What to refine in a computer ?

[Fever]

We'll do Steve. Thanks again....

Fever

 

[rainmaker]

Thanks Steve, good info. Could you provide us with bigger/clearer photos of the components you show here? I think it would be a good addition for a lot of us newbies.

Thanks,

Gary

 

[lazersteve]

Gary,

The photos were taken from Fever's original photo. If I enlarge them they will distort. Maybe I'll take the time to take some clearer photos of my own and post them.

Steve

 

[goldsilverpro]

It's hard to make out what is what but, the little brown chip capacitors - the 10th small photo down, I think - run about 2.5% palladium. They are multilayed ceramic with fired palladium paste between the layers. On the ones I've messed with, the metal on the ends is silver. They have to be ground fine to get the palladium (nitric). Don't confuse them with the same look, but different color, worthless? resistors - marked Rx on the board.

It takes a zillion of these to make a pound. We got them by running the boards through a small conveyorized furnace, grabbing them with pliers as they came out, and banging them on the inside of a steel drum, which knocked all the parts off. We then put them through a screen only large enough to let the capacitors pass through - plus a lot of solder. They ended up a little over 1% Pd, because of the solder and the resistors.

Since the capacitors are attached with silver solder or regular solder combined with silver, which has a higher melting point than regular solder, I've always thought you could remove the parts in a two stage melting operation. The first pass through the furnace, at lower temp., to get everything but the capacitors. The second pass, at a higher temp., to get the capacitors. I don't remember if the resistors are silver soldered or not.

Steve. If I'm wrong on what I think I'm seeing, please correct me. What do you know about the chip resistors? On a hybrid circuit, many of the resistors are made with Ruthenium paste. Any possibility?

 

[lazersteve]

Chris,

Here's the low down on the resistors according to wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistor#Thick_and_thin_film

I've just been buying the monolithics in large spools of 3000. I haven't taken the time to process any off of boards yet.

Steve

 

[goldsilverpro]

Interesting. Ruthenium and Iridium compounds are both on the list.

 

[Fever]

Interesting. Ruthenium and Iridium compounds are both on the list.

I wonder what the %'s are? I've been saving all of my monoliths, and everything else like in the photos above. So they have to be crushed prior to processing to get the Pd? That's good to know. I was just going to soak them in Nitric. That probably would not have done the trick.

Thanks for the great info, and Steve- If you could take some nice high-res pics of all the above critters with your digital cam, that would be super! My camera just doesn't have the nuts as far as megapixels go....

Fever

 

[jimdoc]

The percentages for the palladium in capacitors change year to year by
the changing prices of the metal,and the fact that they are being made smaller all the time. And the substitution of nickel for palladium in the newer capacitors is a problem, because how are you going to tell if they are nickel and not palladium just from looking at them on a board? Some companies have switched to nickel, and some will stay with palladium because they are setup for pd and changing over will cost $ and time.

I also would like to know about the ruthenium and iridium, platinum containing items because I save everything until I know it isn't worth saving. Megan Rose's books (pamphlets) on PGM's tell you a little about these things, but don't go into detail. I commented to her about that and she had some remark like "you men blah blah" so I didn't bother with asking her any questions. She commented on the other forum about companies selling chemicals without msds info, when she gives you little tiny samples of testing chemicals and doesn't even tell you what they are.
They are just labeled bag #1, bag #2, bag #3. She just says that you can always get the test crystals from her. If anybody knows what this stuff is
I would appreciate knowing, I am sure one bag is just salt.

 

[mike.fortin]

Steve-is 24K gold always used on computer parts I am hunting for? Thanks. Mike edit: If this has already been answered somewhere else, can someone post the link?

 

[Fever]

Here's another easy source of gold scrap in computers and other electronics, especially those with keypads or menu buttons. In the picture, each of these chrome squares with a black rubber center are hiding a nice gold plated disc underneath. These are the button switches that depress and make contact when you push on a keypad. The discs are very small, but they add up fast. The best ones, like on this Canon scanner board, are a deep yellow gold, indicating a nice thickness of plating. Some cheaper machines may have copper-plated discs, and some will be plated with silver or nickel, both of which have no gold at all. The best way to determine what you have is to pop one of the lids off of the chrome squares with a pliers and see what kind of disc it has. I usually don't bother with the silver/nickel ones, but I take the time to get the gold discs when I find them.

Happy hunting.....

Fever

 

[Harold_V]

Steve-is 24K gold always used on computer parts I am hunting for? Thanks. Mike edit: If this has already been answered somewhere else, can someone post the link?

I think you'll come to understand that almost all plating in electronic scrap is pure gold. There would be little benefit in using an alloy, and doing so could defeat the purpose of the plating, which is corrosion resistance and conductivity.

Harold

 

[toadiesop]

This has probably been stated in this thread but I'll add a picture.

Always crack open any DIP switches you find too. It's easier if you remove them from the board first though. I pulled about 12 from an old satellite transmitter and they all had really heavy plate on them.

The ones I get from PC boards are hit or miss but its definitely worth looking into.

 

[lazersteve]

Hello,

Here are some of my monolithics, this is a small bag of them:

Note how they have never been soldered to a board:

One of these days I'll post a tutorial dedicated to processing these little jewels.


Steve

 

[Fever]

Very nice virgin materials you have there Steve!

Can't wait for this tutorial! I'm sure there are others as well who share my enthusiasm in this area. Do you have to crush them prior to processing to get the Pd out from inbetween the layers?

Fever

 

[lazersteve]

I did NOT crush the last batch I processed. Of course, I'm very patient when it comes to my reactions. I processed them using the peroxide acid and it took several MONTHS to dissolve them completely. The results so far are several grams of Palladium and even some Platinum. I haven't finished the final cleanup on the batch so I don't have totals for the 10,000 monolithics that I started out with.

It was very interesting to watch the decay of the monolithics over time. They dissolve in layers like a seashell flakes away over time. The platinum stays in the solution as fine black powder and the palladium turns the solution a pale orange color.

The ceramic material decays and produces a white percipitate and large platelike crystals if you let it saturate. Be very aware of the hazards associated with these innocent looking capacitors, the decomposition by products of the ceramics can be deadly if absorbed thru the skin or if the powder is breathed.

In my future tutorial I'll most likely crush some to speed the reaction. I'm also going to go with Chris' method of processing with nitric acid and go straight for the Pd.

Steve

 

[goldsilverpro]

mikefortin,

Actually, most of the electronics gold plating isn't pure. They intentionally add alloy metals to the plating bath to make the deposit harder and more wear resistant. The most common metals used are nickel, cobalt, and indium. The resulting gold plating runs from about 96% to 99+% pure, depending on the application. The most common baths, of this type, plate about 99.0% pure. These alloy golds are usually very bright and shiny. There are also many specialty baths, such as the white Au/Pd gold that is used on things like reed switches.

On parts that require heating for such things as die attachment, very high purity gold plating is required. CPU packages fall into this category. Anything less than 99.99% purity will discolor when heated and the oxides produced will cause problems with the brazes. Pure gold plating is usually not as bright as alloy plating.

 

[mike.fortin]

I hope this info helps. If you have any questions please ask.

Steve

lazersteve--I finaly got done with sorting a can of very little surface mounts from cellphones. Thank you earlier post. I matched up a lot of them with your picturs. I have a few that stumpt me. Would you take a look? I see holes but there dont seem to be any reason for the holes. Do you know the names of these small parts? I seen some bigger and longer and they gots holes to. But these are smaller gray ones. Mike.

new info. I took down old picturs and took new one down below. Mike

 

[lazersteve]

Mike,

Your photos are too close up. Can you post a photo or two that display the entire part? I'll be glad to identify them for you.

Steve

 

[aflacglobal]

Yeah i had problems telling what it was to. That's a dam good camera you got there mike.

 

[aflacglobal]

check this out. If i had some info i bet i could build one using a vaccum
suction table to hold the underside. Maybe a diamond tile saw blade and a table top rip saw with a fence and adjustment. :idea: :idea: Hummmm


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