Gold inside chips (black, flatpacks - not CPU)

[jimdoc]

Bye Spammer.

Quite right!
Thanks, Jim.

Harold

 

[Geo]

interesting link in your signature line. there is a Kitco ticker showing spot prices at the bottom of the page. is that a news channel in pakistan?

 

[Geo]

im not sure its spam.

 

[jimdoc]

im not sure its spam.

I bet that it is.

If it isn't its his day job, and he forgot to stop posting like a spammer when he got here.
Generic statement along with hot link within 10 minutes of joining is usually a bad sign.

Jim

 

[Claudie]

Pat, I finally got a chance yesterday to give incenarating a chance. I read the information that you've shared & also Samuel's & Kuma's.

I'll be posting the steps & also some pic's, thus sharing what I experienced thru the process.
I used of the B-B-Q's we don't use, (we have 2 more), fired up the charcoal & also a propane torch. After close to an hour they were ready for the mortar.

The pic is from 1.4# of ram chips.

Thank you & take care!

Phil

Is that a stainless steel wash basin that you are using to hold the IC packages?

 

[philddreamer]

Hi Claudie!

Is that a stainless steel wash basin that you are using to hold the IC packages?

No, it's a porcelain coated pan. After putting the chips in my S.S. I noticed the chips were stacked up in it, so I decide to use something with more flat area. It worked good. I tried the other day the S.S. bowl, & I was right, the chips take longer to incinerate. I like to spread them out on a flat surface with more area.

Phil

 

[Claudie]

Thank you for clarifying that for me. Sometimes it's hard to know for sure what something is by looking at the pictures.
The weather is warming up here so maybe I can get out and try some of this on my own.

 

[gmiller]

"Geo"said: "since hcl and nitrate is relatively inexpensive, i was considering using poor mans AR to remove the legs from the IC's before incineration.this would quickly remove alot of unwanted metal before the process even begins and because your incinerating anyway there's no problem moving to AP to remove more unwanted metal after incineration.just trying to nail down a process that can be the quickest and least troublesome."

Why bother with AR to remove your unwanted metals, when HCL alone will do the same thing with less expense? You can stll move on to Ap straight from HCL since HCL is a componant of AP.

Just my thoughts on the process.

BTW a great post, thanks

Gary

 

[patnor1011]

Time-wise AR is faster than HCl. Since I am pedant and have all the time in a world for my hobby I cut them by stainless blade - the one used for carpets. It is quick and remove unwanted metal too. :lol:

 

[Geo]

"Geo"said: "since hcl and nitrate is relatively inexpensive, i was considering using poor mans AR to remove the legs from the IC's before incineration.this would quickly remove alot of unwanted metal before the process even begins and because your incinerating anyway there's no problem moving to AP to remove more unwanted metal after incineration.just trying to nail down a process that can be the quickest and least troublesome."

Why bother with AR to remove your unwanted metals, when HCL alone will do the same thing with less expense? You can stll move on to Ap straight from HCL since HCL is a componant of AP.

Just my thoughts on the process.

BTW a great post, thanks

Gary

when im dealing with many pounds of material, i like to remove as much base metal as quickly as possible. the legs on the IC chips is a large percentage of the base metal weight. by using a small amount of hcl and sodium nitrate, i can remove almost half of my base metal weight in a matter of a couple of hours. then when i incinerate the chips it removes all traces of the nitrates and leaves me with just the metal inside the chip to deal with. about 90% of the chips i have may have tin plated legs but have gold plating inside the plastic body excluding bonding wires and pad. everyone has their own style and preferences with which process works for them and for me, well, this keeps my solution nice and clean with alot less copper and tin to deal with.

 

[Anonymous]

I use an electric tool called a "multi-purpose ocillating tool. It has a flat blade about 1 1/2" wide and runs at 21,000 oscillations per minute (opm).
By using the tool I can do a ram card (where there are NO legs on the flatpacks) in about 2 seconds and the flatpacks with legs on a ram card takes between 3-4 seconds. After about 20 flatpacks, you can see the build-up of legs on the table, so it is accomplishing some of what Pat was wanting in getting rid of the legs during this process but I would have to agree that it doesn't get rid of ALL the legs. Still, it is lopping off probably 50% of them in the process of cutting the flatpack away from the card.

If you could get a 1" or 1 1/4" blade (sightly narrower than my current 1and 1/2" blade) it might work better. It seems when I slip a bit when getting started on each card, I sometimes slip over the gold foils and trim a bit off by mistake. Just need to get steadier in my use of the tool.

Please be careful to wear gloves as always and understand that this tool can cut your finger inside the glove without actually cutting the leather glove. Also wear safety goggles with any automatic machine because some of the "stuff" flys off the board a bit and you will want to still have your sight for the next batch tomorrow.

Hope this is helpful to some of you out there.

Is the tool here what could be used:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genesis-GMT15A-Multi-Purpose-Oscillating-Tool-/140596646500?pt=Small_Kitchen_Appliances_US&hash=item20bc369264


Thanks

 

[patnor1011]

I use an electric tool called a "multi-purpose ocillating tool. It has a flat blade about 1 1/2" wide and runs at 21,000 oscillations per minute (opm).
By using the tool I can do a ram card (where there are NO legs on the flatpacks) in about 2 seconds and the flatpacks with legs on a ram card takes between 3-4 seconds. After about 20 flatpacks, you can see the build-up of legs on the table, so it is accomplishing some of what Pat was wanting in getting rid of the legs during this process but I would have to agree that it doesn't get rid of ALL the legs. Still, it is lopping off probably 50% of them in the process of cutting the flatpack away from the card.

If you could get a 1" or 1 1/4" blade (sightly narrower than my current 1and 1/2" blade) it might work better. It seems when I slip a bit when getting started on each card, I sometimes slip over the gold foils and trim a bit off by mistake. Just need to get steadier in my use of the tool.

Please be careful to wear gloves as always and understand that this tool can cut your finger inside the glove without actually cutting the leather glove. Also wear safety goggles with any automatic machine because some of the "stuff" flys off the board a bit and you will want to still have your sight for the next batch tomorrow.

Hope this is helpful to some of you out there.

Is the tool here what could be used:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genesis-GMT15A-Multi-Purpose-Oscillating-Tool-/140596646500?pt=Small_Kitchen_Appliances_US&hash=item20bc369264


Thanks

We are looking for method which will make process faster and eliminate some hazards. I do have a lot of time so some of my methods are suitable for smaller lots. I did say few times that I cut chips off board with blade which reduce unwanted metal to some extent but it is time consuming. Not applicable for older chips with less legs which are thicker unless you are some kind of bodybuilder
I was thinking that maybe heatgun for desoldering them and then they can be placed to some type of SSN leach to cut on chemicals cost - salt is not that expensive. Maybe saturated salt solution with HNO3 ratio 10:1 and legs will be dissolved with values inside chip untouched. Then rinse and pyrolysis-incineration. I will do some tests with different SSN leach ratios next week.

 

[Claudie]

I have one of these: http://www.harborfreight.com/plastic-welding-kit-with-adjustable-temperature-96464.html

I have never used it to depopulate boards before but I saw it on the work bench the other day and thought "Hey, that would work to melt the solder and remove surface mount devices!". I don't have electricity in the shop yet so I will have to wait until it dries up and warms up here a little to try it. :|

 

[acpeacemaker]

I was going to post this a while back and didn't get the chance. It's somewhat crude but does work. Made from concrete with a couple of 3 gallon buckets. The outer wall sits on shims to allow the coal to breathe. Then the pot sits directly on the coals leaving a little over a half inch gap around the rim to breathe. Coals are put in the pot as well. I haven't ever really had any problems with plastic smells and I live 3 houses down from a fire chief. Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you to the people like Pat and Sam, and many others that have inspired me. -Andrew

 

[Acid_Bath76]

Yesterday I ashed out a very very small amount of IC's. I've been collecting IC's for a while now, and just throw them all in a large bucket as I strip material. I picked seven or eight different looking IC's for some variety, and fired up the BBQ pit. The BBQ pit has been promoted to the designated IC burnout pit. The IC's weighed in at a meager 34.2g after incineration, and the mass includes the ash. I do not have yield data yet.

 

[Geo]

thats a dirty solution. did you reprocess?

 

[patnor1011]

Yesterday I ashed out a very very small amount of IC's. I've been collecting IC's for a while now, and just throw them all in a large bucket as I strip material. I picked seven or eight different looking IC's for some variety, and fired up the BBQ pit. The BBQ pit has been promoted to the designated IC burnout pit. The IC's weighed in at a meager 34.2g after incineration, and the mass includes the ash. I do not have yield data yet, but the attached picture is really exciting. I was not expecting this. Patnor recovered around 10g from 14kg, so I was expecting a little dust if anything. Something tells me I didn't do something right. The only thing I did differently was avoid moving the material as much as possible. Because the wires and garnish are so tiny, I gave the cooked IC's a good shake and ran a magnet through the material. Filled the beaker with cold water, gave it a good stir to expose as much as possible, let the goods settle, and then carefully poured off as much fluid as I could without potentially losing any material. I processed the material in poor man's AR, and the pic was taken after de-noxing, and precipitation. I forgot to mention, I tested with stannous, and it tested positive for Au. I'm curious what you think. I'm still scratching my head.

It was actually 10,2g from 7 kilograms chips and that 10,2g comes from lose bonding wire only. All metallic parts and pins from inside with gold plating, some Ag and Pd are still being processed unfortunately I chose slow method - they sit in plastic jar in small bit of water slowly rusting out

 

[Acid_Bath76]

Woops. Sorry Patnor. My numbers were off. As for the solution. Yes, it is pretty dirty, but I can work with that. Once the precipitant has settled, I'll clean the powders and see what I'm left with. Since that last picture was taken, a lot more has settled. After cleaning the powders, the yield is still somewhat inflated. I'm going to check this out a little more before I post anything else.

 

[Dude4ever]

Hi patnor, just a little question to your guide, I've read this post and your PDF guide, but I could not find if you just pour out the water from the washes or doing something else, leaving the heavier gold at the bottom? I mean, it is a pretty grey/dark solution, so how is it you control that you don't pour out gold with the washes? Sorry if it's adressed here somewhere, I could have missed it, but nice if you could explain the washes a little more

 

[patnor1011]

Most of gold in there is in form of bonding wires. Say over 90%. Rest is as plating on pins and plating on silicone chip. I think that there may be some super fine flakes or powder from crushed silicone chip and they may float or take too long to settle but that may be so tiny amount not worth chasing so yes, I do pour that water away as it is just what it is - dirty stained water. If you adjust flow correctly then you can be sure that you pour off water and dirt only and wires and small flakes stays at bottom. That is like first cleaning, second is bit harder, your panning technique must be pretty good as single pieces of wire are barely visible, only when accumulated and you want to separate them from metallic pins.