Help needed

[maltfoudy]

i have about 3 tons of old telecom boards to recycle dating from 1972-1984 my wife and i have been removing some of the millions of pins and connectors we have about 35 lbs of cleaned pins but have found this very time consuming,many of the boards have wire wrap on the pins and take a long time to get out,we have not even put a dent in the huge pile of boards and have not even started on the edge connectors or what other metals could be in and on these boards.

need best way to do edge gold removal?prefer to break them off and dissolve the remaining board?
best way to recover gold from the plated stuff we already have?
how to identify tantalum and who to sell it to?
better way to recover these wire wrapped pins? some are in fiberglass green boards,most are a yellow/gold boards and a heavy plastic or nylon about 3/4 inch thick with 200 gold pins and 1000 silver color pins in each with 2 wires wrapped on every pin?
i have ordered a test kit for gold,silver and plats


i am not afraid to do the work,but i am tired of buying material that doesn't help or is so misleading that you cannot follow it.

 

[Shaul]

To get a better idea of what you're dealing with and how best to help you, try posting photos.

There's a lot of excellent people here ready to help you solve your problems, but many times they can be resolved by just using the Search function.

Read, read, read, read, read.

Welcome to the forum.


Shaul

 

[Scott2357]

Welcome!

Stannous chloride will let you test for gold, platinum and palladium. You can make it yourself from muratic acid and lead-free plumber's solder. Both are available at your local building supply store. Search the forum for recipe instructions and use.

Get Hoke's book... and read it.

 

[maltfoudy]

i have been reading intently,i learned that monolithic caps need to be saved,these boards are loaded with large ones and i really enjoyed the article on CuSO4 and hydrogen peroxide as a way to do this,i am learning,would just like a friendly finger to point me in the right direction not the usual middle finger i get and a bill from paypal.......lol i really like this site and hope to learn much more any help would be great and thanx for your time.

 

[NuggetHuntingFool]

I bet if the lot was large enough, somebody here would refine those for you.

Also, beware of the dangers of the heavy metals on all of that stuff. You will definitely get HUGE fines if you're caught disposing of it improperly.


Good Luck!

 

[maltfoudy]

thanx for the warning,i have already removed about 10 lbs of wetted mercury switchs so they will not be put in any kind of acid solution,i am being very careful in what i do and plan to refine these board fully,not just **** them for the gold, i want to get the pgm's,gold,silver,tantalum,copper,tin,lead, aluminum and any other recoverable metals so when i'm done my bill to dispose of the waste boards will be as low as possible,i have a place that process's the hazmat waste and they charge by the pound so i want as little weight as possible when i'm done. i do oilfield hazmat clean-up so i'm used to dealing with hazmat waste and where to take it and use MSDS everyday. thanx for the response.