Gold on sound cards? Gold VS. Copper

[Anonymous]

Ok, i don't have a picture to show this, so I'm going to try and describe it. I found an old sound card today at a thrift shop. The circuit board was all gold in color on the bottom part. Is that gold? Or is it copper?

How do you identify gold vs. copper on electronics?

 

[Harold_V]

Ok, i don't have a picture to show this, so I'm going to try and describe it. I found an old sound card today at a thrift shop. The circuit board was all gold in color on the bottom part. Is that gold? Or is it copper?

How do you identify gold vs. copper on electronics?

Color alone should be adequate. Copper isn't yellow, it's pink/red or "copper" colored. Gold would be pure, or nearly so, and would be yellow. Remember that boards are often coated, so the real color may not be what you're seeing.

There are chemical tests for identifying metals. Buy Hoke's book and get educated. It will teach you how to test, how to build solutions, how to refine the values----pretty much anything you may need to know. It is written in common terms so even a person without a chemical background can understand what is being discussed.

BUY THE BOOK! It will be the best money you've spent lately. Promise!

Harold

 

[Gotrek]

You're probably talking about the soundblaster live cards. I think that coating is an annodizing. It's closer to white then yellow.

I'm not going to be the one finding out though I still use those in systems.

 

[Anonymous]

I've had a few sound cards that were gold instead of copper.

 

[aflacglobal]

Welcome to the forum Vanished.

 

[banjags]

I have a whole box full of video and sound cards that have gold plating under the solder mask. There are some sound blaster, but most of them are ensoniq which is made by sound blaster I think. The video cards are old ati rage cards.

 

[Shaul]

I've been using Steve's method of scraping around the edges of sound and video cards to see the color underneath the solder mask, and I've been finding more & more cards with gold-colored plating underneath; the same color as the plating on the fingers.


Shaul

 

[Gotrek]

This is the type of card I'm thinking off

http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/sb_live.jpg

(LARGE PICTURE)

 

[ericrm]

does anyone have dealt with those card? are they worth processing ?

 

[philddreamer]

Eric, most of those cards, if you scrape the brown mask, you'll see gold plating underneath. I don't know how thick, though. It might be worth it if you have enough of them.

Phil

 

[ericrm]

i have, like many others put them on the side 8) ,but i havent made any progress on the yield part, the only thing that i have see is how much tin the plating apear to be under the mask,practicaly white...

 

[Geo]

i toss them in with my other boards with gold traces. i have no idea about yields on these. i guess i could gather a batch and do a test. also, its not just sound cards. a large percentage of Ethernet cards have gold traces. its best to test them all.

 

[ericrm]

geo i spot them with the white shinny finger. after that i scratch them to make sure

 

[xALmoN]

Are you talking about the soundblaster cards with the whitish looking fingers?

Because I am confused as to what material those fingers are, they don't look like gold, yet they look like gold.

 

[ericrm]

basicaly is is normal finger with a gold plating so thin that you see the nickel thru it.....

 

[xALmoN]

basicaly is is normal finger with a gold plating so thin that you see the nickel thru it.....

Its somewhat like the picture I've just uploaded, if that's nickel, does that mean no AP? Though I'm sure that AP will leach it just fine.

 

[Geo]

basicaly is is normal finger with a gold plating so thin that you see the nickel thru it.....

Its somewhat like the picture I've just uploaded, if that's nickel, does that mean no AP? Though I'm sure that AP will leach it just fine.

that is a normal gold plated finger and should do fine in AP.

 

[xALmoN]

Color is very much lighter compared to ram and other pci cards though.

I'm still collecting, so, I'll worry about it come processing time. Thanks.

 

[ericrm]

what do you think about this, i have removed the solder mask of this board but forget to remove the serial number paper after the wash i discover that the gold color with less contact with the stripper was goldyer in color. could i been stripping gold without realizing it .... i have try to erase both gold color the grayer gold dosent change ,the goldyer color lower with a few stoke, could it be a bad wash(unfinnish reaction with the solder mask ?...on the other hand .the other side with the sign,the sign didnt lower in yellownes with make me beleive that the gold indeed didnt dissolve... your impression would be nice to heard of

 

[Marcel]

I had one of those. The fingers were good as usual and the plating of the rest of the PCB was flash, so it just vanished in AP. No need to say that the remaining tin added to the "pleasure".