What should be harvested from this graphics card

[amphenol]

I have a few of these. I started removing the pins in the db9 connector labeled A. I plan to do something with the header pins, fingers, and possible the board. But, I have no idea about the flat pack? I see a small square piece of what looks like aluminum. I labeled it C. The picture isn’t very good but, the wire in the flat pack looks like copper to me?

 

[glorycloud]

Um, harvest "E" the gold fingers. :lol:

I used to clip off the header pins, etc. but I found that the
gold yield for anything other than the gold fingers was not worth
my time or effort to process and refine. It was and is easier
for me to snap of the fingers and send the rest of the card off
to Mr. Scrap Man for $1.00 or so per pound.

That is simply my opinion. There are lots of folks here who run
electrolytic cells to get the gold off pins and they seem to be
happy to put the effort in to do it.

Maybe I'm lazy? :shock:
Maybe I am wise? :lol:

 

[amphenol]

I have about an hour in the db9 pins labeled A. I attached a pic of what I got from 30 or 40 cards. I don’t think it would take long to strip a lb. unfortunately these are probably low grade? They are bright and shiny.

I was thinking I would try Steves solder mask removal video with the sodium hydroxide to strip the boards? But maybe that’s too much trouble? That’s why I left the fingers.

Im still wondering what people do with the flat packs?

 

[qst42know]

In most cases stripping the mask is unnecessary. The majority of boards don't have any gold under the mask. Try some careful scraping with a sharp tool before you go boiling whole boards.

 

[Chumbawamba]

As Q42K suggests, there may not be any gold under the mask. Just scrape some away where there are no components and you'll know. It's likely to be reddish == copper.

As for the flat chips, I believe that's an aluminum wafer, and the ground plane is copper plate.

Nice job on the pins. I suggest you just clip the gold edge connectors for AP and throw the rest in a bin to sell off to the next guy, now that you've gutted most of its value

 

[creth]

I have some cores of the flatpacks sitting in some AP solution right know and they have been there for 4 days now. Im sure if they were aluminum (as i thought also) that they would have dissolved by now but they are still there. Im going to leave them in the AP for a week then strain and rinse to see what i get.

If they still exist after a week them im going to smash a bunch up and let them soak then test for other values.