how long does it take you to do fingers in CuCl2

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steyr223

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 9, 2011
Messages
930
Location
Fullerton ,California. usa
How are you all doing tonight or morning
I have a question about the time it takes to do a batch
Of memory sticks in copper chlorate (A/P)

I have done 275 close cut fingers which took 2 hrs of bubbling and 4 hrs just sitting with no air

I just did 200 which I put in HCl first to rid the chips and solder , then put the memory stick boards with the fingers attached in A/P and bubbled for your only 2 hrs and they appear done

These are all Slimline pc5300 and pc6400 512mb and 1gig
I understand the fingers are much smaller than all other fingers but I would have sworn it use to take a lot longer

Anyways I am curious about all your times(how long it takes you)

Thanks steyr223 rob
 
It depends on the available oxygen. The more in the solution equals faster dissolution of the copper base metal. Also, amount of solution and temperature play a big part. I use a plastic 55 gallon drum and a medical oxygen concentrator. I can go from 200 pounds of whole populated boards to bare depopulated boards in about four days. I start with emerald green solution which foams nicely for the first day and then the solution starts turning a little cloudy so I add a half gallon of fresh HCl. In less than an hour, the solution is clear emerald color and foaming again. I use the visual cues of lack of foam and color of solution to let me know when to add more fresh HCl. The components come out clean with no pins or legs. The chips and caps are separated and the boards and plastic is stored for later copper recovery. The MLCC's come out with the foils and very small components. This gets rinsed and roasted. It goes through the blender and then AR. The silver is collected as silver chloride and gold is dropped with copperas made from dissolving the iron left from incinerating chips in dilute sulfuric acid. The solution is reduced by evaporation and left to settle. The clear liquid is collected and Pd is cemented on copper. I am trying to work out a process to work everything in from raw boards to refined gold in about a weeks time.
 
No I did not add anything.
I used the same solution I have been using for
About 4 months

If I recall even flash plating use to take 4 to 6 hrs

Side note the bucket is locked up on top of my truck so it gets about 30 miles of agitation

That's the only thing I can think of out of the ordinary
But
They have always been on top of the truck

Thanks steyr223 Rob
 
Based on what you have shared, that sounds incredibly irresponsible. What happens when you have a traffic accident?
An unsealed gallon of concentrated copper chloride is a lot of toxin.
 
Yes it agree I is dangerous . but irresponsible no
Otherwise every roof guy carrying hot tar,or those big cement trucks, or ....u get the picture

I am a professional this is what I do for a living, day in day out and have been doing for 5 years

The only incidents I have had is I put sulfuric acid in a plastic water bottle back when I first started...let's just say the car wash is part white the color of my truck

I haven't been in an auto accident nor had a ticket in 10+ years
The chemicals are in commercial grade plastic and locked in a sealed metal box that I welded myself
I figure I could flip the truck and still not have an issue

Just be happy I'm not putting out of control nitric reactions in the fridge:)

I just pulled all the foils so yes they were done in 2 hrs
Can anyone explain this....Harold,gsp,4metals,noidea
Thanks steyr223 Rob
 
Well, yes, carting chemicals around in their proper containers is one thing. But you said "bucket".

Also:
steyr223 said:
I put sulfuric acid in a plastic water bottle
Click to expand...
That would be a dangerous, reactive, toxic, clear liquid in a water bottle. See any possible problems there? It's NOT about the carwash. It's about people. Maybe kids. Even thieves.

Memo to anyone else reading:
It is extremely inadvisable to put acids in what could reasonably look like a food or drink container. Especially if it sits on the back of your truck, and could fall off. For example, at the car wash. A kid who find it, a thirsty homeless guy who thinks you won't miss one little water bottle; these people don't deserve to die for their [your] mistake.

Obviously you need to be reasonable about it. A pickle jar in your lab with the food labels removed and full of green stuff is exceedingly unlikely to be misinterpreted.
 
Copper II chloride by itself is a powerful etchant, it is first when the Cu2+ is all turned into Cu+ ions that the process is limited by oxygen absorption.

Theoretically, if you have run one batch in copper chloride and have fully rejuvenated the solution by using a bubbler, then it can dissolve an equal sized batch without any bubbler. Agitation also speeds up the process. You also need enough free HCl to dissolve any CuCl formed so it doesn't passivate the surface with a covering of undissolved CuCl.

I have removed pins from P4 CPU:s in a similar time frame with old CuCl2 but this was by cementing.

After some googling... normal etch times in acidic copper chloride is just minutes when the copper is exposed and the etch is close to optimal.
Ref, page 9 of http://www.chemcut.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Chemcut_Bulletin_8_Cupri_Chloride_Proces_-Parameters.pdf
With small or narrow gold fingers or a plating that got some damages the copper could etch quite fast.

Göran
 
Thanks Göran
I should have looked that up myself but I couldn't
Word it like you "normal etch time”
I just remember them taking so much longer , I started thinking they may have dropped the amount of applied gold like so many other PCBs have done

Jason_recliner .....

I definitely see your point ..and thank you for pointing that out for other new refiners or old refiners

As I said I have been doing this on a daily basis for up to 3 or 4 months at a time with very little time in between
There is one thing I learned very quickly as I am sure most others have ....if you don't get a sharpie and mark every single container you have you will soon ( for me very soon) be completely lost

but since you brought up the idea of them falling off the truck and they might fall into the wrong hands I am now going to mark them with triple x's and poison so even a child could understand it .thank you

Thanks everyone steyr223 Rob
 
Geo said:
It depends on the available oxygen. The more in the solution equals faster dissolution of the copper base metal. Also, amount of solution and temperature play a big part. I use a plastic 55 gallon drum and a medical oxygen concentrator. I can go from 200 pounds of whole populated boards to bare depopulated boards in about four days. I start with emerald green solution which foams nicely for the first day and then the solution starts turning a little cloudy so I add a half gallon of fresh HCl. In less than an hour, the solution is clear emerald color and foaming again. I use the visual cues of lack of foam and color of solution to let me know when to add more fresh HCl. The components come out clean with no pins or legs. The chips and caps are separated and the boards and plastic is stored for later copper recovery. The MLCC's come out with the foils and very small components. This gets rinsed and roasted. It goes through the blender and then AR. The silver is collected as silver chloride and gold is dropped with copperas made from dissolving the iron left from incinerating chips in dilute sulfuric acid. The solution is reduced by evaporation and left to settle. The clear liquid is collected and Pd is cemented on copper. I am trying to work out a process to work everything in from raw boards to refined gold in about a weeks time.
Click to expand...


Geo, that sounds like one hell of a setup you have there!

If I may ask, what kind of oxygen concentrator do you use? Could you post a pic of it and/or your setup in its entirety?

I almost picked up a portable O2 concentrator from an estate sale i bought some goldfilled at, but I thought 50 bucks was too high...after your post I started to do some research on them and now, 50 doesn't seem like alot at all.. There are a couple up locally on craigslist (about an hour away, but thats kind of "local" here) for a reasonable amount, but I wasn't sure if they would be able to cut the mustard. I worry about losing power and my UPS battery dying, then it sucking up liquid (suppose i could build another shelf)

Anyways, I was just wondering if you had additional information on the matter of O2 concentrators.

As far as how long it takes me to do AP...well, forever usually... I have fingers and sim cards in a bucket from 6 months ago.
Some green fiber processors in another one from over a year ago when i first started and knew EVERYTHING-EVER from the school of youtube.. Its my last (initial) beginner mistake(im still a beginner, so i will mess up a-Plenty more, but not nearly as bad...I hope)
 
Topher the good news is you still have your gold there somewhere, use the forum and try to work out how to get it, yours is not the first or likely to be the last time this has happened so there are posts by the hundreds to help guide you.
Good luck and post that button from these mistakes once you get them sorted.
 
nickvc said:
Topher the good news is you still have your gold there somewhere, use the forum and try to work out how to get it, yours is not the first or likely to be the last time this has happened so there are posts by the hundreds to help guide you.
Good luck and post that button from these mistakes once you get them sorted.
Click to expand...


Indeed! I most certainly will.

I have my notebook with plans on finishing that mess. Ive just been keeping busy with other "better" scrap... But who knows, with all the stuff in that bucket i botched, it could be a kilo of gold in there...and here I am being an idiot not working on it now! Once a fool always a fool :mrgreen:

I have some gold to melt now, ive just been holding off on doing it because i have 4 or 5 other things that are almost complete that I was wanting to add to it, that way my button is decent sized (decent sized for me is maybe 10 grams).

Thank you for the encouragement, I may just get a wild hair and go get on it now...or after i build some shelving for my 5 gallon buckets that i can use to easily tilt and turn them slowly so the powders on the bottom pile up and make siphoning simpler...but, I still (yes STILL) need to get my fume hood done...my brother in law had to borrow my truck "for a little bit" though, and...well, its going on 3 weeks now lol. -family, what can ya' do?!?.

I guess i really should post up a pic of some gold huh? Afterall, this is the place to do it... When I do, you must critique it for me though, since out here in the boonies i dont have access to an xrf- but, to me, the forums populous and combined expertise is far superior to an xrf gun.

-topher, the perpetually late
 
Hello everyone

Topher said:

"Ihave some gold to melt now, ive just been holding off on doing it because i have 4 or 5 other things that are almost complete that I was wanting to add to it, that way my button is decent sized (decent sized for me is maybe 10 grams)"

Hey there topher I am not sure if what u said above is a good thing about mixing things...at least my experience is mostly greif when I mix things for instance:

Of course mixing different types of scrap is not advised due to making " what went wrong" more difficult to fix but mixing scrap is sometimes necessary

Now of course no one mixes here acids or solutions from different processes ,I guess u could but if one of the processes is contaminated or ? Then all of them will be

I am actually just going through this in my head on what u would mix as I have done exactly this so what I really whant to say is when you get to your dropped powders your gold I would not mix them as for the same contamination reason

What I have done is melt a nugget and have it sitting next to my next melt and while that melt is still hot in the dish if it looks ok I add it to the melt

When you do this a few times you can really understand the different Purity's of only 1% or so when the darker nugget makes that beautiful mirrored nugget turn dark, never the other way
Point is just be carfull what you mix
I had a 10gram nugget to ,mixed ,it turned out 1gram and 82% worst I have ever done it was almost black.

Hope this helps steyr223 Rob
 
My advice for what it is worth is to work on one tub at a time, just work your way slowly through it as your doing other things, once you have concentrated your gallons of mistakes into a beaker size mistake it is easier to actually process to the end, no rush get it right and suddenly you have a clear shop for further work and hopefully a nice button 8)
 
I wasnt planning on mixing any methods up, especially scrap, ive made those mistakes.

I meant i have 4 other processes to finish up, then i will re refine that gold all together. Then melt.

Sorry I wasnt too clear with that.

Ive made plenty of messes, now i try best to avoid them...sometimes they just find me though

-topher, the ever-err'r
 
[/quote] Geo, that sounds like one hell of a setup you have there!

If I may ask, what kind of oxygen concentrator do you use? Could you post a pic of it and/or your setup in its entirety?

I almost picked up a portable O2 concentrator from an estate sale i bought some goldfilled at, but I thought 50 bucks was too high...after your post I started to do some research on them and now, 50 doesn't seem like alot at all.. There are a couple up locally on craigslist (about an hour away, but thats kind of "local" here) for a reasonable amount, but I wasn't sure if they would be able to cut the mustard. I worry about losing power and my UPS battery dying, then it sucking up liquid (suppose i could build another shelf)

Anyways, I was just wondering if you had additional information on the matter of O2 concentrators.

As far as how long it takes me to do AP...well, forever usually... I have fingers and sim cards in a bucket from 6 months ago.
Some green fiber processors in another one from over a year ago when i first started and knew EVERYTHING-EVER from the school of youtube.. Its my last (initial) beginner mistake(im still a beginner, so i will mess up a-Plenty more, but not nearly as bad...I hope)[/quote]

It is a Respironics everflow OPI. I use a thick PCB that has been through AP and drilled two quarter inch holes a couple of inches apart. I pass the open hose through one hole and bend the pipe in a "U" and pass it through the other hole. This serves as an anchor and keeps the tube on the bottom. The tube goes in the drum and the material on top of that and then the solution is added. The action is intense until all the solder is dissolved and the it starts foaming. The foam indicates that copper is dissolving.
The concentrator I use.
everflow.q.opi.philips.respironics.jpg
 

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