How do I start with this?

[Jmell]

I'm new and have started with cut off fingers and I'm working my way through those. I have about 3/4 of a 55Gal drum of what looks to be ground up memory boards. Looks like they were screened at 1/4 in anyway I have a lot of power mix.
Can anyone tell me how to start getting the gold out of them?

 

[patnor1011]

Not easy task. Certainly not suitable at processing at home if you do not know what is in a mix. It may contain a lot of unknown dangerous substances so incinerating without proper scrubbing of fumes is out of question if you do not want to end up in hospital at least.

I see some IC packages there too. I would say that you may consider ball mill everything to reduce it to powder as much as you can. Then perhaps use water to remove some waste and I would say cyanide leach by some refinery may be the best. Do not try cyanide leach yourself.

 

[Jmell]

I was wishing something other than incinerating. I've been reading on that and for just that amount I think it would be to costly for me to do. I thinking that it is all memory boards and I do not know how much gold could be recovered by wt. of a full board.
I do have a lot more things to run and my first thinking was that if I could incinerate some of the other things maybe it would be worth will to build a system but after reading I do not know if I want to tackle a job like that.
I have 1,000 Lbs of memory cards and i'm guessing that the best way to do those is still by cutting off the fingers and doing a wash.

 

[patnor1011]

1000 pounds of RAM is nice. If you cut fingers you can still sell them for a good price. Or you can cut out or desolder black IC chips from there too. You can either process them, method is in my signature line or you can sell them and let somebody else do recovery.

With that milled material I would probably mill that more. Then try to sieve - separate somehow like using magnet, to sample that separated types - you have enough of that so you may want to have some sort of assay done to know what is and what is not in there.

 

[Jmell]

I had an offer of .30 and .60 a stick they are 1&2 gig stick both short and long sticks but I though that recovery was the best way to recovery more money. I have a very large stock of computer boards that I'll cut all the visible gold off for recovery. I'll put the chips into that load. If you have enough to send off for recovery you get paid for more PM plus copper.
Copper alone can cover the fee charge. Trying to pull all the PM from those are way over my head.
I do want to pull as much gold as I can myself.
Why? Because I'm a gold hound and can sell that as fast or as slow as I need.

Wish I knew the break every price on that memory. Even then I've found out that as the price of gold went up the builders found out how to put on less and less. In the computer sales I remember when video cards started to show up that said you could only put it in and out of a slot 5 times before it rubbed off the gold and caused trouble.
In other words what looks Like great gold can be just a very very thin flash of the eye.

Gold planner

 

[Jmell]

Patnor1011.... I read your links about the burnt chips. I'm sure that I can get coal in my area. I'll check.
As I remember I have a lot of unmourned black chips that were never installed. They are still balled.
Is that something I need to worry about? I would also want to search on building a ball mill. I have to much to try any other way.

Thanks for the input.

As a gold paner it raced my heart to see gold in a pan.

 

[patnor1011]

My only concern is that you said you dont know what else is in crushed material. Some boards may contain flame retardants and unknown chemicals. Also there is too much stuff involved on your side. I did several kilograms for sake of that experiment but mind you I did very big fire and pyrolyzed only about 100-150 grams of chips at a time. Every batch was in fire for up to 20 minutes. In that case I was able to reduce them to ash with no visible fumes, not a smell, nothing. In your case there is way too much of material to process without means to scrub fumes. My chips were not burning - they glowed like.
You may want to implement some sort of device to catch fumes with additional burner so output will be minimal. Something like waste incineration plants have in place.

 

[Jmell]

What about these chips? They are small ceramic chips. I have 500 or so of them way to many to try to remove the gold plate by hand. I guess that a ball or hammer mill is about the only way to get them to powder. Then do a leach to pull out the gold.

 

[Jmell]

I have a lot of AP so I was thinking that it would be best to strip as much gold as I can before I crush them. That way it will be easer to clean at least half the gold from the chips without having to dealing with all the small chip parts. I'll post what happens.

 

[etack]

I ran some of those chips and got about 20g a pound. they may also have a collector value. My chips where not new. I used straight AR lid and all. Taking the lids off all of them would suck cause they are so small.

I only ran 8 oz of them. Yours are new they should run higher maybe/hopefully. :lol:

I bought the two boards when I first thought of refining gold from computers for 100.00 US and my wife about fell over, but the ten grams really helped out with all of the complaining. :lol:

Eric

Added red

 

[Jmell]

A little green stuff always helps cool things on the home front.
I poped the top on one and looks like almost half the gold would be on the inside and on the back of the top plate. I just don't know how to break open and still use AP to get the gold. You wind up trying to get the gold flakes away from the little chip pieces.
I'm reading like mad about grinders and Pulverizer now.
Anyone that has tried this please provide links for info. I'm searching all the words that I can think of and reading all that I find.
Thanks

 

[jeneje]

A little green stuff always helps cool things on the home front.
I poped the top on one and looks like almost half the gold would be on the inside and on the back of the top plate. I just don't know how to break open and still use AP to get the gold. You wind up trying to get the gold flakes away from the little chip pieces.
I'm reading like mad about grinders and Pulverizer now.
Anyone that has tried this please provide links for info. I'm searching all the words that I can think of and reading all that I find.
Thanks

Jmell, don't know if this will help you but i use this viberating rock tumbler from harbor frieght to crush ceramic chip. It works great with marbles as the media. Grinds it to dust.
Ken

 

[Jmell]

All my reading about grinding the Chips I find that not to many agree either to grind or not to grind. I've never done eather.
I'm so new at this. I have 4lbs working in AP to see what happens. I wonder if the AP will leach under the plate enough to drop the plate away from the chip. If so I want see a big need to grind it but if not I'll have to find a way to at least break it in half so the AP will work on the gold on the inside. I'll know more tomorrow.
Thanks

 

[Jmell]

Ken would you share how you process your powder. If you look at my first pic on this post i need to get the gold out I've located a rock Pulverizer that I'm sure will bring this to dust. I'm not sure how this would work on CPU's as the input hole is smaller that a normal CPU. But a 800.00 Pulverizer would well be covered in the amount that I have to do. Then I could use it for other things. After all my reading I still do not have a good plain on getting the gold out of the dust. I'm off to store to get air stone for my AP.

 

[jeneje]

Ken would you share how you process your powder. If you look at my first pic on this post i need to get the gold out I've located a rock Pulverizer that I'm sure will bring this to dust. I'm not sure how this would work on CPU's as the input hole is smaller that a normal CPU. But a 800.00 Pulverizer would well be covered in the amount that I have to do. Then I could use it for other things. After all my reading I still do not have a good plain on getting the gold out of the dust. I'm off to store to get air stone for my AP.

Jmell, I must be truthful here, i think pulverizing the material will cause more issues for you. As patnor said the material needs to be incentrated and then processed.

The danger of incentrating at home without proper equipment and scrubbing the smoke with the use of an afterburner is extremely dangerous to yourself and the people around you. It can and will KILL YOU, IT IS MY ADVICE TO SEEK AN APPROVED REFINER FOR THE MATERIAL They have the equipment and safety to do the job right. They incentrate and process with HCN something we as home refiners do not have the ability to do safely.

I use the rock tumber to crush the flat black packs on a small scale. I then process with AR to remove any PM's left, but again i think you should look into someone else processing for you.

I know this is not what you want to here but its the safeist way i think.
Remember NO GOLD IS WORTH YOUR LIFE! be careful.
Ken

 

[maynman1751]

Jmell, I agree with the rest. Let someone else that is equipped handle the ground up stuff. You could process the small ceramic chips though. Just crush and process about a pound or so at a time. That would be great experience and FUN too!

 

[etack]

no crushing needed just straight AR I used poormans.

Eric

 

[jeneje]

no crushing needed just straight AR I used poormans.

Eric

Eric, if i understand right here i am grinding my flat black chips for nothing, all i need to do is put them in AR.
Ken

 

[patnor1011]

No Ken. I am not Eric but he was talking about small ceramic chips in AR - gold is there on top on plating or under lid, lid will be dissolved in AR. If you put black IC chips in AR without crushing you will not recover gold - gold is there in form of bonding wires and plating on pins inside that plastic.

 

[etack]

corrector patnor1101 I was talking about the chips in the picture. to small to decap. I still think that they will carry a premium as collector chips. yours are new..

Eric

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I guess I'm not sure how to quote a pic but it is the small gold lid chips