Gold inside chips (black, flatpacks - not CPU)

[bmgold2]

Use whatever works for you but my thought is that the more money you spend on equipment, the less profit you get to keep. Of course, if something increases your efficiency or speed things up...Just giving another option to think about.

No you got it the wrong way around. The more you spend on your equipment the more of the profit you get to keep.

In the long term of course and not initially but it pays dividends to have high quality equipment.

I'm assuming here that you're doing this for a profit and therefore you have a replenishing supply to refine.

That's where my situation is different. I'm only (still) doing this as a hobby and learning experience so you are right. If doing this for profit, especially when speed matters, then the better equipment would eventually pay off. That's assuming that the equipment is actually faster and/or more efficient. Homemade tools can take some time to perfect but they might work just as well as the store bought tools. Maybe better if built and adjusted to do exactly what you need. You're probably safe buying a proven piece of equipment but it will still need to be set up right and adjusted to the material being run. I'm assuming we were talking about a blue bowl type of concentrator. I haven't used one but from what I have seen, they are not the fastest method. Time is money right? I could be wrong though, ashes would be a lot lighter than the black sand they usually have to separate the gold from.

 

[patnor1011]

Picture of what I started with is on previous page.

picture 001 --- some of the BGA after incineration, Si die removed
picture 002 --- setup for first crushing and sieving
picture 003 --- small mortar&pestle
picture 004 --- material after first sieving

 

[patnor1011]

picture 005 --- material ready to wash, after second sieving with fine sieve
picture 006 --- coarse material from fine sieving which is going to be crushed again in mortar&pestle
picture 007 --- gold wires started accumulating after shaking container in circular motion (still dry)
picture 008 --- accumulated wires removed from container prior second crushing, these will be treated with nitric to remove copper traces and added to wires washed from crushed material.

More pictures coming soon.

 

[maynman1751]

Great pics Pat! You da Man!!!!!!

 

[patnor1011]

See that Haribo container? There were 3 of them full. My process may be slow I just try to do everything very carefully as I hate to lose even single bonding wire. However I improved washing - from gold pan to two stage sluice, one smaller (thin, long) one bigger (shorter but more wide) I will post some pictures tomorrow.
I use pump to circulate the same water going through cloth filter to catch mud but power supply failed so I have to do it with water from mains directly. Cant wait week for another power supply owner of them is waiting.

 

[samuel-a]

Pat,

I have tried incinirated chips through the Blow Bowl... so far not very impressive. The gold wires tends to break while crushing and the small wire particles tesnd to float. have you noticed that as well ?

p.s. - I hope you wear respirator while working with all of these fine powders.

 

[patnor1011]

Yeah, the same happened to me, I had water running too fast on my sluice and some fine wires were carried away. I had big box to catch everything so nothing is lost I just have to run material again. I managed to run only about quarter and even that need to be run again. I will post pictures later on.

 

[chambersjr]

Wondering if anyone has experience with the chips shown below. Should these be processed using Patnor's process?

These chips are from 90's Silicon Graphics boards.

They seem similar to bridge ic's, but are white with a thin copper top plate over what appears to be a small "black top" part as are common in bridge chips, only these are smaller. Under the "black top" part is another thin copper plate, followed by what i think is double sided tape (seems similar to athletic tape?). What I found on the underside of the tape, between it and the pcb, is what has me baffled...it's a gold foil that mirrors the chip in size and is easily peeled from the board. The best way I can describe how it is attached is it reminds me of separating items that are velcroed together.

 

[patnor1011]

Separate that foil and process in AP. That part with that black square epoxy will most likely contain bonding wires. It is very easy to find out, just incinerate one, crush. Wet crushed powder on some black surface and check with loupe. You should see wires if they are there.

 

[patnor1011]

If you ever wondered what is in s/n bridge BGA IC chip solder balls, I had one sample analysed recently.
I was intrigued to see if there is indium present as was mentioned in some thread here but unfortunately my sample did not contain any.
Enjoy.

 

[solar_plasma]

that's 20g silver and 2g gold per kg... :shock:

Did you collect the solder by scraping or melting?

I wonder, if something like this method would be the way of choice: http://www.matarka.hu/koz/ISSN_2063.../ISSN_2063-6792_vol_37_2_2012_eng_019-026.pdf
(electrorefining the crude tin in HCl-SnCl2-electrolyte, Ag, Au and Pb are collected in the slimes and the cathode tin contains only 1/50 of the contaminants in the anode)

 

[kjavanb123]

Patnor,

I also got very curios, is this analysis for solder balls under the N/S bridges?

Thanks
Kevin

 

[maynman1751]

that's 20g silver and 2g gold per kg... :shock:

Did you collect the solder by scraping or melting?

I wonder, if something like this method would be the way of choice: http://www.matarka.hu/koz/ISSN_2063.../ISSN_2063-6792_vol_37_2_2012_eng_019-026.pdf
(electrorefining the crude tin in HCl-SnCl2-electrolyte, Ag, Au and Pb are collected in the slimes and the cathode tin contains only 1/50 of the contaminants in the anode)

Very interesting process. It would be cool to do if you had the materials and knowledge. Thanks Solar!

 

[patnor1011]

I harvested it by scrapping and with heat gun too. I scraped or heated chips only. I mean all what was analyzed was taken out of chip not from boards.
That sample was few grams out of few kilogram pile I managed to save during few years. I was wondering about what to do with it as I accumulated quite a lot. Plan was to make some fish lures for mackerel as tin is shiny, silvery but now I would be more inclined to find out if there is some inexpensive way to get that silver and gold out of it.
Kevin, it was exactly that - solder balls from s/n bridges, the same as I processed in my second ebook.

 

[joubjonn]

Very nice info Patnor, thank you for sharing!!

i also save a bit of solder when i can!

 

[stardust18]

It really depend on amount. I did batches of kilograms in simple pan. Now I work on bigger batches so I had to scale up.
Something like Miller table will be nice to have, I now build sluice for separating ashes from wires. Rubber mat with rivets and small pump for recycling used water.
I am now working on this lot. Almost 14 kilograms of beauty.

Hello everyone. Venerable patnor 1011 ask if it is possible to put a photo of your washing plants for ash from the chips. With gratitude.

 

[joubjonn]

I think he did on another thread for chips. He uses a corregated plastic drain pipe. Something like 4in or 6in with half of it cut. It's pretty simple to do. Just need a pump to circulate the Water

 

[patnor1011]

I did not take picture of whole setup operating but it is one big barrel to catch waste water and values which may be washed out. I run material 2/3 times. Then roof drain plastic pipe with rubber matting with riffles glued to bottom of that plastic pipe. And pump for circulating water from barrel to roof drain pipe sluice.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=20428#p209816

 

[stardust18]

I did not take picture of whole setup operating but it is one big barrel to catch waste water and values which may be washed out. I run material 2/3 times. Then roof drain plastic pipe with rubber matting with riffles glued to bottom of that plastic pipe. And pump for circulating water from barrel to roof drain pipe sluice.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=20428#p209816

I think he did on another thread for chips. He uses a corregated plastic drain pipe. Something like 4in or 6in with half of it cut. It's pretty simple to do. Just need a pump to circulate the Water

Thank you very much, I now come to the stage of metal recovery from TSV solution, much became clear When the soaps and virtually separated unnecessary material.Esche thanks again.

 

[joubjonn]

One tip could be to glue a couple hard drive magnets to the back of the drain pipe. Then when you do your cleanup of concentrate any mag pieces can be separated and you can go straight to AR for the gold wires. I'm sure you may have a small amount of copper present but that wouldn't ruin your day.