Gold Plated Boards in Thermostats

[kane333]

My next door neighbor owns an HVACR company that he runs out of his house. He's made a deal with my gf's son, James, to get rid of the scrap. He just gives James old Condensing Units and Coils that he's replaced with new ones. James removes the coils from the Condensing Units to maximize his returns. He just started this 3 weeks ago and already scrapped 9 units. Not bad for free stuff. And the scrap yard is about 10 minutes up the road so travel time is minimal. During all this, the neighbor gave James a box of older used digital thermostats and he set them by my electronics scrap but I didn't bother looking at them too hard since most of it looked like low grade boards. Then I took three Honeywell Stats apart tonight and this is what I found.

I put them on a bed of sand in a PyroCeram dish on my hot plate to remove the components. A good soaking in HCL should remove solder. These will be added to my fingers collection. I hope to get more of these freebies from the neighbor.

 

[ilikesilver]

well look at that, something new to keep a eye out for. thank you

 

[3710jack]

a lot of digital HVAC controllers have gold plated boards especially high end gear like daikin.
the old air conditioner controllers have a really heavy plating under the 'slidey' buttons