more than I can chew...

[AuMINIMayhem]

Ok.. so as some of you know, I work for a defense contractor. Recently the facilities guy here was loading up a pallet of old engieering "boards" to take over to another warehouse for disposal. Apparently our company is more concerned with "lead disposal" than reclaiming any values. We pay a hefty fee for a company to come take our electronic stuff and dispose of it. I asked if I could take it and he said "sure, but make sure you dispose of anything properly, we can't afford to have that come back on us, etc". So now.. well.. I have TRUCKLOADS of old engineering boards that I have been busting open my knuckles and popping countless blisters over the past month cutting and tearing apart wires, connectors, HGP Rf connectors, etc. etc... now a LOT of the pins on the boards themselves appear "gold" but I suspect are brass for a couple of reasons.. they're very stiff and when I cut through them they appear "gold" all the way through.. I also suspect that doesn't necessarilly mean they weren't "flash coated" wih gold. There is definitely a lot of gold on these boards, but in many different forms.. IC's with gold all through them, pin connectors (the pins are silverish, probably Ni plated with a decent tip of Heavy Gold Plating on the end), sockets (silver on the outside gold in the middle).. the list goes on and on..

is there a way short of taking a sampling here and there and dissolving in Nitric, that I can test to see what has gold and what is brass or some other alloy? I thought about buying one of those gold testing acid kits with the different stones, etc, but that may still prove to be labor intensive. I could literally fill maybe two dumpsters with what I have now and there's still more to go..

oh yeah...before I get a bunch of PM's , I'm not looking to sell, I'd like to "recover" the gold and "refine" it later once I've cleaned up this mountain of stuff I've suddenly acquired. :wink:


after all this, my next job is to figure out how to dispose of the other stuff, capacitors, diodes, some FOL connectors (fiber optic laser), BUCKETS of integrated circuits (non-gold, not sure if there's other values), copper (not enough to really "harvest" without a ton of labor and finally lead in the form of solder.. the capacitors and stuff I'm seperating as I go along and will put up here on the trade bulletin board at some point, once I have enough to make it worth anyone's while..

also, with this many boards to deal with.. what is the best, fastest )and least damaging to my poor hands) way to release components off the boards.. if I soaked them in HCL would it digest the solder enough for me to easily remove the components? or a heat gun? 90% of what I have on these boards are through-hole soldered NOT surface mount.. couldn't be easy could it?.. *sigh*

I'll take a picture of some of the stuff sometime this weekend and post.. but alot of this stuff is not..ummm.. well, it's defense contract so I have to choose my pictures carefully..

Thanks for any help guys.. I'm a bit over my head here. I went shortly from famine to feast..

 

[Gold Trail]

I must be spoiled. my broker has a device that electronicly scnas metals and prints out exact compositions to the 0.00 range. so when i have parts in question i go see him. wish i could help.

 

[maltfoudy]

i have heard on this board,fill a large electric frying pan with sand and put the board on the sand,let the solder go into the sand...one method i have heard,other was an old pizza oven like they use in the bars,another was an old oven outside,i have struggled with the same thing, my next try if i don't sell em all is to take them to work and use the vertical mill and cut every thing flush,will take me longer to load em and clean up the mess than it will for the mill to clean the boards flush.also heard of someone using an old wood planer machine to clean boards flush.

 

[rainmaker]

I have great success with a air chisel and a inclined bench with bolts at various locations to push against. Cleans the board in short order, really clean. Smooth enough to run your hand over without getting cut.

 

[AuMINIMayhem]

rainmaker.. that sounds like a good idea...



before I go on let me clarify something... I talked to my company guy yesterday and he said that what I can't dispose of, bring it back and he'll junk it with the stuff we would be throwing out anyways. The company that hauls away our stuff comes regardless and charges a flat rate.

I just want to clarify that and settle any minds with reference to the lead portion of this problem.. so now I'm heading in the direction of clipping everything off the boards and bringing back the old boards to dispose of here, by someone who is certified and handles lead disposal.

I'm thinking dremel tool, carbide bit and sorting out the pins and connectors. That way I can sort them out by method of processing. Some will need to go the electrolytic cell route, some with AP, etc, etc..

so right now my biggest problem is how to tell what is actually gold plated and what is brass, etc..

 

[Harold_V]

so right now my biggest problem is how to tell what is actually gold plated and what is brass, etc..

A drop of nitric acid is your friend, although careful observations should discern one from the other.

Harold

 

[AuMINIMayhem]

Harold, thanks, man.. I kinda figured I was going to have to go that route, but just wanted to see if there were any other alternatives.