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

[FrugalRefiner]

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?

I like that idea! Kind of frugal wave table! I like the way your mind works Palladium.

I have a couple of old sanders around here...

Thanks,
Dave

 

[vyper]

Geo... I may be on the wrong track here but if you are incinerating the boards, could u melt the remaining metal into dore bars. Then run through a electrolytic cell using the dore as anode, thin piece of pure copper as cathode in a copper II chloride electrolyte. I believe this would deposit the copper on the copper anode the less desirable metals should go into solution and the leftover "mud" would then contain any leftover Au/Ag/Pgm's. Which could then be kept aside until a sizeable amount was obtained for processing. Like I said I may be on the wrong track still new to this whole thing and have alot of info filling this chranium. Any thoughts on this?

*Edited - Typos

 

[Golddigger Greg]

I tried a variation of this idea to seperate -100mesh gold from black sand concentrate in a gold pan and found the 'orbital' action of devices like this to be less effective than uni-directional 'bumps'. With straight 'bumps' the heavies stay put and the lights travel down the incline. Orbital motion tends to get things mixing and traveling together. You might be able to tune this to work for you though, I didn't take it any further than the initial test.

 

[Geo]

Geo... I may be on the wrong track here but if you are incinerating the boards, could u melt the remaining metal into dore bars. Then run through a electrolytic cell using the dore as anode, thin piece of pure copper as cathode in a copper II chloride electrolyte. I believe this would deposit the copper on the copper anode the less desirable metals should go into solution and the leftover "mud" would then contain any leftover Au/Ag/Pgm's. Which could then be kept aside until a sizeable amount was obtained for processing. Like I said I may be on the wrong track still new to this whole thing and have alot of info filling this chranium. Any thoughts on this?

*Edited - Typos

that is the general idea. the only problem is other metals that are more reactive tend to part first at lower amps. in other words, when the cell first starts and the electrolyte is cool and the resistance is low, tin will plate out before copper does. im not so much worried about a little contamination, but if the final copper bars are too contaminated to be #1 copper, it wont be worth the time and energy (electricity and fuel). i need a set temperature and volt/amps that each metal will plate out at. im sure there are charts but without someone speaking very slowly, im afraid i would never understand it.

 

[NoIdea]

im sure there are charts but without someone speaking very slowly, im afraid i would never understand it.

OK ..... from......what.....I.....recall...(is this slow enough for you) :mrgreen: its sort of like fractional distillation, only the lowest boiling point solvent will boil first, keeping the mixed solvent solution at that boiling point until its gone then the temperature of the mixture will rise rapidly to the temperature of the next solvents boiling point and so on. This only works for solvent solution mixtures that do not form aziotropic mixture(ethanol and water). For electroplating, raise the voltage until current begins to flow, as the metal whose voltagepotential is the lowest finishes platting out the current will drop, increase the voltage again until the current starts to flow again and the next metal will plate out.

This is a very simplistic example as electrolyte concentration, temperature and voltage play a very big part, there is a cell mentioned somewhere here that does just that, removes metals one at a time. Though i think this is for metals aready in solution and not for electrowinning.

Deano

 

[Geo]

thanks Deano. at what intervals do i adjust the voltage, 1 volt at a time? it may be easier to go 1.5 at a time.

 

[butcher]

Standard electrode potentials is very similar to the reactivity series of metals.

What acid or base electrolyte the metal is in can also play a big roll, as these will also react in the electrolysis of the salts in solution, and can determine how these salts split or what gases or byproducts can form.

This might help a little, study several articles on standard electrode potential and electrolysis of metals or salts. Also membrane and salt bridge cells are very interesting.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/electrode.html

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/electrode.html

 

[NoIdea]

thanks Deano. at what intervals do i adjust the voltage, 1 volt at a time? it may be easier to go 1.5 at a time.

Well if i owned one, variable DC power supply, i would wind it up slowly and keep an eye on current, keeping in mind the electrode potential of the overall reaction, oxidation and reduction, and as Butcher points out the electrolyte plays a major part in the final voltage, example, the difference between hydrogen vs. chlorine gas production, trial and error and observation im afraid.

Dont matter how hard one tries, murphy's law prevails

Deano

 

[butcher]

Not only will you have to be dealing with Murphy’s Law, but other laws of physics.

With electrode potential voltage of most of these metals so close together, it would be hard to plate out one metal from another if the electrolyte was a pea soup, controlling this with a solutions electrolyte changes may also prove difficult, small cells may change more drastically faster than very large cells, if you only had a couple of metals in solution with voltage potentials far apart from each other it would likely work better to separate the metals, or if one metals was not compatible with electrolyte, or may not pass through a membrane where the desired metal would, or where the undesired metal would go through the membrane and the values would stay behind as anode sludge or could not pass through the membrane (do not dissolve in this electrolyte or at this voltage), I think also some metals are just easier to plate than others the electrode potential is in relation to a standard electrode, and does not necessarily tell you if a metal would actually plate out well or not.

The more you think about it the more complicated it gets.

 

[Geo]

while not over large, it will most likely be a plastic 55 gallon drum and the electrolyte will be copper chloride. since the anode will be a mix of the same metals that will be in a standard type AP process (for me) ill probably use left over AP solution.

 

[butcher]

Depending on current and concentration chlorine gas is a posible reaction at the anode.

 

[NoIdea]

As Butcher has pointed out, some metals will refuse to plate out, and if they do plate out they immediately react and going back into solution (sodium springs to mind) and Cl gas production is a highly probable, though if you were to combine platting out and using the Cl gas

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=16292

Then you could improve your overall efficiancy.

Many moons ago i recall reading that even iron can be platted out under certain conditions, the only problem was that Hydrogen gas was also produced at the anode and dissloved into the iron making it brittle and porous.

Deano

 

[AndyWilliams]

I'm going to be processing a number of boards, about 400 of them, and thanks to this thread, I'm only going to cherry pick the worthwhile items off the boards. So while I understand the worth of the fingers, the monoliths, and the four-legged chip packages, I'm just wondering if someone can fill me in on a couple of the other SMD's.

What are the yellow rectangles and are they worth saving?
Same question for the blue rounds objects on the bottom right.

Thanks in advance!

 

[patnor1011]

I'm going to be processing a number of boards, about 400 of them, and thanks to this thread, I'm only going to cherry pick the worthwhile items off the boards. So while I understand the worth of the fingers, the monoliths, and the four-legged chip packages, I'm just wondering if someone can fill me in on a couple of the other SMD's.

What are the yellow rectangles and are they worth saving?
Same question for the blue rounds objects on the bottom right.

Thanks in advance!

Not four legged chips - take all of them from biggest to smallest.
Yellow rectangles are tantalum capacitors, worth to collect can be sold when you will accumulate enough.
Blue round object just pry from board, crush and collect bit of copper wire from inside.

 

[patnor1011]

Here is break-up.

RED take all of these chips small and big
BLUE monolithic capacitors and resistors - take as much as you can good source of silver, possibly Pd
GREEN transistors take all of them some contain gold bonding wire, I regard them to be like low yield IC chips
BLACK - I do not take these they contain only small ferrite coils with copper in some filling - epoxy, or some kind of substrate I see not much value there
YELLOW ORANGE Ta capacitors
PURPLE - that black epoxy on top do have silicone chip and fair amount of gold bonding wires - they are essentially the same as s/n bridge and yield 5g+ from kilo.

I did not marked all chips or all capacitors but now you know what to take and save.

 

[AndyWilliams]

Here is break-up.

RED take all of these chips small and big
BLUE monolithic capacitors and resistors - take as much as you can good source of silver, possibly Pd
GREEN transistors take all of them some contain gold bonding wire, I regard them to be like low yield IC chips
BLACK - I do not take these they contain only small ferrite coils with copper in some filling - epoxy, or some kind of substrate I see not much value there
YELLOW ORANGE Ta capacitors
PURPLE - that black epoxy on top do have silicone chip and fair amount of gold bonding wires - they are essentially the same as s/n bridge and yield 5g+ from kilo.

I did not marked all chips or all capacitors but now you know what to take and save.

Patnor,

Thanks! That's very generous! I have read your thread on processing chips. I thought I had read somewhere on here, that only the four-legged chips had gold, except on RAM. Am I mistaken that only the eprom should be excluded, as in the pic? Also, I have struggled in understanding how to identify the Ta caps, how can you be sure on these rectangular ones? Anyway, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, I much appreciate your input.

Andy


Edit: Oh, and just for the record, I'm ashamed that I asked about the blue things, I could have, and should have, attempted to break it apart before asking.

 

[patnor1011]

Eprom is rectangular chip with legs on 2 sides. They do have window sometimes covered with sticker. Some of them are ceramic. I call some similar chips "eprom type" or "eprom like" due to that they look similar. I do not see any eprom on your board. That 2 I marked black contain only some substrate with torroid coils with copper wire. Take one out and smash with hammer you will see what I mean. I see no value in them. On the other side all or most of chips no matter how small may have gold bonding wires so I do collect or harvest all of them. Even transistors, may have gold bonding wire so I collect those too. I saw some datasheets where even those pictured here:
http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/TransistorData/TransistorData-P1.html

 

[patnor1011]

The only thing I would not collect from your board are those 2 marked with black X. ll the rest are goodies, sort them properly do not mix material and when accumulate enough squeeze the money out of them :mrgreen:

 

[AndyWilliams]

The only thing I would not collect from your board are those 2 marked with black X. ll the rest are goodies, sort them properly do not mix material and when accumulate enough squeeze the money out of them :mrgreen:

Thanks Patnor, I appreciate the help!

 

[etack]

Good post with the colors patnor1011 thought it was great.

Eric