IC Chips

[reelman65]

Hi, I have been accumulating IC Chips for a while now, and am wondering what to do with them. I have set aside the one that appear gold plated. I have a 5 gallon bucket of plain ones left over. I see that most e-waste buyers pay around $5-6/lb.

My question is if there is a variance in values for the plain IC Chips like there is with CPUs( 6/lb-130/lb), and I should go through the bucket and research the labels and ser. numbers, or if they are mostly the same.

Thanks in advance,

 

[ericrm]

i thinl like everything else that some have more gold than other and if you find the right buyer
i think you could sell close to the gold value, have you tryed ebay?

 

[reelman65]

i thinl like everything else that some have more gold than other and if you find the right buyer
i think you could sell close to the gold value, have you tryed ebay?

Not yet, just getting started.

Is it worth it to sort by type? or are they all pretty much the same?

 

[ericrm]

well
when i was selling on ebay i was always putting my cpu flat on the table ,showing each and everyone of them and taking a big picture.witch i think helped to get more money
maybe you could do the same ,or maybe make small batch and see how much each one get paid...

 

[patnor1011]

Pictures? Do you talk about CPU chips or IC chips (black plastic). If the later is the case I never saw any of them gold plated apart from few very old ones - some of them had gold plated legs.

 

[Geo]

like these?

 

[macfixer01]

like these?View attachment 3View attachment 1View attachment 2

Geo is correct. I would also add that the black chips don't have to have gold visible externally to have gold tips on the inside ends of the pins or the chip pad. Unfortunately you have to crack them open to find out. The same part-numbered chip made by a different company, or even made by the same company in a different year may not have gold inside. Some brands are better than others, Motorola and AMD chips often have gold inside, but T.I. chips most often don't. As I've said here before I crack open one of each type off a board I'm stripping. If I see gold in one then I save all the chips of that same part#, manufacturer, and similar date code from that board.

macfixer01

 

[Clneal2003]

There's a post on here stating a yield of 4.64 oz AU in 449lbs of IC's. That's about 1 ounce per 96.77 lbs of IC's. I don't think it stated what type of IC's but if I can find someone with 100lbs I might shoot em $50 to give it a try...

What's the thoughts? IC's look like a lot of work.

 

[Smack]

All of this is a lot of work :|

 

[macfixer01]

There's a post on here stating a yield of 4.64 oz AU in 449lbs of IC's. That's about 1 ounce per 96.77 lbs of IC's. I don't think it stated what type of IC's but if I can find someone with 100lbs I might shoot em $50 to give it a try...

What's the thoughts? IC's look like a lot of work.

Yes it's a lot of work for an individual working on a small scale when compared to working with easy materials like fingers or pins. Comparing the yields though, think how many Tons of gold ore would you need to blast out of a mine, crush, and process to get 4.64 Troy Ounces of gold?

 

[Anonymous]

Mac's advice is spot on, you just can't tell until you open them up even if they are the same part number some will be gold bearing and non gold bearing.

Incidentally Mac on good gold bearing quartz you can get that yield on a ton (hehe sorry couldn't resist)

 

[macfixer01]

Obviously I'm not a hard rock miner. I was just making a point though that even though there is still lots of ash to deal with, it could be much worse. Patnor and others have shown us the basic path to process plastic chips. It would be nice if maybe centrifuging would separate the metals from the ash so more of the ash could be eliminated early on? I have a feeling centrifuging wouldn't work well though, since it may just pack up like mud? Perhaps some sort of settling bucket where the material might be agitated and allowed to settle several times, hopefully with the gold on the bottom so the ash above could be washed or decanted off the top?

 

[Geo]

Not sure what I would call it but, I place my water hose in the bucket to the bottom and adjust the water to overflow the bucket gently. After the water clears, I agitate the ash and replace the hose until the light ash is all gone. With the column of water inside the bucket and the flow from bottom to top, even the light gold is too heavy to wash out.

 

[macfixer01]

Not sure what I would call it but, I place my water hose in the bucket to the bottom and adjust the water to overflow the bucket gently. After the water clears, I agitate the ash and replace the hose until the light ash is all gone. With the column of water inside the bucket and the flow from bottom to top, even the light gold is too heavy to wash out.

Hi Geo,
Yes that was one thought I had also. Use a slow constant fill so it would keep overflowing, but I wondered about possible loss? If it's working for you though then that sounds like a good way to go.

 

[Clneal2003]

Already covered a little in another thread. Pretty decent setup.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldr...40&t=20220&p=211901&hilit=Blue+bucket#p211901