from under the ram slots, and the slots for the video cards (mixed). They were mainly magnetic.
But After reviewing the processes that I have written down that I have read about here. I see now that I (stupidly) had the wrong notes when I did my process. And I do have it clearly written in my notes that the HCL bath, then sulfuric cell is the method to use.
I really do appreciate the feedback and help from all of you on the forum. But I have to say that this mistake was all me. I simply didn't check myself before starting the process ( a lesson truly learned).
So once again with egg on my face, I thank you all for your help.
 
just to clarify for myself...
the HCl bath is to remove solder right? (I know it does this, just not sure if that's the goal here)
the would be a prior step before the cell so that any gold plating that was covered by solder will be available to the current to deplate right? since we don't have to really worry about tin and lead in the sulphuric cell right?

I think I'm right with the stuff above (havn't run pins through my cell yet. actually have to build another one since the first one had a catastrophic failure)

so assuming the above is correct. most of the PCI, ISA, and memory slot pins I'v been seeing have only had plating on the tips. most of them only on the contact pad of the tips (which is really the only place it's needed). I havn't had any really old stock to look at, but is that what most of you are finding?

In this case, can't the HCl bath just be skipped?

I usually skip these pins all together since they seem to be a waste of my time (certainly everyone has a different value on their time) I may revisit them if I can find a really fast way to liberate them, but .5 grams to a pound (which seems like a reasonable number) seems like too much work and chemicals and electricity and time.

-Zenophryk
 
it depends on whether you remove the pins with heat or you shear them off even with the board. if you sweat them off, there will be solder left on the pin. if you cut the pins off, theres no need for the hcl bath.
 
I understand when solder is going to be present. But what I was asking was, If there's no gold plating under the solder and the pins are headed for a stripping cell, is there any reason to remove the solder?

-Zenophryk
 
zenophryk said:
I understand when solder is going to be present. But what I was asking was, If there's no gold plating under the solder and the pins are headed for a stripping cell, is there any reason to remove the solder?

-Zenophryk
Click to expand...


It's very simple, whenever possible remove solder before AR digestion or Electrolytic Cell. I'm curious what type of cell you are putting the pins into if there is no gold under the solder? Or do you mean that the pins have gold plate, just not under the part where there is solder?

You remove the solder so that your electrolytic cell solution can deplate the gold that was under the solder, but also so that you do not pollute your solution, the cleaner you keep your solution the more you can re-use, the less you spend on solutions.
 
i dont think solder will have much of an impact on the sulfuric if its running cool. it will react with hot sulfuric acid because of the tin content. it creates stannum sulphate and emits SO2 gas.
 
SBrown:
putting pins in a sulfuric cell. the pins I have I seperate into full plate (plating under the solder) and half plate (obvious that plating dosn't go under the solder). for the full plate pins, which is sadly the smallest pile, I will of course clean off the solder with a HCl soak, but the rest of them i'm just going to run through the cell with the solder. I don't plan on letting the cell get warm, so the risk of contaminants would be small.
 
Ok , I soaked the pins in a warm HCL bath and then placed them in a elec cell. No I am happy to say that the mess of thick black mud was not here this time (thank you all for that). However the fallout (after smb) was a small amount of a mixture of dark black and a greyish powder. The solution itself is now an ocean water blue.
What would be left in the solution? And the powder I ended up with should still be cleaned with hcl correct?
 
SMB? you used SMB on the solution from the stripping cell? if i read this right, you dont need SMB in the use of a sulfuric stripping cell. during operation of the cell, the gold will self precipitate out of solution as a black powder that is slow to settle in its concentrated state (several days). if you dilute the sulfuric (add acid to water and never water to acid) by as much as X4 with water it will settle in a few hours. no SMB needed. as matter of fact, adding SMB may complicate the recovery. im not sure about that as ive never added any to my electrolyte before.
 
Guess I was just excited to get it done quicker. But when solution from cell was poured off it was a heavy brown substance. Guess maybe I just need to be more patient and wait a couple days before pouring it off then.
 
I'll do that . And mainly because you have proved to me to be a knowlegable and trusted source of information GEO. And for that I truly thank you.
 
ritehere! SLOW DOWN :!: Your gold is not going anywhere. Take one step at a time. Listen to Geos' directions and if in doubt, ask before proceeding. You mix the wrong chems together and it could get ugly!
 
Have to protest a little: Pins are very often tin-plated! So even if you cut them with pliers, there still will be Sn around..
After the HCl bath you can remove the black cementation at the goldplated areas of the pins with a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner in warm water.
 

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