Nickel/copper in gold?

[futurama140]

yea I ran gold fingers last month. all those cards that slide into server racks, plus TONS of NIC cards for desktops. Is it even worth tossing solid plated pins into cucl2? i have TONS of milspec pins, but there's no way i can set up a sulpuric reverse electroplating cell right now.

will the BMs in my blob eventually make an alloy with the gold?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

OK well thanks for the lucid reply. I guess it's back to picking up pop cans for now. My appologies to all of you as it seems the miscomprehension is at least on my part. Sorry dave!


here is what i know:
the pins were non-ferrous.
i may have pulled the pins a day early.
the propane is new
i have an aquarium pump pushing air into the stock pot and the batch in a coffee pot i am trying to reduce.

can gold in the condition mine is in still be sold?

im sorry if my tone sounds antagonistic. truly i am. i'm just frustrated trying not to let my family down in a situation where i am not able to work a job.

Can your gold in that condition be sold, my most realistic reply would be that it is not advisable. If you do make sure you get a kiss from the buyer and ask them to use some vaseline because you most likely will get screwed. Not meaning to sound harsh but that is just the cold hard facts from looking at what you have in your pictures.

Your tone is not antagonistic. It is just a tone of desperation.

The long time members of the forum have seen it many times and most of us understand it because we started in the same position you are in.

What you have become to realise the hard way is that this field of work is not a get rich quick job. And the key word there is job because just like anything else that is what this field is, is just another job and you have to pay for your education one way or another.

 

[futurama140]

i've been getting 70% melt price for quantities less than 1 ounce at the pawn shop, if i bring in over an ounce, they will pay me 90% melt price because at that point there is enough material for them to use the xray on, making it less risky to purchase. Or so they have told me.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

yea I ran gold fingers last month. all those cards that slide into server racks, plus TONS of NIC cards for desktops. Is it even worth tossing solid plated pins into cucl2? i have TONS of milspec pins, but there's no way i can set up a sulpuric reverse electroplating cell right now.

If you have plenty of time and enough inexpensive HCl, you can do pins in AP. But you have to think in terms of weeks, not days.

Pins sell well on eBay. I know you said you don't have plastic, but there are places that will sell for you. Maybe there's one near you. Our members are also very knowledgeable on such material. You could list some in the Sell or Trade section. Members here won't pay what folks on eBay would, but there aren't any fees here and you'll probably get a fair offer or two.

will the BMs in my blob eventually make an alloy with the gold?

It's already an alloy of sorts, just not homogenous. If you get them to melt fully, you'll have a more homogenous alloy which will be easier to test.

Dave

 

[futurama140]

what would you suggest for the partial plated non-ferrous pins? I've read many suggestions, but i still dont know.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

what would you suggest for the partial plated non-ferrous pins? I've read many suggestions, but i still dont know.

Sell them. Low grade pins can eat up as much AP as you'll get back out of them. But that's just me. I'd look for something better to process. Ewaste is a lot of work. Low grade eWaste is the last thing to spend money on when funds are limited.

Dave

 

[futurama140]

sooo.... how about IC chips and processors? i have a half dozen CRT tvs, a bucket of connector ends from cables, and tons of populated circuit boards from telecom servers with the fingers already removed. im pretty sure theres no gold in the tvs... the milspec pins are high-yield, but is there any way to do them without a sulphuric cell?

 

[FrugalRefiner]

tons of populated circuit boards from telecom servers with the fingers already removed.

Pictures please. That may be where your money is.

Dave

 

[futurama140]

a sampling of the different types of boards... HDD controllers, server boars of many kinds, a few motherboards, etc. All these PROM and EPROM chips are the removable ones, all the IC chips soldered on have not been removed yet. i saved the processors and processor linked bios proms seperately, as well as the looong motorola telecom eprom processors with gold pins.

 

[futurama140]

the rest

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I see value in the first, fourth & fifth pictures. I'm far from an eWaste expert, so I hope some others will add their guidance as well. How many do you have like the first, fourth & fifth?

Dave

 

[futurama140]

i have maybe over a dozen of the hard drive controller boards (1st)
and all i have of the other ones you can see right there in 4 and 5.
i also have about a hundred hard drive platters, some of which may have gold plating, half of all which are the LARGE 1980's disks.

 

[futurama140]

i have seen many, many videos of someone called "ewaste ben" on youtube, who shows how to grade all the boards as far as total scrap value, and he has some videos on AP/cucl2 processing, and some really cool tips i learned about the fingerboard, but i dont see anything about really processing the various bits from the boards themselves other than the fingers.
So i'm sure the value is there, but the knowledge gathering that must occur in order to proceed is staggeringly arcane! it's almost like trying to prise alchemical secrets from an old scientist.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

All of the information on how to process the various bits is here on the forum, but it takes a long time and a lot of effort to learn it. But since you need money fast, your best option is to sell it.

Let's hope some of other members can give you some suggestions.

Dave

 

[jason_recliner]

The box of chips in the third photo will contain gold but are quite a low yield for a great deal of work. These may sell on eBay for far more than their gold value.

The ceramic 386/486 chips can be processed quickly in AR or PMAR, but a pair of them won't amount to much. I struggle to recall precisely, but I recovered about half a gram from three of them and that's with "something else" in there too. They might be better to sell as well.

 

[futurama140]

if i can produce 7 grams of 19/20k gold by sometime next week i will be in good straights.

 

[futurama140]

heres the collection of pins ive pulled so far

 

[FrugalRefiner]

if i can produce 7 grams of 19/20k gold by sometime next week i will be in good straights.

I'm sorry to say that I don't think that's possible. I don't see 7 grams of gold in the pictures you've shown, and with your current equipment I don't think much could be done by next week. AP is good because it's relatively inexpensive and it's pretty much a "set it and forget it" process, but it is slow. As I said before, think in terms of weeks or months, not days. Sorry to be the messenger, but I don't want you to spend valuable time pursuing an unrealistic goal.

When you said tons of server boards, I had hopes for you. But having just a few hard drive controllers and singles of the 386/486 ICs isn't tons of server boards.

The only way I see you getting anything much by next week is to sell it as is, but even that will be difficult as eWaste buyers that pay decent rates are few and far between. There are a couple who are members here, but the process takes time to ship, have them evaluate your material and issue payment by mail.

I wish I had something more encouraging to offer, but that's my opinion based on what I've seen.

Dave

 

[futurama140]

well thats a moderately fair assessment i suppose. I dont have too many of the little hdd controllers, but i do have litterally hundreds of these large 1 1/2'x2' server boards.

I have some other questions about those but i'm thinking this is the wrong forum.

now thinking ahead, how badly do i need to monitor pins in the cucl2? it seems that when i run a batch in a rock tumbler it gets saturated with the (aluminum, brass, nickel?) as a gray powder just overnight, and the AP turns clear again, or sometimes milky. that was just an experiment, but is this a real threat to two gallons of cucl2 that has been used on 2lbs of fingerboard with a new batch of about 1lb partially plated pins into, using the traditional process?

i do not mind thinking of what i can do to the more elaborate scrap in the future, as i would like to get to the point i can produce half an ounce a month, which really doesnt sound horribly unreasonable with enough effort and time, and i have nothing but time. eventually, i'd like to buy a delft clay kit and produce small gold jewelry items, as i have dozens of places to insert said jewelry.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

The AP process is excellent at dealing with copper. If you were processing only fingers, where copper is the main base metal being dissolved, it can be regenerated over and over. Pins are very different. They're almost never just copper. Usually, they're brass, which is an alloy of copper and zinc. The zinc is dissolved in the AP as well as the copper, but because it is more reactive than copper, it eventually displaces the copper and you are left with a zinc chloride solution instead of a copper chloride solution. That's what you saw when the solution turned clear.

You can probably process a pound of pins in two gallons of AP. I'm not sure because I don't process such quantities of pins. Others may be able to answer that better than I can. Just remember, there's not a lot of gold on partially plated pins, so you will eventually produce a lot of waste for a little gold. That waste must be properly treated before disposing of it, and that adds more cost.

As you said, with enough time and effort, you can learn to process most items, but now you have to think in terms of months and years. It took me about a year and a half to read through the entire forum, and that was a couple years ago. The forum continues to grow, so it would take me longer now.

Read Hoke's book. While it does not deal with eWaste, it will give you a sound foundation in dealing with precious metals. Study what has already been written on the forum. It's all here, but it will take a long time. While I'd like to help guide you and every other new member on your journey, we all have other responsibilities in our lives. Study the Safety section. Study how to deal with waste. We created a Library section that holds some of the best threads from the forum. Read, read, read. The longer you study, the more it will all start to make sense.

I wish you the best of luck,
Dave