Ribbon Cables

[skyline27]

Has anyone dealt with gold pins in ribbon cables? The gold pins seem to vary greatly in quality. Some are completely plated while others have just a speck of gold. I have several hundred pounds and I'm trying to figure out the best way to deal with them. I have seen them being sold as scrap on Ebay.

Happy New Year!

 

[eagle2]

Hi Skyline

They are very labor intensive. After you work with some of them, you can tell which ones are fully plated. Cut the connector ends off and just save those.

All the rest can be sold to the scrap yard as copper breakage.

I sold several hundred pounds for 50 cents/lb. to my local yard. At the same time another yard only offered 20 cents. Shop around.

Al

 

[fixinator]

I've had good luck processing these in the following way. They are low yield but worth processing. They sure aren't worth pulling each pin with a pair of pliers.

1. Separate the ribbon cable from the connector by pulling the connector with pliers.

2. Put the connector with pins in a small plastic pail with the bottom drilled according to lazersteve's instructions for AP soak.

3. pull any pins that remain stuck in the cable with pliers and put in a container for later processing.

4. process the connectors with AP to disolve all the base metal of the pins.

5. much of the gold foil will be trapped inside the connectors. To recover it process with hcl/clorox.

6. precipitate with SMB

Using the above method I recovered the gold from approximately a 5 gallon pail of mixed connectors that did not contain solder. I don't yet know exactly how much gold I recovered. It was a small amount. I am keeping it until I have much more to refine a second time.

Fix

 

[eagle2]

Hi Fix

Great! That does seem like the best way to me, too.

I am going to do something similar with with those poor quality plugin connectors, you see on many pc boards. I have a lot of boards like this. They have the connector with rows of small square pins; Instead of a finger edge connector. These pins are poorly plated material with a tough plastic connector; not worth smashing apart! And wearing out your wrists!

I have started to break off the connectors using a vice. then pop off the sides of the connector, that contain the iron fitting and/or screw. This goes into a bucket until I get a load.

So, I was hesitating using nitric, because of the plastic, and not doing anything, until I came across the success these guys have with AP and HCl-Cl.

Hey, also, take a look at Irons way of using H2SO4 + H2O2 for getting rid of base metals!

Al

 

[skyline27]

Is there anything besides gold (and the copper wire) worth harvesting off the ribbon cables? Silver or palladium?

 

[eagle2]

I really doubt it. What a lot of people think is silver on the connector is really tin plate over copper. Look at the other threads on how to test for Pd.

there`s no reason for Pd on connectors. A big use for it is on small low amperage long life relay points.

Al

 

[fixinator]

Sometimes the pins were made of steel with gold plating. More often than not they are copper. Either way nickel was usually used over the base metal because gold will plate to it easier.


Fix

 

[Harold_V]

Sometimes the pins were made of steel with gold plating. More often than not they are copper. Either way nickel was usually used over the base metal because gold will plate to it easier.

Fix

Nickel is used as a barrier. It's well documented that gold will migrate into other metals, although not all. Over a relatively short period of time, thin gold plating will completely disappear from the surface of copper or even silver. By plating with nickel, that is prevented.

Harold

 

[Anonymous]

what is the hcl-clorax ratio? and also what is "ap" i think i know it
bu another name thank you

 

[lazersteve]

Renegade,

Welcome to the forum.

If you follow the Guided Tour Link in my signature line below and read all the links there, these questions and many more will be answered.


Steve

 

[pcecycle]

I saved up about 30 lbs or so of ribbon cable connectors and I am currently running them through AP. So far I have done about 10 lbs and the AP is still working. I can see flecks of gold floating on the surface. I am running about 3-4 lbs at a time and leaving them in for 3-4 days. I will try to post results when the lot is finished.

Mike