Identifying pins part 1

[g_axelsson]

Are the ribbon cable pins worth taking apart? Especially if it's only the tips?

That will depend on how much you value your time, the price on your chemicals, what you could sell them elsewhere (boardsort.com for example) and probably on a number of other factors.

I collect them and save the pins, mostly because it's really fast to do it, I think it is fun and I don't have boardsort to sell them to.

Göran

 

[chlaurite]

I collect them and save the pins, mostly because it's really fast to do it, I think it is fun

Ditto. I consider pins a great "play" material - You have a near infinite supply, low yield, and plenty of time to wait around for them to do something. If you totally screw up a batch, no real financial loss. And hey, perhaps someday we'll figure out a better way to do them to make it actually profitable.

In the meantime, they sure do make some pretty glitter at the bottom of the beaker after a few months. 8)

 

[gold4mike]

Use those ribbon cable pins when you're cementing values from your stock pot. They'll add a little bonus gold to your recovery.

 

[g_axelsson]

I don't have a stock pot big enough for using up all those IDE contact elements.
(I'm having a hard time calling a flat piece of metal for pin... :roll: )

:lol:

Göran

 

[grahmdiam]

Yes, this was interesting and the photographs helpful. I am new to the forum and know there is more to be learned here than watching youtube videos. I'm starting to get an idea on which process is used for different parts of the computer. Thanks for a good forum, and yes I have started to read Hoke.

 

[g_axelsson]

Yes, this was interesting and the photographs helpful. I am new to the forum and know there is more to be learned here than watching youtube videos. I'm starting to get an idea on which process is used for different parts of the computer. Thanks for a good forum, and yes I have started to read Hoke.

That's brilliant!

Welcome to our rather extended family of GRF, you seem to have what it takes. If you get stuck, send me a PM and I'll try to give you some pointers.

:mrgreen:

Göran

 

[chlaurite]

Okay, meant to share this about three months ago when this thread started, and just found it while cleaning out the camera.

Note that although the color kinda sucks here, those very definitely all have a pretty decent gold plating. So... Incrementally taking apart two DVI male, 2 VGA male, one USB type A, and an optical mouse:

 

[buddynorville]

When I started clipping I just put the connectors in a tub and went on clipping. A while back I went to work on the tub. I was disappointed to find that a big lot of the pins were magnetic. the were silver or gold, but magnetic. Can lightly coated pins be magnetic? I've started putting them in with pins that are not magnetic to see how they process. I see guys on video telling about the same pins, etc., being gold plated. And I wonder why they are magnetic.

 

[chlaurite]

When I started clipping I just put the connectors in a tub and went on clipping. A while back I went to work on the tub. I was disappointed to find that a big lot of the pins were magnetic. the were silver or gold, but magnetic. Can lightly coated pins be magnetic? I've started putting them in with pins that are not magnetic to see how they process. I see guys on video telling about the same pins, etc., being gold plated. And I wonder why they are magnetic.

If you have magnetic ones, soak 'em in acid by themselves for a few days before putting them in with the rest. If they totally dissolve, great; if not, you've at least removed the materials that would poison your AP.

 

[steyr223]

magnetic ones, soak 'em in acid by themselves for a few days before putting them in with the rest. If they totally dissolve, great; if not, you've at least removed the materials that would poison your AP.

Hey guys
You might want to tell him what kind of acid- just a thought.

My thoughts on pins is they are a waste of time unless you receive them ready to go
Dont get me wrong i did probaly upwards of 50 lbs when i first started and yes they were great play stuff
But understand most not all but most off your it pinswill yeild about 1/2 gram per pound
Thats a lot of work :!:

Again what was said above. It. Is all about how much your time is worth

Just my 2cents
Hope it helps steyr223 rob

 

[chlaurite]

You might want to tell him what kind of acid- just a thought.

When in doubt, HCl. Though in this case, it really doesn't matter for the purpose I described. You want to get magnetic base metals out of pins, even vinegar would work if you give it enough time. :lol:

But understand most not all but most off your it pinswill yeild about 1/2 gram per pound

That high?

Personally, I view pins as experimental play material. I have fingers set aside, and flatpacks, and relays, and MLCCs... But pins? I have a bucket of them that I take exactly 100g to play with every time I have a neat idea of something that might work well. So far, nothing has done all that well... But I have (mentioning Vinegar above) a vinegar-based AP experiment running for the past few months that shows a lot of promise. Not perfect, but since I half expected it to do absolutely nothing, it has massively exceeded expectations. It may take a year to work, but it seems to actually have successfully converted the copper in the pins to CuCl, and once you have that, you just need a source of Cl - Which in this case, table salt works. Of course, I can get 32% HCl for just a hair more expensive than 5% vinegar, so, an ROI calculation may not pan out. Just testing the viability at this point.

 

[steyr223]

You might want to tell him what kind of acid- just a thought.

When in doubt, HCl. Though in this case, it really doesn't matter for the purpose I described. You want to get magnetic base metals out of pins, even vinegar would work if you give it enough time. :lol:

But understand most not all but most off your it pinswill yeild about 1/2 gram per pound

That high?

Personally, I view pins as experimental play material. I have fingers set aside, and flatpacks, and relays, and MLCCs... But pins? I have a bucket of them that I take exactly 100g to play with every time I have a neat idea of something that might work well. So far, nothing has done all that well... But I have (mentioning Vinegar above) a vinegar-based AP experiment running for the past few months that shows a lot of promise. Not perfect, but since I half expected it to do absolutely nothing, it has massively exceeded expectations. It may take a year to work, but it seems to actually have successfully converted the copper in the pins to CuCl, and once you have that, you just need a source of Cl - Which in this case, table salt works. Of course, I can get 32% HCl for just a hair more expensive than 5% vinegar, so, an ROI calculation may not pan out. Just testing the viability at this point.

That is an awesome idea and i would be doing the same if i had a place to do it.
Always wondered if some type of citrus acid would work

Steyr223 rob

 

[macfixer01]

You might want to tell him what kind of acid- just a thought.

When in doubt, HCl. Though in this case, it really doesn't matter for the purpose I described. You want to get magnetic base metals out of pins, even vinegar would work if you give it enough time. :lol:

But understand most not all but most off your it pinswill yeild about 1/2 gram per pound

That high?

Personally, I view pins as experimental play material. I have fingers set aside, and flatpacks, and relays, and MLCCs... But pins? I have a bucket of them that I take exactly 100g to play with every time I have a neat idea of something that might work well. So far, nothing has done all that well... But I have (mentioning Vinegar above) a vinegar-based AP experiment running for the past few months that shows a lot of promise. Not perfect, but since I half expected it to do absolutely nothing, it has massively exceeded expectations. It may take a year to work, but it seems to actually have successfully converted the copper in the pins to CuCl, and once you have that, you just need a source of Cl - Which in this case, table salt works. Of course, I can get 32% HCl for just a hair more expensive than 5% vinegar, so, an ROI calculation may not pan out. Just testing the viability at this point.

That is an awesome idea and i would be doing the same if i had a place to do it.
Always wondered if some type of citrus acid would work

Steyr223 rob

Your citric acid idea has some merit. I had an interest for awhile in pre-Columbian Tumbaga art objects (like the fellow in my avatar picture), made in various parts of South America. Tumbaga is an alloy of copper, silver, and gold in varying percentages. From what I've read, the objects were then rubbed with various vegetable juices (i.e. containing citric acid). This was a method of depletion refining whereby copper would be removed leaving behind an increased proportion of gold and silver on the external surfaces.

macfixer01

 

[chlaurite]

That is an awesome idea and i would be doing the same if i had a place to do it.
Always wondered if some type of citrus acid would work

I don't know why I didn't notice and respond to this earlier but, oh well.

The nice thing about vinegar? No nasty caustic fumes. I mean, I wouldn't stick it in a sealed cabinet with my good silver, but it doesn't do the "everything metal around it turns to dust" thing typical of HCl. I have my test-batch running right in my office, about six feet from me at the moment. Every day I give it a good shake to add oxygen, but I see nothing around suffering from acid-fume corrosion.

Interestingly, it does have a "sweet" smell (up close), typical of metal acetates* (though make no mistake, the chloride ions in solution gets all the credit for doing the heavy lifting). Probably not good to take a deep whiff of, but it reacts slowly enough that I don't particularly worry about any fumes building up.


* I may have read this here, in which case my apologies for not remembering who to credit; but the ancient Romans used to age their wine in lead vats not because they had nothing better to use (wood works just fine), but because they liked their wines as sweet as possible. A small portion of the wine would convert to vinegar over time, which would react with the metal to produce lead acetate, which you could fairly call the first widely used artificial sweetener. Yeah, Nero had more than bad genes. :mrgreen:

 

[Exhail]

This may sound like a silly question but couldn't you just process these hard work pin connecters in a sulfuric cell, the same way you would process memory card slot connecting pins. I am still fairly new to the sight, but a lot of the threads that I have read on processing pins both high grade and low grade a sulfuric cell is the way to go.

 

[joubjonn]

Yes and no. I remember I had a mess of fully plated connector pins I did in a cell and they were all stripping nicely so I threw some partial plated pins in the mix and they wouldn't deplate. Maybe I should of tried harder but I never went back to it. I'm sure it would work. Now if you have some inside out gold pins the inside might not deplate at all, for those I would suggest AP.