Plantronics headsets, HP printers

[Chumbawamba]

Goofing around yesterday I found a couple sources of Au in electronic scrap that were previously unknown to me.

The first is from a typical HP inkjet printer. As I mentioned previously, the carriage where the print carthridges go has gold-plated contact pads on the back that can be removed with a knife with a few strategic cuts (see photo). What I didn't realize is that the small board where the button and LED are mounted has some decent gold traces on it (see photo). This is fairly easy to get to (kick the printer a few times and out it comes) and gives some return of value for otherwise worthless hunks of plastic and metal.

I also opened up a Plantronics headset base unit to investigate and found that the circuit board has a bit of gold in the traces (see photo). Not enough to make you quit your day job, but every little bit counts.

 

[JustinNH]

Thanks for sharing 8)

 

[Fever]

Nice find Chum, and great pics. I have also been collecting the gold interfaces from ink cartridges for some time. Seems to be one of the easiest plated items to incinerate with little effort and little fume due to the thin plastic coatings of the wires. There really isn't much waste. I put groups of them inside an open-ended pipe and burn them atop hot coals in my woodstove at night while warming up the cabin. Small batches don't make much smoke at all, and they are quickly reduced to ashes, which I am accumulating for processing at a later date.

Fever