floppy disks and cds

[jimmy759]

I'm almost positive that the metal parts on a floppy disk are some form of stainless steel.
I have a bin for stainless steel and a bunch of old usless floppys so i'm gonna seprate the steel from the plastic.

But does anyone know if there is anything in the actually disk inside the floppy. a PM perhaps?

Also is there any way to seperate the the aluminum foild from a cd that would make it profitable to hang on to them.

And wouldn't the plastic be worth something to the right buyer if it was free of aluminum?

I wanna find a way to completly salvage everything that I can from a computer.

Any ideas tips or added knowledge would be good for eveyone.

 

[tyoon21]

Hi Jimmy...thought I would refresh this post as I am a huge environmentalist and also try to recycle everything in a computer.

From what I can tell, the floppy drives are not stainless steel. A test that someone told me to do is to put a magnet to it (I use a magnet from an old hard drive that I salvaged). If it sticks, it generally isn't stainless steel. A couple of scrap metal buyers I have talked to said that they initally separate metals with a magnet. The price you get is much lower for steel that is attracted to magnets. Currently, I found once place that pays $6.85 per 100 pounds. Although that seems like a lot of weight, keep in mind that computer cases also fall in this category and they can be fairly heavy. Just make sure that you strip all the plastic from it.

I did find some copper wiring in the floppy drive. I put a picture of it in another post. Maybe that is worth something?

Hard drive cases are usually aluminum. Aside from the platter, I found some random parts which may be of interest. There are some magnets in there which are fun to play around with and are great for holding tools. Also I found that the arm mechanim contains copper wire. I'll post a pic later when I get another I can scrap.

As for the plastic. Most of it is marked as "7" or otherwise known as the "other" category. I don't know of many places that will take this form of plastic as it is usually very difficult to process. I also think that places that would take it would require a large lot and would compensate very little.

Hope this helps. I'll post more as I further get into computer dissecting.

Peace,
Tom

 

[jimmy759]

see i have tryed the magnet test with the end sliders of floppy disks and the center rings and have had no attraction which would proove they are stainless stell also considering some of the environments they are in here they do not rust further prooving my enitial statement.

I sort most products i disasemble for scrap i have over 200lbs of aluminum at the moment and about 200 pouns of assorted copper. i haven't gotten into the golds i have saved up yet but hopefully soon i can get into it.

as for stainless steel last time a ichecked we were getting .50 cents a lb for it and alluminum unsorted was .67 cents a pound.

steel unsorted we get .035 cents a pound or $65 a ton

i just dont have the room to store the steel so i dont save unless i get a whole wack at once.

 

[blueduck]

If you are asking of the slider piece on a floppy disk, that if I am not incorrect is aluminum....

Some of the older CDs I used to burn data to were called platinum/platinum as opposed to the gold or silver or green or blue colors which at the time were graded according to the color and would invariably preform according to the color scale PT/PT being the best with gold next and then silver and the green and then blue.... Whether or not there was actual precious metals used to the fabrication of those older disks I cannot say... its been asked before and I answered similarly..... And I know i have some of those data disks around from back in the day, but to go through my data and look at the disks for possible recovery tests and then to figure out if the data is still needed or may one day be useful again.... is time consuming at best... and one for the i will get a "round tuit" one day [ok my wife brought me home a "round tuit" the other day and tolld me "i had better" since i now had one]

anyhow there is so much non metal in volume on a cd that it may be one of those future things to process out when a new discovery is made in the "how-to" world of extraction.....

William