Ram memory yield

[kjavanb123]

Hi everyone


I was asked by my old supplier to run 2 batches of 1kg SIMM ram sticks (67 pieces) and another kg of DIMM ram sticks (46 pieces).


All gold plated sticks.



Plating:
I used a hot cyanide solution with the addition of hydrogen peroxide, which dissolved the gold plating. After washing them with hot water I placed steel wools in each bucket and waited for 10 days. Here is the picture of the residue at the bottom of the bucket for each batch.



Chips

After gold plating was dissolved using cyanide and washed with hot water to remove cyanide, in the outdoor I added hcl to the sticks and left them overnight the next day all chips and SMDs were loose.


SIMM sticks produced 240g of chips and SMDs, DIMM sticks produced 450g of chips and SMDs.


Here is what chips and SMDs look like during incineration.


They are crushed as seen here.


Smelting

I added 1.2 kg litharge mixed with equal volume flour, then added the crushed chips and SMDs, mixed them well and finally added 4 parts soda ash, 2 parts borax and 1 part cryolite to dissolve the ceramics in SMDs.


That mix above was melted and produced lead buttons.


Cupeling

I used the following setup to cupel the beads but noticed there were a layer of copper that wouldn't oxidized on top of the molten lead as seen in the picture below it cools as dark gray color.


So I started the cupel again once molten I added 2 pinches of pottasium nitrate to oxidize the copper layer.


Here is the resulting bead from cupeling the lead button from smelting the SIMM memory chips and SMDs.


That bead weighs 0.034 Oz.


I remelted the litharge and re-cupeled the lead button which produced this smaller bead which was lost during removing it from the cement.


This is the bead from cupeling the lead buttons from smelting Dimms stick chips and SMDs.


This bead weighs 0.044 Oz. I haven't remelted the litharge to see if produces another smaller bead.


SIMM bead was dissolved in boiling nitric acid and this the gold, palladium nitrate and silver chloride.

Edited to add pictures - FrugalRefiner

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hi everyone


I was asked by my old supplier to run 2 batches of 1kg SIMM ram sticks (67 pieces) and another kg of DIMM ram sticks (46 pieces).


All gold plated sticks.



Plating:
I used a hot cyanide solution with the addition of hydrogen peroxide, which dissolved the gold plating. After washing them with hot water I placed steel wools in each bucket and waited for 10 days. Here is the picture of the residue at the bottom of the bucket for each batch.



Chips

After gold plating was dissolved using cyanide and washed with hot water to remove cyanide, in the outdoor I added hcl to the sticks and left them overnight the next day all chips and SMDs were loose.


SIMM sticks produced 240g of chips and SMDs, DIMM sticks produced 450g of chips and SMDs.


Here is what chips and SMDs look like during incineration.


They are crushed as seen here.


Smelting

I added 1.2 kg litharge mixed with equal volume flour, then added the crushed chips and SMDs, mixed them well and finally added 4 parts soda ash, 2 parts borax and 1 part cryolite to dissolve the ceramics in SMDs.


That mix above was melted and produced lead buttons.


Cupeling

I used the following setup to cupel the beads but noticed there were a layer of copper that wouldn't oxidized on top of the molten lead as seen in the picture below it cools as dark gray color.


So I started the cupel again once molten I added 2 pinches of pottasium nitrate to oxidize the copper layer.


Here is the resulting bead from cupeling the lead button from smelting the SIMM memory chips and SMDs.


That bead weighs 0.034 Oz.


I remelted the litharge and re-cupeled the lead button which produced this smaller bead which was lost during removing it from the cement.


This is the bead from cupeling the lead buttons from smelting Dimms stick chips and SMDs.


This bead weighs 0.044 Oz. I haven't remelted the litharge to see if produces another smaller bead.


SIMM bead was dissolved in boiling nitric acid and this the gold, palladium nitrate and silver chloride.

I think you forgot the pictures, or I need another set of new glasses

 

[kjavanb123]

I can't upload the pictures if someone can provide email I can send them.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I can't upload the pictures if someone can provide email I can send them.

What format are they in?
Jpg or png?

 

[kjavanb123]

They are taken with my phone. So I am not sure jpeg or png. As before I tab the attach file select the picture it loads but fails to complete.

 

[Yggdrasil]

They are taken with my phone. So I am not sure jpeg or png. As before I tab the attach file select the picture it loads but fails to complete.

IPhone?

 

[Yggdrasil]

They are taken with my phone. So I am not sure jpeg or png. As before I tab the attach file select the picture it loads but fails to complete.

How big are they?

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I can't upload the pictures if someone can provide email I can send them.

Kevin, send me a couple to [email protected] and I'll try to sort it out. We're going out to dinner for our son's birthday in a little while, but I'll take a look when I get home this evening.

Dave

 

[Alondro]

Hmm, only a little over 2 grams of gold from over a pound and a half of RAM chips... these must be modern RAM sticks. Older ones had better yields.

What did you get from the gold fingers on the sticks?

 

[kjavanb123]

Kevin, send me a couple to [email protected] and I'll try to sort it out. We're going out to dinner for our son's birthday in a little while, but I'll take a look when I get home this evening.

Dave

Hi Dave

Thanks for your reply and hope you have had a fun bday. I will send them to you right now. Thanks

 

[kjavanb123]

How big are they?

Hi

My phone is Android system and files are 2 to 3 Meg each.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hi

My phone is Android system and files are 2 to 3 Meg each.

Very strange.

 

[kjavanb123]

Hmm, only a little over 2 grams of gold from over a pound and a half of RAM chips... these must be modern RAM sticks. Older ones had better yields.

What did you get from the gold fingers on the sticks?

Actually the beads also had Palladium and silver from the SMDs which after dissolving those for the DIMM chips gold was 0.6g and for the SIMM chips was 0.3g.

As for the gold from plating I must have used the wrong type of steel wool because it didn't cement any gold.

I will give the supplier the gold button and try another 2kg memory ram.

Thanks
KJ

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Kevin, I added the pictures you sent to your original post. I don't know what problem you ran into. They attached just fine for me. I hope I got them in the right order.

Dave

 

[Alondro]

How long did you let the smelt cook once it reached temperature? Minimum time for the thermochemical reactions to complete is 20 minutes once you've hit max temp and everything is melted and bubbling. Best to let it go for at least half an hour.

 

[kjavanb123]

Kevin, I added the pictures you sent to your original post. I don't know what problem you ran into. They attached just fine for me. I hope I got them in the right order.

Dave

Thanks a bunch. I will try to upload to see if the issue is gone.

 

[kjavanb123]

How long did you let the smelt cook once it reached temperature? Minimum time for the thermochemical reactions to complete is 20 minutes once you've hit max temp and everything is melted and bubbling. Best to let it go for at least half an hour.

As soon as I start the furnace since I use a pipe as cruicble it gets hot quickly and smelting load started to melt, I wait till molten is calm and no bubbling at the surface of molten load.

I am getting much more silver and palladium than gold from smelting the above batch.


I will post the final pictures.

 

[kjavanb123]

Hi

I was only able to recover 0.62g assaying 970 from 2 kg ram (1kg SIMM and 1kg DIMM).


1.2g Silver and 0.2g Palladium also were recovered.

 

[andu]

Note that unless you got server grade stuff, they put as little precious metals as possible, otherwise it wouldn't be planned obsolescense. And yes older stuff was so much better, i find myself disgusted by the poor quality of nowadays stuff.