iPhone 3GS Disassembly - Update

[Capteo]

I've looked around and figured this might be the best place to put this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAdVmu8s4-0

This is a video I made for you guys of an iPhone 3GS after it has been dismantled entirely.
I wanted to show everywhere I could find gold on it and provide that information for anyone who is interested in scraping newer phones.
The 3G series phones don't really go for much in my area. Was offered $5 from Verizon for the phone and that didn't sit well with me.
Making an educational video sounded like a better use of the phone.

By the way, my area is in Phoenix Arizona, USA.

Looking forward to reading and learning more on the site!
Also, if a better location exists for this post, please direct and I'll learn.


Three days later, and a new video online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Q4BbFkbUk

I finally got some time from school to depopulate my iPhone 3GS board using a heat gun.

Hope this video is educational, entertaining, or helpful in some way or another. Enjoy!

 

[Capteo]

Finally got around to removing the solder mask from my iPhone 3GS PCB.

Have an entire bottle of Drano Crystals I bought last year to do experiments at home(Was taking a Chem class at my university).
Hence the reason I am not using pure NaOH.
Just wanted to share my results.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpvOW5qvTEA

 

[niteliteone]

Good job on the videos 8)
I am kind of curious as to why you are removing the solder masking though.
The only gold visible on the board is what was already visible before removing the masking. With the 10's of thousands of boards I have processed, the only common boards I have ran across that sometimes have gold under the masking are "Sound Blaster Live Gold" audio cards. Even then it is only some of them, like 25% or less.

It is really uncommon to find boards with gold plating under the masking, but whenever I come across a board I don't recognize, I will scrape a little masking off to verify if it is plated or not.

 

[Smack]

Most of the boards I've seen that have gold under the solder mask are peripheral cards and you can usually tell by the color of gold on the fingers of a card. If the color of gold is a lighter or weak looking gold the chances are higher there is gold under the mask. Also if it is gold under the mask, the mask will scratch off much easier. Keep in mind that the gold under the mask is way thinner than say typical fingers. The are few and far between these days, some that I recall, SB Live, older Sound Blaster cards, printer cards, some LAN cards and other networking cards, don't remember ever seeing any video cards like that though. I had about 25 lbs. of them saved up but I just sent them with the last batch to get refined. Not enough time to mess with processing them myself.

 

[Capteo]

Thanks for the input guys.

Niteliteone - I was doing this to learn how to remove solder mask. I had never done it before. Yesterday was my virgin moment. I also figured that removing the mask now would make cleaning up later during AP easier.

I'll keep my eyes out for Sound Blaster cards. Thank you for the heads up!

 

[cmiller92]

Well from an educational point of few good job on all the work, I'm sure that the 5 dollars was a fair trade off for the experiance from the project.

From a profit point of few though, I belive the 5 dollars is more than the value of metals you will recover from the phone, for profit it would be better to sell that on ebay. I looked them up and it goes 10 to 20 for broken ones and 30 or more for working.

But either way good job!

 

[Capteo]

Thank you cmiller92.

My iPhone 3GS was a European model from when I was living in Germany.
I'm not sure how easy it is to get those working here in the states, but if memory serves correct, the operating frequency of the phone is different than ours.

Definitely a fun trade off. Educational tear down vs trying to find a buyer.

Looking forward to sharing more information with you guys soon about a couple Polaroids I am breaking down.

 

[niteliteone]

Sounds good to me.
Everyone has to learn what they are doing.
As a hint for you as learn as you do this, The caustic (HaOH, or Draino in this case) Will attack the glass when hot or heated. You can actually dissolve the glass with a concentrated hot NaOH solution.
There is a video link around here somewhere. Hopefully one of our seasoned members know the link and will post it 8)
I have an etched beaker, where I was removing silver from Xray film using a 20% NaOH solution at 150*F.

The moral of this story is to use an Old, undesired glass container for this.