My First AP process.

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LaurenceOs

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 7, 2009
Messages
98
Location
Near London, England
Hi guys :D

I'm just currently processing only 20-25 of those green fiber chips i bought of glory cloud to practise with. I'm following steves video to do AP.

I noticed when i put in my hydrochloric acid, it went a little crazy, it was sizzling and giving of a bit of fumes, i diluted 6% hydrogen peroxide 50/50 and added it in. The sizzling calmed down but the reaction continued to work. Almost all pins were in the bottom of the bigger bucket withing 15-20 minutes with good agitation.

The ap is now a greenie blue colour, quite dark.

The pins still appear to be in pin form, will these dissolve with time?

And is there anything different i should do as im processing chips not fingers?

The video is brilliant Steve, I've literally cloned what you've done :D.

Thanks guys!

Laurence
 
Lawrence,

The extreme reaction to HCl sounds distinctly like aluminum was included somehow.

The pins are likely hollowed out or will be after a day or so. Swirl the liquid and see if the pins float around freely. The green fiber cpus usually have kovar legs so it's very odd that your reaction proceeded so quickly. Can you be more specific with a photo as to which type of cpus you processed?

Steve
 
Did you first make the AP solution before you poured in over the CPU's?
I mix the 31% HCL and 3% peroxide together first and then carefully pour it over the processors.
 
Lol no i didnt, just kinda did it how steve did it.

I went to check on them a little while ago, the liquid is now very hard to see through and is a yellowy brown colour. When i tip aside the liquid all the pins seem to be black. with a small portion still with gold on them.

Steve, there are some hollow pins floating around but its majority little glittering flakes floading around.

Any explanations as to whats happening and how i should approach the next step?

Cheers guys.
 
Help guys!

Because of the vigorous agitation and swirling to get the process to speed up, its mainly glittering gold dust floating around. There's also some black dust in there, not sure how i should go about cleaning this lot..

Come on man, help a newbie out :D
 
Let the black powder and gold flakes settle then siphon off the bulk of the liquids. Pull the stripped fiber portion of the cpu cores out and spray each one with a spray bottle to remove the gold foils and powder.

Add HCl to dissolve any odd colored solids (gray, tan, or green salts = copper I chloride). Let the solution settle again and gently pour off the liquid being careful not to pour the gold out.

Transfer the gold powder to a small glass beaker using the spray bottle to police the fine gold particles into the beaker. Rinse the fine gold with water and let settle. The rinse water should be clear. If not add more HCl and repeat rinse. Pour off the bulk of the water and proceed to dissolving the gold in the beaker.

Steve
 
Kovar is an alloy of iron and nickel mostly. It's a real bugger to dissolve.

Steve
 
Kovar = 54 iron, 28 nickel, 17 cobalt. I seem to remember that this alloy is used because it's expansion rate is the same as the glass that's used in glass-to-metal seals. With a change of temperature, there will be no separation at the seal and, therefore, no leakage. A similar alloy is Invar = 64 iron, 36 nickel. They are both magnetic.
 
LaurenceOs - Steve is right. Patience when processing and refining is
definitely a virtue! By being impatient with the process, I have messed
up my fair share of batches. 8)
 
Yeah sure.

Although i can see loads of little glittering gold dust bits in it and quite a few hollow pins floating around, there's a lot of crap in there. Just worried that when i try to clean it of i may lose alot of the gold.

Plus the only coffee filters i can get hold of are conical. I cant seem to find flat, round white ones anywhere.

Laurence
 
Conical filters should work as long as long as they don't come apart in acids and you can find a suitable funnel to use them with. Decanting may be a better option. Save all that settles to the bottom. Some finely divided gold may be the black mud.
 
glory cloud how could you sell someone green cpus they suck hard....poor guy may get 1/2 gr out of them, but sound like he's not!!!
 
It will be a good learning experience. We can all learn from the different types of cpus and pins what are higher yielding and sometimes the best way to learn is to go thru the processes.
That was a big part of my learning curve(trial and error). Now I try to stick to better quality scrap such as older ceramic chips,fingers,and vintage circuit boards. Gold fill and rolled gold are also good items.
Karat gold,of course is the best,if you can get it at reasonable prices.
 
goldrush2009 said:
glory cloud how could you sell someone green cpus they suck hard....poor guy may get 1/2 gr out of them, but sound like he's not!!!
Click to expand...

Thank you for sharing your wisdom with all of us GR2009. I am certain your encouragement has been well received by
all the lucky forum readers who found their way to this thread. As if your 8 posts has earned you the right to comment
on anything! :evil:

I offered these "s**t" cpu's (as you so creatively named them in your picture), to all the forum members on June 14th before I put them
up for sale on ebay. I sold (450) of them shipped to our new refiner/hobbyist in the UK delivered at $150.00. $50.00 of which
was for the shipping charge. There are (600) on ebay now that will sell for over $220.00 plus shipping of $10.00.
(Item number: 110411202402) You do the math! I could have just as easily and for more $$$ sold them on ebay for the same
price per processor but one of our forum members with a few more posts than 8 helped put the deal together with our friend in the UK.

Not everyone has access to escrap to process and I sold what I had under market (especially when you consider the
freight charge I underwrote) to help someone get started. Perhaps in the future when you get up to say 20 posts or when
your forum manners are more cordial then you can share your precious pearls of wisdom with us again.
 
goldrush2009 said:
glory cloud how could you sell someone green cpus they suck hard....poor guy may get 1/2 gr out of them, but sound like he's not!!!
Click to expand...

would you expect us to give them away for free? ... :mrgreen:
 

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