What do you think?

[MrAndrewJones]

Howdy there!

Through work, I have recently brought home a pallet filled with likely a few thousand of the palm sized PCBAs below.

Would anyone have any thoughts on the gold coloured plated sections being gold? If so, what kind of plating might they be, and would it be a worth while project to have a go at extracting some?

New to this sort of world, so thought I would give the forum a go!

 

[Yggdrasil]

Howdy there!

Through work, I have recently brought home a pallet filled with likely a few thousand of the palm sized PCBAs below.

Would anyone have any thoughts on the gold coloured plated sections being gold? If so, what kind of plating might they be, and would it be a worth while project to have a go at extracting some?

New to this sort of world, so thought I would give the forum a go!
View attachment 53298

It should be gold, but very little.
Probably more in the black square ICs on there if it is the correct type.
Basically there are two types, one with Gold bonding wires and one with Aluminum bonding wires.
Impossible to know without breaking it up or incinerate them completely.
There might be some gold in the component all the way to the lower right in the image.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Howdy there!

Through work, I have recently brought home a pallet filled with likely a few thousand of the palm sized PCBAs below.

Would anyone have any thoughts on the gold coloured plated sections being gold? If so, what kind of plating might they be, and would it be a worth while project to have a go at extracting some?

New to this sort of world, so thought I would give the forum a go!
View attachment 53298

Ohh, I forgot my manners, welcome to our little corner.
Read Hokes book, you will find it in the Library and study dealing with waste.
There is no place to match this one, online maybe offline too.

 

[orvi]

It would be nice to pick all gold plated items and chips and assay some few boards for gold content, and then perform smelt assay of whole boards to see the results. I think processing them by piece by piece depopulation and cutting the gold finger would not only be very tiring, but also wasteful.

 

[MrAndrewJones]

It would be nice to pick all gold plated items and chips and assay some few boards for gold content, and then perform smelt assay of whole boards to see the results. I think processing them by piece by piece depopulation and cutting the gold finger would not only be very tiring, but also wasteful.

This is what I had in mind, chop some of the better looking bits out and do a test! Thanks for that!