Non-Chemical Processing boards???????\\\\\\

[bobby1999]

Great all would like to see how it goes WATCHING LOL

 

[MMFJ]

Maybe I've been spending too much time in the jungles, but in following these discussions about processing boards, I've come up with an idea where I'd like to see some feedback.

Note that this idea would not likely work for the typical US backyard person, but as I'm in Ecuador, things are different;
- propane is CHEAP (<$3 for 15l [around 4 gallons])
- labor is CHEAP (can get workers for $292/MONTH)
- chemicals are about the same in the US (perhaps a bit cheaper for some things - we can get nitric acid for $6/liter or $24/gal (oddly, they say that 4 liters = 1 gallon??), I haven't checked on everything, but for the sake of this discussion, let's presume they are equal
[EDITED to add this] - there are no board buyers within reasonable shipping distance (until we get shipping container loads, which may be awhile) - if there were (like in the US), I would sell to them as I recommend all 'backyard' folks do!

With that being the case, what I'm considering is to build a simple desoldering plant. My 'vision' is to use propane oven burners (again, all parts for propane is pretty cheap here) in the center of two spaces (think about a typical oven with an 'above flame' area as well as one below the flame). If I can find some old ovens, all the better, but they tend to use stuff around here until it literally falls apart, so I think building it will be better, and fairly simple.

What I'm thinking is to put three or four 'ovens' in a line and moving the boards underneath the flames to melt the solder. Overall length of the 'plant' would be about 10 feet.

Using a tray (again, think oven catch pan) as a 'car' and placing the boards upside down on top of some supports (I'm thinking something like aluminum standoffs), as the 'car' is moved along through the 'oven' (I'm thinking of using a bicycle chain with some pins welded on at intervals), the parts should fall into the tray. In order to get them to drop, I'm thinking 'cobblestone path' to make a bumpy ride and shake things back/forth (lots of those roads around here - hey, parts could be 'free'! :shock:

Powering of the 'conveyor' could be by hand (or old bicycle with rider), at first, until a suitable motor is found (from some experimentation on how fast it should move, etc.). OK, visions of "Gilligan's Island" come to mind, I know, but I am being serious!

The upper part of the 'oven' could be used for any boards that don't drop all the parts, etc., or perhaps other uses (TBD).

On top of this setup, I even thought about making a sand bed to remove parts from cell phones and such.

Now, considering this crude setup (which, as production increases could be scaled into finer machinery), what are your thoughts?

- Will the majority of the parts fall?
- Will they be simple enough to further process (separating them into bins - again, labor is cheap!)
- Is there any data on selling off the parts that are not 'valuable'
- What are your thoughts on selling off the empty board?

Once the board is clean, I think there is not much value other than the copper and would hope to find a local recycler to take them. I'm not personally interested in processing them, for all the reasons discussed - however, we would process/sell the 'typical' stuff that is discussed on the forum.

Thanks in advance for your input on this!

 

[etack]

MMFJ sounds like you need a pizza oven they are gas fires and most commercial ones have conveyor belts.

Several hot sheets of thick steal would also work like restaurant grills. Just heat and whack heat and whack. :lol: :lol: This is the way I would go with cheep labor.

in the jungle you should ask for old abandon military equipment and downed planes. I bet that's were your money is. I know that is where mine head would be.

Eric

 

[MMFJ]

MMFJ sounds like you need a pizza oven they are gas fires and most commercial ones have conveyor belts.

That's pretty much exactly what I'm thinking of - though, such things are not only 'uncommon', I've only seen two places that sell pizza in mass quantities (that might need such equipment, but I know one of them uses large ovens, no conveyors) anywhere in the country. Getting a 'used' one is very, very unlikely! Importing any sort of equipment is quite expensive and if it has a computer controller - watch out(!) - the import tax on that stuff is crazy!

So, 'build it yourself' from 'super common' things is the way to go around here. And, remember, even 'skilled' labor such as welders and metal craftsmen is not expensive. For this project, one has to think "if I were in the '50s but had all kinds of e-waste showing up, how would I process it all?" - that is a pretty good description of "third-world" country living.

in the jungle you should ask for old abandon military equipment and downed planes. I bet that's were your money is. I know that is where mine head would be.

That's a good idea and I will pursue it. Not so sure there's tons of downed planes with great pickin' left, but who knows? Worth a shot (bad pun not intended, but left there!

 

[Geo]

there are alot of documentaries out about electronics being scrapped in third world countries and none of it is ever shown in a good light. most show workers sitting over pans of melted solder tapping boards knocking components off. all the workers shown had no PPE's. as a board heats to the point that solder melts its releases some very nasty organics. it has a cumulative effect on the human body. dont let quest for better wealth cause harm to people trying to make a living for their families. i see no problems with a setup like that. i wouldnt enclose it in any structure, maybe just a roof over it. the vapor can be explosive and your using an open flame.when the solder reaches the temperature it liquefies, the components are free and any vibration will bring them off. an electric motor or gasoline engine with an un-balanced wheel or oblong shaped disc will set up a good vibration effect. you could mount it to the top "metal to metal", it should shake everything loose.

 

[NoIdea]

Now my brain is a tinkn 8)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FR-4

Deano

 

[MMFJ]

there are alot of documentaries out about electronics being scrapped in third world countries and none of it is ever shown in a good light. most show workers sitting over pans of melted solder tapping boards knocking components off. all the workers shown had no PPE's. as a board heats to the point that solder melts its releases some very nasty organics. it has a cumulative effect on the human body. dont let quest for better wealth cause harm to people trying to make a living for their families. i see no problems with a setup like that. i wouldnt enclose it in any structure, maybe just a roof over it. the vapor can be explosive and your using an open flame.when the solder reaches the temperature it liquefies, the components are free and any vibration will bring them off. an electric motor or gasoline engine with an un-balanced wheel or oblong shaped disc will set up a good vibration effect. you could mount it to the top "metal to metal", it should shake everything loose.

Thanks for the feedback on this. I'm glad to know that a simple roof-over should suffice. That is pretty common around here as the temp is consistently 'tolerable' without A/C or heat. The system seems to me a decent solution to gather the parts from the boards - simple to implement and from your description, effective (it all remains to be seen just how profitable!). I'm not sure when I'll have enough boards to justify building it, but for now, stockpiling until I can tap into the 'flow' - we know it is here, just haven't found it yet (sounds a lot like mining in the dirt, huh?).

I never considered sticking people on a line to 'bang out' the parts as an option. Intentionally putting people in danger for money? Not on my watch!

 

[sena]

i have tried in a kitchen pulveriser took depopulated boards 1kg and panned it in a bowl what i was left was some copper and tin , i would like to know whether ball mill would powder the depopulated boards.

 

[Smack]

i have tried in a kitchen pulveriser took depopulated boards 1kg and panned it in a bowl what i was left was some copper and tin , i would like to know whether ball mill would powder the depopulated boards.

You would still need to shred the boards first before running in a ball mill for it to work efficiently.

 

[patnor1011]

What do you want to (or expect to) find in shredded and milled depopulated boards? This is kind of beyond my understanding. I understand that people want to squeeze out everything possible but word efficiency comes to my mind. I see absolutely no reason of pursuing milligrams of gold locked (mostly not) inside board. I do not even think that pursuing plating under solder mask is viable from motherboards.
Firstly OP wanted to know how to monetize all metals from boards, if you burn, oxidize, pan or do whatever what was suggested it means you are losing most of metals in order to get ridiculously small if any amount of gold. You are talking about grams in tons of material. Same thing like mining so consider that people who mine tons of material must have heavy equipment, manpower, fuel and time.
What you talk about here is like somebody come to copper mine and go for gold only discarding everything else back in the pit.

 

[Geo]

actually Pat, if i can get what i want to try to work that may boost my annual income by at least a few thousand dollars. i know to some that is a minuscule amount compared to a years work but the material is already prepared due to other processes and the chemicals needed are waste from other processes. for me thats a win/win anytime. too, if i can make it work properly, i have the potential to make upwards of $5,000 from material i already have to start with.

check this thread out from awhile back. this was Rusty's project.http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=12654&hilit=ugly+anode

also here. even though he was working with a totally different material, its still the same concept. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=12205

 

[patnor1011]

I was actually addressing idea of precious metals recovery from already stripped motherboards. That look to me as waste of time and resources. I know very well about significant amount of copper in motherboard. Even stripped one still do have some copper inside.

 

[NoIdea]

I was actually addressing idea of precious metals recovery from already stripped motherboards. That look to me as waste of time and resources. I know very well about significant amount of copper in motherboard. Even stripped one still do have some copper inside.

I have given this lots of thought over the years, for me it's the same as finding a single low grade slot pin (for example) and instead of just throwing it into the scrap metal pile which is close by, i will put it with the other low grade pins even though i have to walk to the other side of the workshop to do so. :?: It all adds up ......... butt do I? :mrgreen:

Deano

 

[patnor1011]

I understand what you do Deano and I am a big fan of yours. I just cant see that hobbyist like you or me or most of members here will be available to recover all metals from motherboard with use of acids. Your method is focused on precious metals while rest of metals gets rusted and oxidized. Geo talks about recovery of copper, I just thought that we cant recover everything. Something will be lost or discarded along way.

 

[Geo]

even for me, there are times when things get slow. i have material that alot of new guys would love to work with. i even go and look at it myself and just get overwhelmed sometimes. these boards are not good enough to warrant the the shipping cost to send to a refinery. the only other option i have is the landfill. im kind of like Deano, i will stop and pick up a lone pin if i see gold glinting from the ground. i cant see paying to toss even the smallest amount of recyclable material in the dump if i can reclaim it. Deano has a great system worked out with reducing the bulk down to the main parts, which is the metal. i wont incinerate anything else until i have a chain mill built and a furnace to cast copper Doré bars for anodes. i will use copper chloride as the electrolyte or even copper nitrate, which ever gives the best results. any precious metals will be a plus and im sure that all the back planes and bridges i sheared still have a fair amount of gold in them.

 

[Palladium]

I was think today while i was out in my shop Pat about how you pan the fine wires from the ashes where you incinerate chips.
What got me to thinking was i had an old vibrating sander that the clips had broken off that hold the sand paper in place. I thought what could i do with that instead of throwing it away? Then it hit me! I wonder if i could use a gold pan or a cup of some sort and mount it to the flat part of the sander where the paper fits onto the pad. Then if i wanted to i could use a light dimmer to adjust the vibration potential. See where this is going?

 

[patnor1011]

Next week I am going to process few one kilogram batches to get an better idea and to confirm some previous yield/experiments. One will be chips from RAM only, eprom type chips only, tiny small 6 legged chips, s/n bridges and various things I clipped or desoldered from boards - I do not know what their name is. Unfortunately I will have to pan everything in hand but no problem I will have all week to sort that out. :lol:

 

[butcher]

Pat,
For larger batches you can make a small sluice box, one method take four foot of corrugated plastic drain pipe split it half long wise mount on wood set it at an angle, with a five gallon bucket sitting at the bottom for it to dump into (catching anything you may miss), run a small stream or flow of water from the top and let it flow down the riffles of the sluice, pre-wet you ash well making a very dilute slurry, with a few drops of dish soap, (to help most of the heavy sink in the bucket and sluice box, instead of trying to float, and pour this ash slurry into the top of the sluice box slowly with the water flow, much of the heavier stuff will stay in the bottom of the bucket you are pouring from, especially if you gave it a good shaking to get the heavier materials on bottom, the heavies that do not stay in the bucket should catch in the upper part of the sluice , when you clean out your sluice box add it to the material in the bucket and pan this heavier material, when cleaning the sluice if values make it too far down the sluice box you will need to adjust angle or water flow, the idea is to wash out the ash and catch gold in the riffles or carpet.

Other types of sluice boxes can be made out of metal wood plastic or whatever, you can make riffles and use things like outdoor carpet or miners moss to catch your values, you can experiment on what works best to capture your gold.

 

[patnor1011]

I do have nice small sluice but believe it or not I do enjoy every second of panning my incinerated chips. :mrgreen:

 

[butcher]

Especially when the pan begins to glitter gold in the sunlight.