Flatpack gold corner--worth stripping off by hand?

[Chumbawamba]

Hello, I'm new, will do a proper intro later. The basics: I'm an electronics recycler and computer collector in California. I've been accumulating gold scrap from all the boards I get through my operation for about a year now.

I'm currently trying to accumulate 1 ton of PCBs to take to a local refiner which says they will give me the resulting metal rather than cash (paper is useless/worthless to me). In the meantime I'm taking the easy pickings for myself to process on my own. This includes the gold fingers and any other nice patches of gold plate on all the boards I process.

I have a billion questions but I'll just start with one: is it worth my time to scrape the gold corner off of flatpacks? It seems to be more work than it's worth and is slow-going, but again I'm going for easy pickings. I use my knife to lift up the corner then snap it off. Sometimes it comes willingly, other times it requires more convincing. I figure I'll add these to my gold fingers but if they're the same thickness as typical gold fingers then I think I'm wasting my precious time. I'm guessing it would be more worthwhile to save them for the refiner.

Another thing I've been wondering about: I'm also accumulating easy to remove pins and other gold-plated connectors on various boards (like the coax connectors for wireless LAN cards). I've been keeping these separate from my gold fingers, thinking that either one or the other will be easier to process and have a higher yield. Would it be the gold fingers since they have less base metal to deal with? Or will the gold-plated pins and connectors be easier to process?

Thanks a billion for this excellent resource. I plan to be a regular here, if only I can find the time regularly.

 

[nicknitro]

Check out LazeSteve's Site . He has many videos on the subjects you have posted. I would probably not say one process is easier than the other from what you sound like you are planning. But I would deffinitely recommend you use each process for the effect that it was intended. With the fingers, use a acip peroxide leech to eliminate the metals holding the gold plate to the boards. With your plated pins and the Net gear thingy, look into Lazer Steves reverse plateing cell, which does the opposite, by removeing the plateing into solutionm while leaveing the base metals intact. Mostly. When you think "Refining" think first safety, then "Purifying"
:lol:

 

[patnor1011]

Also few people here collecting whole of that flatpack with golden corner. When you try to crush some you will see thet there are some fine hair like wires in gold colour - all inside flatpack.