charles20212 said:
hello guys Im new here and Im new to the whole refining situation but it seems very interesting and one could make a living off of it so here is my question
could you guy give me an easy o follow step by step to refining and melting gold off of computer parts and i found an auction what of you guys thing the amount of gold it would yield
You should really read C. M. Hoke, refining precious metal waste, before you do anything. You will understand at the very least the correct terms to use so that you can effectively communicate with all of us here on the forum. It will enable us to help you when you run into problems. There are other things you should do as well. I took this from another members signature "Palladium" so the credit goes to him. Here are some links you should look up, read, and fully digest before you ever attempt to process anything, let alone purchase anything from eBay to process.
1. Refining Precious Metal Wastes C.M. Hoke http://tinyurl.com/mfnyhs
(REV) (Free Download)
2. Get the (FREE) Gold Refining Forum Handbook VOL 1 here >> http://tinyurl.com/nyutnp
3. Get the (FREE) Gold Refining Forum Handbook VOL 2 (Final) here >> http://tinyurl.com/y9w5y73
4. Chemistry Handbooks Here (FREE) >> http://tinyurl.com/n27pqu
ALL FREE-----ALL THE TIME
So far as your eBay auctions go, here is my opinion for whatever it's worth. Perhaps some other members will join in and give their own two cents.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-50-Green-Fiber-AMD-CPUs-for-Gold-Scrap-/200824974434?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec219ec62
The only real value is in the gold plating in the pins. If you can imagine how little .01 grams is, you are well on your way to understanding exactly how much gold fiber CPU's do not have. There is information on the forum how to process them. The pins themselves are gold plated over either Kovar, or Iron, which can cause problems when trying to process. If you were to figure out exactly how much Au you would get off 50 CPUs, you can figure it kind of like this. 10 CPU's for every .1 gram, or around there. But lets say you get .2 grams, just for arguments sake, that's assuming that your chips are worth twice as much as they really are. So you would multiply 50 chips x .02 per chip Au = 1g Au which according to today's spot price, is really only worth about $57.00. Even if you made $57.00 on the lot, you paid $37.00 for the lot which leaves you $20.00, but then you have the cost of the equipment, time, acids, etc. Is it really worth the hours of time to process? The actual reality is that you will probably make about 28-35 dollars processing it. Which is most likely the very reason the person is asking $37.00, because it's slightly more than what he would get if he processed them material himself.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mixed-lot-of-non-working-Memory-sticks-for-scrap-gold-recovery-/180982190864?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a23611310
This is a far more difficult lot to advice on the actual value. Most of the value is in the chips themselves, but to process they have to be removed from the green board, then incinerated, pulverized or wet ashed (I am by no means recommending wet ashing). Each one of those processes require either a very dangerous process or at the very least an investment in equipment, or in building the equipment required. The finger boards on these, meaning the part of the board that connects to the mother board with all the connecters on it, may or may not be gold. The picture isn't clear at all. They could also be silver, or tin. I have seen all three used, and copper. So you really cannot tell what type of precious metals might be in the fingerboard part, if you were serious about buying these, I would ask for better pictures. There is another problem with this lot, when you look at the picture, you can see some of the memory boards have a cover over the chips. This adds to the weight, if they were selling by weight but they are selling by number of chips. That extra piece has to be removed, it may or may not be aluminum, or stainless steel, or tin.
To make a long story short, I personally wouldn't buy either of these lots off eBay. In both, considering you are just starting out, neither would make you any money, you would probably loose money attempting to process them.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :mrgreen:
Scott
